[…] But as the dust settles on the 2024 race, the bigger picture now appears quite different. Trump’s 2016 victory no longer looks like a fluke, it now looks like the point at which our politics was infected, before that infection metastasized.
[…] This loss is far beyond any internal petty party debates such as “Harris should’ve picked Josh Shapiro” or “She should’ve done more on Gaza,” or whatever other squabble we may have had. This loss was outside the margin of any Harris campaign decision.
So once again, we grieve for our country, because it is more broken than we ever feared. And then we figure out what to do. […]
For several months I’ve thought about what I would write for you this morning under these circumstances. As I rolled it around in my head, I kept bouncing around between capturing the emotional weight of the moment and looking ahead to what comes next. I’ll try to do both here. In doing so, I followed my usual practice of not drafting Morning Memo in advance so that it would feel fresh and immediate, not contrived or prepackaged.
What doesn’t seem warranted any longer are the warnings, alerts, and cautions about what lies ahead. You’ve heard those from me for more than a year. The whole country heard similar warnings from multiple quarters. It was loud and clear. The campaign was fought directly over the issues of democracy, rule of law, basic decency and respect, and protection for the marginalized. Those principles and values lost and lost badly.
[…] the dark path ahead was chosen clearly and unequivocally: With 51%, Trump is on track to win a majority of the popular vote. Second, Trump will win without undue reliance on the quirks of our 18th century anti-majoritarian constitutional structure.
There is clarity in that result. This is who we are. Not all of us, but a majority of us. It presents a stark picture of America in 2024, without sugarcoating or excuse. It makes it harder to fool yourself about the task at hand, which is an enormous cultural one more than a political one. [True]
Donald Trump’s win isn’t the product of a constitutional quirk. It’s not the result of a poorly conceived or executed campaign by Kamala Harris. It’s not a messaging failure or a tactical error or a strategic blunder. Other broader dynamics at play – like a post-pandemic revulsion toward incumbents or an anti-inflation backlash – are too limited in their scope and specific in their focus to account for the choice that was made: Donald Trump. It would be a category error to ascribe our current predicament to a political failure.
If politics is merely a reflection of culture, then we get to see that reflection clearly and sharply as the sun comes up this morning. If you don’t like what you see, don’t blame the mirror.
Political change is slow; cultural change is glacial (an anachronistic metaphor in an age of rapidly retreating ice). But it’s doable. We’ve seen remarkable cultural changes in our own lifetimes. Cultural change starts small, with the brave, resolute, and individual choices we make in our own lives and communities. It’s reflected in how we live, where we live, and what we live for. These myriad choices we make over the course of conducting our private lives speak more clearly about who we are and what we’re about than the occasional casting of a ballot in an election.
I don’t feel inspired to rally you to action quite yet, and it feels hollow to try. If you need to decompress and recover, I get it. But in our heightened emotional state this morning, some of us are going to be tempted to cast blame all around us for this electoral outcome. It might make us feel good in the moment. But if you’re looking for a political fix to the cultural problem, I’m not sure you’re going to end up fixing much of anything. Politics alone will not save us.
For those of us who believe in the rule of law, a pluralistic society, and standing up to unkind people who engage in hurting others as public blood sport, we’re going to have to take a long view toward promoting those principles in all aspects of our culture so that they are ultimately reflected in our politics in a way they simply are not now. I recognize that many of us have already been doing this slow and steady work, which makes the overnight result even more discouraging. It remains an enormous, decades-long task, but it is something each of us can engage in without uprooting our lives or changing professions or moving abroad.
None of this is to counsel abandoning politics or the public square. We need to create and sustain a cultural imperative to continue to engage in the political realm, too. The many political battles ahead are essential to fight and to fight well. We will need a fresh crop of reserves to begin to spell those who have been fighting these battles for a long time.
In past elections that led to stinging defeats, you could take some solace in knowing that the pendulum of American political life swings back and forth with some regularity. The latest reversal, while seemingly devastating, could be reversed within the span of one election cycle. We sit here this morning with justifiable fear and trepidation that the mechanisms for such reversals of fortune – free and fair elections, majority rule, the rule of law itself – may not be available to us this time.
[…] let me bring this back down to earth a bit.
There is immediate and hard work to do in politics. The marginalized and the disenfranchised are always hurt first and most with the kind of upheaval that we expect to come, but it is worse this time because hurting them has been advertised as the point. People who have been doing their jobs under the rule of law and in support of democratic and civil society institutions – investigators, prosecutors, judges, the press, government workers, librarians, teachers, opposition party leaders – have been promised retribution. Protecting those under threat will be amongst the most noble work of the coming years.
The powers of federal officeholders, we have been told repeatedly and plainly, will be abused to exact revenge against perceived foes, which means anyone who presents a challenge to Trump and MAGA Republicans holding unbridled and absolute power. I take these promises at face value. Countering those efforts, upholding what’s left of the rule of law, fortifying what remains of the democratic system will be similarly noble work.
All of this work will be made infinitely more difficult if Trump is sworn in with Republicans controlling both chambers on Capitol Hill. While he has the Senate, the House may remain too close to call for several more days.
The challenge before us is enormous. It is not a challenge any of us signed up for. It’s been foisted upon us. The past decade has felt like a detour from the lives and aspirations we had hoped to have. I feel a special empathy for those who came of age in the 1960s at the peak of Great Society reforms and have spent their adults lives witnessing their erosion. Those of us with an act or two left, and especially those with their whole lives still to dedicate to making America better than she is presenting right now, owe it to those whose time is ending to summon our essential optimism, roll up our sleeves, and get to down to the hard work that our current predicament demands. That may sound like a rallying cry, but I’m also trying to convince myself.
Jakarta who? Indonesia’s new capital, Nusantara, is packed with tech
If an entire major city was designed from scratch today, what technologies would be built into its fabric? We’re discovering as we watch Indonesia erect a new capital with tech at its heart.
The nation’s future capital, Nusantara, opened its doors last month to up to 300 members of the general public daily for daytime bus tours. Located on more than 250,000 hectares of rainforest land on the east coast of Borneo’s Kalimantan, the city will gradually replace Jakarta as the administrative center over the next two decades.
The problem with Jakarta is that it’s quite literally sinking. In some areas, at a rate of 25 cm per year.
Over-extraction of groundwater and the sheer weight of buildings — a consequence of Jakarta’s role as Indonesia’s commercial and administrative center–are at the root.
Jakarta’s infrastructure is also notoriously inadequate and its traffic is thick and slow.
Nusantara, however, is a rare place in Indonesia where tap water is drinkable, the planned capital aims to be a model of livability and sustainability. The vision is that it will remain walkable with 75 percent of its area dedicated to green spaces.
The government has planned smart energy grids to power the city using predominantly renewable energy. It’s aiming to be carbon neutral by 2045. Over 21,000 solar panels were already installed as of early 2024…
Bits and pieces of news, as summarized by Steve Benen:
* While Donald Trump narrowly won North Carolina, Democrats nevertheless appear to have scored some notable victories in the Tar Heel State, winning the races for governor, lieutenant governor, state attorney general, and state superintendent of public instruction. Democrats have apparently even won enough legislative seats to break the Republicans’ veto-proof majority in the North Carolina General Assembly.
[…] * Voters in Delaware easily elected Democrat Sarah McBride to the state’s U.S. House seat, making her the first openly transgender person ever elected to Congress. [good news]
* On a related note, Delaware voters also easily elected Democrat Lisa Blunt Rochester to the U.S. Senate. With Democrat Angela Alsobrooks also winning her Senate race in Maryland, the chamber will now have two Black women serving simultaneously for the first time in American history. [good news]
* In New Jersey, Democratic Andy Kim will replace outgoing Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez in the U.S. Senate, becoming the Garden State’s first Asian American senator. Kim defeated Republican Curtis Bashaw, 53% to 45%. [good news]
* And I was curious to see whether Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar would win re-election in Texas, despite being under federal criminal indictment. As it turns out, the incumbent, who’s been charged with bribery and money laundering, prevailed by about five points.
[…] It was never going to be a one and done thing. I wrote a year ago that we’re in a new era in which we have one civic democratic party and one populist autocratic party. To think the civic democratic party is going to win every time is just not a realistic expectation.
[…] When I noted the global wave of anti-incumbent feelings in the post-pandemic era, I did so not to say, “well, this was preordained, it is what it is.” It wasn’t. It’s to understand the field Democrats and Republicans were playing on. But this is a rejection of the last four years. It’s a rejection of Joe Biden’s presidency. That doesn’t mean, by any means, that I think all his policies were wrong or should be abandoned. But that was the public verdict. […]
There is also a lot to absorb here about the defections of the young, racial and ethnic minorities, people’s understanding of themselves as men and women, the fragmentation of our world through social media.
But again, all this picking up the pieces, making sense of a new strategy, considering the next approach first has to grapple with that question of exhaustion. There’s no one election that saves democracy. That whole construct is wrong. It’s the enduring question of what kind of society we want to live in and what we’re going to do about it.
I just read an email from a reader who talked about commiserating with their friend group, many of whom were in the mode of “fuck it, do Project 2025, shoot for the moon, whatever, who cares.” The email got into the draw of nihilism. If you know me, you know I can’t agree with any of that. But we probably shouldn’t judge ourselves too harshly for our immediate reactions. It’s a crushing reverse. We’re entitled to our primal screams and outrage and being done with all of it.
[…] Final point.
What is Trump’s secret power? We now have had three straight presidential elections where he managed to exceed expectations and the polls. He survives things politically no one else could. He’s survived a million things like that. What was the basis of his rise to power? It was as a reality TV star. We need to think a lot more seriously about what that means. You can combine that with the broader cult of celebrity in which he operates and excels. Things don’t stick to him or matter in the same way because a big chunk of the country sees him not as a politician but as a celebrity. We’re in a political culture where reality TV is in some sense reality. We see that in the increasingly fragmented world of social media, the openly performative nature of all of it […]
I don’t have a good answer here, or a suggestion of how to grapple with any of this. It’s certainly not to hire more TikTok consultants. It is more that it is clear to me that there is a whole symbolic and persuasive world of celebrity, reality TV and performative culture that is grabbing hold of our politics and that we need to understand much better. We know this world exists, of course. Most or many of us participate in it. We binge watch absurd but irresistible reality TV shows, we share memes, we know people with PhDs and fancy lawyers who love pro-wresting. But we need to think a bit more seriously about how this world has become the expressive language of politics in early 21st century America.
I’m pretty sure over the coming days and weeks and months Donald Trump and his political party will see this election as an overwhelming mandate to institute the whole MAGA agenda. That will cause a lot of chaos and public immiseration, though unevenly distributed. It will begin to drive its own public backlash. Much of the establishment media and corporate America will try to get along and go along. But some will chronicle and enumerate the toll. And within that maelstrom we will all have to decide, individually and collectively, what we’re going to do about it.
[…] progressive groups have wasted no time in asserting that they will continue their activism and action in response to his policies and rhetoric.
“We’re clear-eyed about the chaos and destruction a second Trump administration will cause to our nation,” the American Civil Liberties Union said in a tweet. “That’s why we’re done with handwringing, admiring the problem, or waiting anxiously to see which unlawful action President-elect Trump will take on Day One. We are ready to take action the minute Trump takes the oath of office.”
During his first term, the ACLU said it filed more than 400 legal actions against the Trump administration, protesting his right-wing actions on immigration in particular.
Gun safety groups also reasserted their stances in the hours following Trump’s victory being called by the networks.
Moms Demand Action wrote on X, “Our army of over 10 million supporters are ready to fight like hell against President Trump and his lawmaker allies if they attempt to undo our progress or push legislation that would make us less safe. With the overwhelming majority of Americans who support strong gun safety laws behind us, we will win.”
Angela Ferrell-Zabala, the group’s executive director, said in a statement they were “crushed” by the election result, but added, “We’re going to continue to organize like our lives depend on it—because they do.”
Everytown for Gun Safety, which was formed following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, described the election result as “devastating.” But in a post on X, they went on to note, “Make no mistake: Trump’s extremist agenda is a danger for our nation, but it means we’ll double down on our efforts to protect our communities and continue to make progress, just like we did in 2016.”
The environmental activist group Earthjustice also chimed in with reaction.
“We’ve stopped him before, and with your support, we’ll stop him again,” the organization posted on X. “Earthjustice is ready to defend the laws that ensure clean air, fresh water, and communities where every child can grow up free from pollution.”
Anger, anxiety, and shock are rolling across America following the election. But already the progressive movement is making it clear that it won’t stop fighting for the values shared by millions of Americans.
Good news: Democrat Angela Alsobrooks won her Maryland Senate race, defeating two-term GOP Gov. Larry Hogan. She becomes Maryland’s first Black Senator.
Democrat Josh Stein won the North Carolina governor’s race, defeating self-described “Black Nazi” Mark Robinson.
Democrat Eugene Vindman won the VA-07 House race, defeating Derrick Anderson.
[…] let’s take a moment to congratulate the re-election of the first woman to lead Moldova. And just like here, Maia Sandu had to contend with a massive Russian attack on the democratic process:
Sandu won 54.94 percent of the vote compared to 45.06 percent for Alexandr Stoianoglo, who was supported by the pro-Russian Socialists party and whom Sandu fired as prosecutor general last year, according to near-complete results published by the country’s election commission.
“Today, dear Moldovans, you have given a lesson in democracy, worthy of being written in history books…. Freedom, truth, and justice have prevailed,” Sandu declared.
In a statement issued Monday morning by the White House, President Biden said the Moldovan people “went to the polls and voted in favor of President Sandu’s vision for a secure, prosperous, and democratic Moldova.
For months, Russia sought to undermine Moldova’s democratic institutions and election processes. But Russia failed,” Mr. Biden said.
Have Trump And Elon Thanked Putin For The Bomb Threats, Or Are They Totally Rude?
It appears Russia gave the winner at least one big Election Day reacharound.
Before the election it was reported that Donald Trump had stayed in contact with his longtime hero Vladimir Putin since he left office in 2021, as recently as this year, according to author Bob Woodward. (And that he sent Putin COVID care packages, while your American Nana was dying of it!)
It was then reported, in Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, that Trump’s new benefactor Elon Musk has been having his own secret telephone tonguefucks with Putin for a while now.
One passage from that WSJ story is on our minds this morning, and please, dear leaders, understand that we are just asking questions about it. The article explained that on top of Putin, Musk has also been in contact with one of the Russians in charge of creating Russian disinformation, specifically of the kind intended to screw with the American election:
One of the officials was Sergei Kiriyenko, Putin’s first deputy chief of staff, two of the officials said. What the two talked about isn’t clear.
Last month, the U.S. Justice Department said in an affidavit that Kiriyenko had created some 30 internet domains to spread Russian disinformation, including on Musk’s X, where it was meant to erode support for Ukraine and manipulate American voters ahead of the presidential election.
The extent of Russia’s interference in the 2024 election isn’t yet known, although we know it’s just part of our lives now, especially as the US hands itself over to join the axis of Russia, Hungary, China, North Korea and whatever other dictator Trump is [fond of]. (Oh, is that not what you meant with your vote, Profoundly Stupid American 2024 Electorate?)
One thing’s for sure, though: There were a ton of bullshit bomb threats on polling places in heavily Democratic areas yesterday, and the FBI and other officials, including Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, say they came from Russian actors.
Wonder who in Russia’s disinfo and crime factories gave the orders for those.
None of the threats was deemed to be credible — real bombs would cost money, and Russia is poor as balls. […]
“The FBI is aware of bomb threats to polling locations in several states, many of which appear to originate from Russian email domains,” the agency said in a statement. “None of the threats have been determined to be credible thus far.”
Many polling places had to shut down temporarily and/or evacuate, especially in Georgia in Black neighborhoods in the Atlanta area, but also Biden counties in Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and Native American areas in Arizona. […]
[…] Should all precincts with affected polling sites get an extra day to do-over their votes? That’s what Snyder [Historian and author Timothy Snyde] suggested. […]
Of course, if Russia is definitively found to have been behind the threats, then the United States must respond to that before Russia’s golden boy lies his way through another oath of office.
Not sure what that would look like, but we’re sure we could spitball some ideas.
Again, we have no idea how these threats moved the needle, if at all. We have no interest in MyPillow-Guy-ing this election, now or ever.
But if we’re going to pretend to be a functioning non-fascist state for the next 75 days, we should at least pretend to be a functioning non-fascist state for the next 75 days.
Oh look, it’s Rudy again. […] Trump’s personal lawyer owes $145 million plus interest to Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, for ruining their lives with insane conspiracy-theory lies that he repeated over and over. Between that, the alleged sexual harassment, and all that getting indicted and disbarred, he’s been an exceptionally active senior citizen.
Old Roodles has been trying to weasel out of paying what he owes for more than a year, with Rudyshines like filing for bankruptcy, refusing to turn over any documents for the bankruptcy he asked for, then begging to be let out of the bankruptcy, all while spending massive amounts of cash on who-knows-what. […]!
Finally, on October 22, the seeping Scotch-goblin was ordered to turn over just about everything that he owns worth more than a thousand bucks to a receiver: his interest in his Madison Avenue co-op apartment, Lauren Bacall’s Mercedes, cash accounts, sports memorabilia and his collection of watches and tasteful mens’ jewelry.
So what did that asshole do? Well, not that! He refused to answer any calls or emails from their lawyers, or turn over anything. And when Moss and Freeman’s lawyers got access to the apartment, it turned out the old vulture had picked it clean weeks before. And Rudy refused to say what he’d done with all the stuff, other than vaguely gesturing that some of it was in Florida, and some of it in a storage unit at “The America First Warehouse” in Ronkonkoma (not making that up). And no, he won’t give anybody an inventory. He’d also been transferring large sums out of his cash account, which now only has $3,907.99 in it. And apparently he never even started the paperwork to turn over the condo, either.
The whole ignoring-a-court order thing mightily pissed off the judge, who ordered Roodles’ to shuffle his bony ass to US District Court in New York in person at noon on Thursday, as in tomorrow, to explain himself. And no, the judge does not even care that Rudy is supposed to be on the MyPillow guy’s show that day.
And then, then, THEN, THEN!! that fucker had the audacity to roll up on a West Palm Beach, Florida, polling place on Tuesday, being chauffeured around in Lauren Bacall’s very Mercedes and posing for a photo op. […]
I can’t believe America isn’t finished with these people, I just can’t.
[…] Biden and his aides are taking steps already to do what they can to help Ukraine. For one thing, they are working feverishly to ship the Ukrainians the rest of the $6 billion left in weapons and equipment Congress appropriated to assist them as they fend off a brutal Russian invasion.
It’s not clear what Trump will do, if anything, to halt the weapons shipments and contracts with the U.S. defense industry for more air defense systems that will arrive in years to come. But the Pentagon will likely be unable to send everything it has pledged to bring those accounts down to zero by Inauguration Day, given that it takes weeks or months for munitions and other equipment to arrive in Ukraine once the U.S. announces it. And once Trump is in office, he could decide not to send Kyiv those weapons — even if they’ve already been promised. […]
Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin defeated wealthy GOP businessperson Eric Hovde in Wisconsin’s Senate race, The Associated Press projected.
Baldwin, who first won her seat in 2012, narrowly led Hovde throughout the contest in public polling, though the race tightened down the homestretch. […]
Excerpts from a longer New Yorker article by Susan B. Glasser:
Electing Donald J. Trump once could be dismissed as a fluke, an aberration, a terrible mistake—a consequential one, to be sure, yet still fundamentally an error. But America has now twice elected him as its President. It is a disastrous revelation about what the United States really is, as opposed to the country that so many hoped that it could be. His victory was a worst-case scenario—that a convicted felon, a chronic liar who mismanaged a deadly once-in-a-century pandemic, who tried to overturn the last election and unleashed a violent mob on the nation’s Capitol, who calls America “a garbage can for the world,” and who threatens retribution against his political enemies could win—and yet, in the early morning hours of Wednesday, it happened.
[…] For much of the country, Trump’s past offenses were simply disqualifying. […] Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric about invading immigrant hordes, his macho posturing against a female opponent, and his promise to boost an inflation-battered U.S. economy simply resonated more than all the lectures about his many deficiencies as a person and a would-be President.
[…] Four years later, after Joe Biden defeated Trump, Democrats and the dwindling ranks of anti-Trump Republicans made the fatal miscalculation of thinking that it was Trump who had sunk. Too many of them were sure that the hubris and folly of his reluctant exit from the Presidency had destroyed him politically. They saw him as nothing more than a sideshow—a malevolent figure in his Mar-a-Lago exile, but nonetheless a disgraced loser with no prospect of returning to power.
They were wrong. Rule No. 1 in politics is never underestimate your enemy. […] Trump has now achieved an unthinkable resurrection. Even his four criminal indictments have served only to revive and reinvigorate his hold on the Republican Party, which is now centered more than ever on the personality and the grievances of one man. Almost sixty-three million Americans voted for Trump in 2016; more than seventy-four million cast their ballots for him in 2020. In 2024, it’s even possible, as votes are being counted overnight, that Trump might win the popular vote outright for the first time in his three races. […]
Too many voters appeared to have seen Harris as effectively the incumbent President in the race—at a time when large majorities of Americans report dissatisfaction with the direction of the country. This, according to Doug Sosnik, the White House political director for President Bill Clinton, is why ten of the twelve elections leading up to this one have resulted in a change of control in the House, the Senate, and/or the White House.
[…] Trump’s victory, in that sense, was a predictable outcome for a Republican nominee, perhaps even the expected one. And yet what a leap of unthinking partisanship and collective amnesia it has taken for his party to embrace this twice-impeached, four-times-indicted, once-convicted con man from New York. Trump in 2024 was no regular G.O.P. candidate.
[…] Soon after Trump left office, I interviewed a senior national-security official who spent extensive time with him in the Oval Office. The official warned me that a second Trump term would be far more dangerous than his first term, specifically because he had learned how better to get his way—he was, the official said, like the velociraptors in the first “Jurassic Park” movie, who proved capable of learning while hunting their prey. Already, one of Trump’s transition chairs, the billionaire Howard Lutnick, has said publicly that jobs in a new Administration will go only to those who pledge loyalty to Trump himself. Having beaten off impeachment twice, this second-term Trump will have little to fear from Congress reining him in, either, especially now that Republicans have managed to retake control of the Senate. And the Supreme Court, with its far-right majority solidified thanks to three Trump-appointed Justices, has recently granted the Presidency near-total immunity in a case brought by Trump seeking to quash the post-January 6th cases against him.
[…] Trump’s victory will shake alliances and embolden autocrats around the world. What power will nato’s Article 5 guarantee of mutual defense hold with an American President who has publicly said that, as far as he is concerned, Russia can do whatever it wants to nato members who do not, in Trump’s view, pay their fair share?
[…] All of it portends a deeply destabilizing period for the country and the world, which is still highly dependent on American power and leadership. And it is likely to happen with a swiftness that may stun Trump’s opponents.
[…] The question now is a different one: not if we are going back but how far?
[…] Trump will be the first president in American history who will be sworn in after having been impeached. Twice. Trump was impeached for his plot to use the powers of the presidency to pressure Ukraine into smearing President Joe Biden. Later, Trump was impeached for his role in whipping up his supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Trump will also be the first inaugurated U.S. president with two federal indictments under his belt. He has been indicted for attempting to interfere in the electoral process in the 2020 election following his defeat against Biden. Trump was also indicted for improperly taking classified documents and keeping them at his Mar-a-Lago estate, notably in the bathroom next to the toilet.
At a more local level, Trump’s conviction in New York on 34 felony counts will go with him into the Oval Office. Trump made history when he was convicted by a jury of his peers for trying to influence the outcome of the 2016 election via hush payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
That presidential first will be paired with Trump’s upcoming sentencing for those convictions—the kind of thing even former President Richard Nixon did not have to contend with.
Trump will also be the first president to be found liable for sexual abuse. In 2023, a New York jury awarded writer E. Jean Carroll $5 million for Trump abusing her in 1996. The jury also found that Trump had defamed Carroll in repeated public statements personally attacking her and her allegations.
There has never been a president sworn in with racketeering charges hanging over their head, but Trump has broken through that barrier. He is currently facing charges in Georgia related to his schemes to subvert the 2020 election in that state. The Georgia prosecutor who brought the case against Trump, Fani Willis, was reelected on Tuesday night.
These blots on Trump’s record were known for months and in spite of them—perhaps even because of them—Republicans chose him as their nominee and never backpedaled even as more details of his actions became public. […]
“We’re clear-eyed about the chaos and destruction a second Trump administration will cause to our nation,” the American Civil Liberties Union said in a tweet. “That’s why we’re done with handwringing, admiring the problem, or waiting anxiously to see which unlawful action President-elect Trump will take on Day One. We are ready to take action the minute Trump takes the oath of office.”
Empty words from an organization that has always defended the ability for fascists and bigots to spread their lies.
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 3
Bullshit! They’ve been chomping at the bit for a racist, Christian national thug who will round up the minorities and libs for extermination since the 70s. They know exactly what they were voting for!
Reginald Selkirksays
@12, 20
Furthermore, the ACLU is counting on the courts to maintain its positions. We have already seen how that works out when the criminal controls the courts.
Jeansays
Anyone relying on institutions and norms to solve any of the chaos that the Trump administration will bring is just fooling themselves and being very naïve. The norms were already dismissed in the first mandate and the institutions that try to block anything will just be dismantled one way or another. It will even be legal thanks to SCOTUS.
The only thing that will stop them is incompetence and lack of imagination. And possibly some internal squabble.
Note the distinction between believing in the teachings of Christ, as opposed to the existence and divinity of Christ.
Now it sounds like Musk’s thinking has evolved: after fully committing himself and tens of millions of his dollars to getting former president Donald Trump reelected, Musk is now pandering to the Christian right.
During a Pennsylvania town hall last week, he claimed that he now believes in the “teachings of Christ,” including the principles “‘love thy neighbor’ and ‘Turn the other cheek,’ which is very important for forgiveness.”
I do not see that in Musk’s actions, past or present.
We could go on and on — but to hear him suggest that he believes in the of Jesus Christ, who deeply opposed wealth inequality and supported the poor and outcasts is almost beyond parody.
you were promised a fascist takeover. You expected government thugs to show up on the street, but your garbage is still being picked up.
[…]
This is the terrible secret behind modern dictatorships: for most people, on most days, they don’t feel like they’re living in one. The freedoms they’ve lost are so distant and abstract that they’ve barely noticed their absence, and that loss didn’t happen all at once […] Turkey didn’t become a de-facto dictatorship overnight, it took two decades of gradual change
[…]
There is, at least, an upside: if change is coming slowly, you have some breathing room. Get up and touch grass for a bit. Take some time to mourn. Rest. Recharge.
Heh, just found a discussion on a hifi forum about if it’s a good idea to buy new gear before Trumps promised tariffs drive the prices up or if it’s better to be careful with your spending right now. The OP admitted that it wasn’t the most pressing problem he could think of, but it was the one on topic for the forum.
The following discussion was pleasantly MAGA free, with several people insisting they did not vote for the disaster to come and others cracking dark jokes about audio quality of gulag speakers blasting propaganda and practically everybody agreeing this was not the worst thing to come by far.
It’s nice for me to experience people not being OK with the repufascists outside of spaces like this.
Bekenstein Boundsays
Lynna@11:
We’re in a political culture where reality TV is in some sense reality.
Oh, dear God no.
…
Why isn’t pinching myself waking me up?
Wait, what? This isn’t a fucking dream? But surely it must be?
…
Ah hell. That’s it. Bring on the meteor. At least then we go out still clinging to a few surviving scraps of sanity. And there’s no risk of reality TV infecting the rest of the galaxy, unless some idiot already broadcast some through a high-output site like Arecibo.
@14:
The extent of Russia’s interference in the 2024 election isn’t yet known, although we know it’s just part of our lives now, especially as the US hands itself over to join the axis of Russia, Hungary, China, North Korea and whatever other dictator Trump is [fond of].
Well, the Zillenials have declared atheism “cringe” because we’re just so mean. I’m sure Elon will be watching astrology TikTok’s and joining a Wiccan coven like all the cool kids do these days.
birger @29, the number of people who thought that November 6 was election day, and who claimed they were going to vote (on Wednesday!), was astounding.
I think we may be underestimating the groundswell of willful ignorance in the USA. Unbelievable.
Throughout the 2024 campaign, Donald Trump realized that the Project 2025 agenda was so radical and unpopular that he treated is as radioactive. “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it,” the Republican said over the summer about the blueprint largely written by members of his own team. He added, “I have nothing to do with them.”
As recently as two weeks ago, Trump went so far as to question whether it was even legal for people to air campaign ads pointing out his connections to Project 2025. It came on the heels of an online item in which he said in reference to the right-wing agenda, “I have, and had, nothing to do with it, NEVER READ IT, NEVER SAW IT.”
[…] Project 2025 is already working its way back into the spotlight.
Just hours after Trump was declared the winner, conservative commentator Matt Walsh published an item to social media that read, “Now that the election is over I think we can finally say that yeah actually Project 2025 is the agenda. Lol.”
[…] Steve Bannon — recently released from prison — took time on his post-election show to highlight Walsh’s missive and describe it “fabulous.” [video at the link, check out the religious symbols behind Steve Bannon]
A report in The New Republic added, “Later during the livestream, Bannon could be seen holding a hard copy of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 ‘Mandate For Leadership’ up to the camera in celebration.”
Rolling Stone highlighted a handful of related examples: “Right-wing podcast Benny Johnson also gloated about the project. ‘It is my honor to inform you all that Project 2025 was real the whole time,’ he wrote. In a separate post, Tarrant County GOP Chair Bo French wrote, ‘So can we admit now that we are going to implement Project 2025?’”
[…] we almost certainly haven’t heard the last of Project 2025.
After Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election, “sighs of relief rippled through capitals“ around the world. NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel reported at the time, many abroad reacted as if “the United States had overthrown a dictator, that democracy has been saved, that America’s reputation had been saved.”
Four years later, it was no secret that many of the United States’ leading allies, most notably in Europe, were desperate to see Donald Trump lose. After his victory, the anguish abroad was nearly as overwhelming as it was in Democratic households from coast to coast.
One of Germany’s leading news magazines ran a cover with a single word headline under a picture of [Trump]. “F—,” it read. (The original actually spelled out the word.)
It’s worth taking a moment to understand why.
The problem isn’t just Trump’s proposed tariffs. Or his buffoonery. Or his erratic tendencies. Or his corruption. Or his willingness to engage in legally dubious abuses. Or the degree to which his reactionary, fascist-like tendencies are offensive to global democracies. Or the awkwardness that will come with Trump coming face to face with international leaders who trashed him after he left the White House, assuming his career couldn’t possibly recover from his first-term failures and alleged crimes.
The more serious problem is that they’re not sure who’s side he’ll be on during a second term.
The Wall Street Journal highlighted the fact that America’s rivals “are coalescing into a new global authoritarian axis.”
Russia has now enlisted North Korea into its nearly three-year war in Ukraine, where it is making slow but steady advances. … China is giving crucial economic and political support to the cooperation among Moscow, Pyongyang and Tehran — while strengthening its own military for a possible war over Taiwan.
At face value, the emergence of this “axis” is unsettling, but more alarming still is the question of whether Trump sees its members as adversaries or like-minded partners.
Ahead of the American elections, for example, Trump described the United States’ international adversaries as “so-called enemies” and countries that “might not be enemies.” Around the same time, Trump publicly trashed our South Korean allies, EU allies, and Ukrainian allies — while pointing to Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and his “strongman” style as some kind of international model worthy of emulation.
A few months earlier, Trump said, “Our allies are the worst.” A month later, he added, “They’re allies, but not when we need them. They’re only allies when they need something.”
Earlier in the year — in the midst of the GOP presidential primaries — Trump also said he was prepared to “encourage” Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to NATO members that did not spend enough on defense.
And did I mention that Trump has reportedly had several undisclosed chats with Putin since leaving the White House? And that Trump didn’t exactly deny that the conversations took place?
As for why Americans should care, a world in which the United States weakens the NATO alliance and sides authoritarian and dictatorial regimes abroad effectively represents a potential collapse of the post-WWII global order, creating global instability, unpredictability, and security threats. […]
Germany’s government collapsed on Wednesday, as Chancellor Olaf Scholz fired his finance minister and announced a confidence vote that is widely expect to fail and to pave the way to early elections in March. The news from Europe’s largest economy added a huge jolt of uncertainty on a day when much of the world’s attention was focused on the outcome of the U.S. election.
Donald Trump’s projected victory in the presidential race has already prompted one Jan. 6 defendant to ask a federal judge for a delay to his case because Trump has ‘made multiple clemency promises’ to nonviolent offenders. That request was swiftly denied by a federal judge on Wednesday.
Even as stock prices soared on Wednesday, U.S. government debt sold off following Trump’s stunning win over Kamala Harris, pushing the 10-year Treasury yield to its highest level since July. It’s an indication that investors in the world’s biggest bond market fear the incoming administration could trigger inflation and larger federal deficits. Higher yields suggest that bond buyers are demanding greater returns to protect their investments — making it more expensive for the government to finance its debt.
Jack Smith Prepares To End Trump Prosecutions
In the most stinging post-election development, the Justice Department let it be known publicly Wednesday that it plans to wind down the prosecutions of Donald Trump in the Jan. 6 and Mar-a-Lago cases before Inauguration Day. The move is a reflection of a long-standing DOJ position that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted, a position cited favorably by the Supreme Court in its horrendous decision on presidential immunity.
Among the developments:
– “Justice Department officials began signaling that they are eyeing how best to shut down the cases.”–Politico
– “Now that Trump will become president again, DOJ officials see no room to pursue either criminal case against him — and no point in continuing to litigate them in the weeks before he takes office, the people said.”–NBC News
– “The mechanics of how the cases will wind down will become clear in the coming days as court deadlines approach.”–Bloomberg
– While it’s not clear if Smith will issue a final report on his investigations, Attorney General Merrick Garland has said he would make special counsel reports public if they reached his desk.–WaPo
Related: We have just witnessed the greatest failure of federal law enforcement in American history.
In my opinion, that article places too much blame on Biden. I do think that some blame should fall on Biden and on Merrick Garland, but I also see a good case for blaming Republicans for often bailing Trump out, for blaming the conservatives on the Supreme Court, and for blaming Trump himself (and his lawyers.) How about Aileen Cannon? We can place some blame on her.
[…] if the system had worked the way it should have, voters would never have faced such a choice. If Trump had actually faced accountability for his alleged crimes, he may not have even appeared on the ballot.
Vice President Kamala Harris set out to fight to defend our fundamental freedoms and build a country that works for everyone. She stood up for working families, decency, and opportunity. Though this is not the outcome we wanted, our fight for freedom and opportunity endures.
“California will seek to work with the incoming president — but let there be no mistake, we intend to stand with states across our nation to defend our Constitution and uphold the rule of law.
“Federalism is the cornerstone of our democracy. It’s the United STATES of America.”
Le Mond, the largest French newspaper, is bemoaning former President Trump’s victory in the American presidential election this week.
Saying Trump’s election “marks the end of an American era, that of an open superpower committed to the world, eager to set itself up as a democratic model,” the newspaper wrote in an editorial published on Thursday that model “had been challenged over the past two decades. Now, Trump’s return is putting a nail in its coffin.” [Premature nail-in-coffin metaphor in my opinion.]
[…] “There is a real risk that Europe will be divided or even fractured by such a prospect,” the newspaper wrote. “This threat is existential for the European Union, and its leaders need to be aware of it and prepared to confront it, without waiting for Trump to take office – they are long overdue.” [True]
The outlet also took a shot at billionaire Trump booster Elon Musk, who it called “the iconoclastic CEO turned eminence grise.”
“Trump’s voters chose him in full consciousness, as did the business and tech leaders who rallied behind him,” Le Mond concluded. “The rest of the world will suffer.”
Ohio has one of the most outrageously gerrymandered electoral maps in the country, although with so many red states in the competition it can be hard to keep up. What’s really impressive is that the gerrymandered Republican majority in the state Lege managed — twice! — to thwart the will of voters who passed ballot initiatives to demand fair electoral maps.
But pro-democracy activists are a tenacious lot, and this year, they managed to come back with a new plan that would amend the Ohio state constitution and take elected officials and lobbyists entirely out of the process of drawing electoral maps. The plan got enough petition signatures to make the ballot, and it was starting to look like voters would really be able to bring back some democracy and fairness through the measure, named “Issue 1.”
And then of course, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) and fellow Republicans blowed it up all to fuck by writing an incredibly misleading description of the amendment for the ballot, telling voters that Issue 1 would require partisan gerrymandering, which of course it did not. Ohio’s right-leaning state supreme court then approved the ballot language, despite a state law requiring that ballot measures be described accurately and without bias.
[…] the initiative was overwhelmingly rejected by voters Tuesday, failing by 46 percent to 54 percent — as the Columbus Dispatch notes, by roughly the same margin as the state voted for goddamn Donald Trump.
Just to keep the gaslighting going, the leader of the anti-Measure 1 campaign, former Ohio GOP chair Bob Paduchik, called Tuesday’s vote a victory for “the truth,” which is now defined only by Republicans. “Despite Democrats’ best efforts to deceive Ohioans into changing our constitution and rigging elections in their favor, the truth has carried the day,” he oozed.
Again, he’s talking about an amendment that would have ended Republican gerrymandering and required fair, competitive districts.
[…]
“In analyzing the vote tonight, it is clear that millions of Ohioans who voted ‘yes’ want to end gerrymandering,” said O’Conno [retired state supreme court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor,]. “And it is also clear that those who voted ‘no’ thought that they were voting to end gerrymandering.”
[Sigh]
[…] Wasn’t that awesome? This time out, all the Republicans had to do to thwart the voters’ intention was to make a real reform bill sound terrible! They didn’t even have to sidestep the earlier laws requiring fair districts.
The ballot language flat out twisted the facts, saying that passing Issue 1 would create a panel “required to gerrymander the boundaries of state legislative and congressional districts,” and that it would “repeal constitutional protections against gerrymandering.” [sheesh]
[…] Bolts recounts the experience of Songgu Kwon, an Ohio voter who fell for the trap:
Kwon voted ‘no’ on the measure—given what he’d just read, he thought, that had to be the way to signal support for independent redistricting. He’d gone in planning to vote ‘yes,’ but he was thrown off by this language he saw; he guessed that he must have been wrong or missed some recent development. “The language seemed really specific that if you vote ‘yes’, you’re for gerrymandering,” he now recalls in frustration.
But when he left the polling station and compared notes with his wife, he quickly figured out that he’d made a mistake: He had just voted to preserve the status quo.
Hell, the day before the election, Fox News Dot Com simply quoted the ballot description of Issue 1 verbatim and asserted that the initiative would institute gerrymandering and repeal “protections” against it.
In addition to enlisting voters to ratfuck the gerrymander reform, Ohio Republicans also won three out of three elections for the state supreme court Tuesday, filling one vacant seat and ousting two Democrats, so future efforts to prevent state elections from being tainted by democracy are likely. Perhaps all Democratic candidates for office in Ohio will be denoted on the ballot by prefacing their names with the words “pedophile supporter and communist.”
After having repeatedly depicted the presidential election as a spiritual clash between good and evil, leading figures in the movement to remake America as an explicitly Christian nation celebrated President-elect Donald Trump’s victory as a fulfillment of God’s divine will.
Lance Wallnau, a celebrity evangelist who has spent decades calling on conservative Christians to occupy positions of power and influence over society, told followers on an election night livestream that Trump’s victory had been prophesied years ago — a key step in God’s plan to usher in a new era of Christian dominion around the world. […]
Well, that was predictable. I’m not even going to bother to post the rest of the “Wallnau and other evangelicals championed him as a flawed leader who had been anointed by God to save America from the demonic influence of Democrats” details.
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 42
TL;DR Newsom: “Fascists are taking over, but we’ll spread our checks and let Trump fuck us lest he withhold disaster aid during wildfire season.”
A scientific report released in October concluded that long-duration spaceflight causes mitochondrial damage producing something similar to accelerated aging. For those of you who fell asleep in science class, mitochondria generate the power for organic cells. If mitochondria stop functioning, we’ll gradually start dying.
The report produced by the Guy Foundation, an independent British research foundation, cited multiple causes behind the cellular damage. First is the increased radiation in space, which was already known to cause an increased risk of astronauts developing cancer later in life. Zero gravity also removed the stimulus needed to maintain healthy mitochondria. While residents on the International Space Station exercise constantly to stave off muscle and bone loss, there’s no workout to help your cells.
Earth’s magnetic field also keeps mitochondria stable. The lack of similar fields in outer space, the Moon and Mars could hamper permanent settlement in the future. It won’t be a permanent barrier, but an obstacle that space agencies will have to tackle as they explore the great unknown.
The report did mention that there isn’t much data on long-term health outcomes because not that many people have spent months in space…
As foolish as this might sound, as recently as last week, there were some far-right voices suggesting that Democratic officials would take steps to block Donald Trump from taking office, even if he won the election fair and square. It dovetailed with related scuttlebutt about enraged liberals and their antifa allies responding to a Trump victory with violence and social unrest. [Projection from rightwing doofuses.]
The GOP nominee made matters worse. After weeks of peddling baseless conspiracy theories about rascally Democrats intending to cheat in the elections, the Republican claimed he knew of actual voter fraud that only existed in his imagination, laying the groundwork for a future challenge.
Midday on Election Day, Trump published an item to his social media platform that read, “A lot of talk about massive CHEATING in Philadelphia. Law Enforcement coming!!!” [Liar.]
As is usually the case, he was peddling baseless nonsense. There was no cheating. Law enforcement was not on the way. Trump’s delusions weren’t real.
They also weren’t necessary. He won. There was no need to pre-emptively delegitimize the presidential race.
The morning after Election Day, Kamala Harris called Trump to concede the race and congratulate him on his victory. Hours later, as NBC News reported, the incumbent Democratic vice president delivered concession remarks at her alma mater, Howard University in Washington.
[S]he stressed that Democrats had to accept the results of the election to preserve democracy. Harris conceded defeat Wednesday. Trump never did when he lost to Joe Biden and Harris in 2020. “Earlier today, I spoke with President-elect Trump and congratulated him on his victory. I also told him that we will help him and his team with their transition and that we will engage in a peaceful transfer of power,” she said, drawing a cheer from the crowd.
“A fundamental principle of American democracy is that when we lose an election, we accept the results,” she added in a gracious speech. “And anyone who seeks the public trust must honor it.”
Around the same, President Joe Biden called Trump, not only to congratulate him, but also to invite him to the White House for a post-election meeting. The retiring Democrat also, of course, assured his predecessor (and successor) that there would a smooth and peaceful transition of power.
Democratic congressional leaders also issued statements honoring the voters’ verdict. […]
Ordinarily, none of this would be notable. Over my career in journalism, I’ve covered, in one capacity or another, seven presidential campaigns, and I don’t recall ever being tempted to write a piece noting these customary and routine steps during a presidential transition process.
Indeed, it seems almost silly to applaud Democrats for doing exactly what they were supposed to do, when and how they were supposed to do it, taking the same steps others in their position have taken for generations.
But the context matters.
The 2024 and 2020 presidential elections were nearly mirror images of each other. In both contests, out-of-office challengers won with more than 300 electoral votes. In both contests, the winning candidates won the popular vote. In both contests, the victor nearly swept all of the battleground states. In both contests, the winning candidates saw their party reclaim a Senate majority.
There is, of course, one big difference.
This year, Americans did not see Harris declare victory in the middle of the night based on nothing more than wishful thinking. They didn’t see Democrats claiming, before or after the race, that the political system was “rigged.” They have no plans to utilize “fake electors.” There will be no fundraising gambit in which Democratic donors are asked to contribute to an “Election Defense Fund” that doesn’t exist.
Nancy Pelosi and Hakeem Jeffries will not organize an effort to ask the Supreme Court to reject electoral votes that Democrats don’t like. Biden will not pressure Harris to send the election back to state legislatures. Neither Democrat will summon armed far-left radicals to Washington, fill them with lies, demand that they “fight like hell,” and then deploy them to attack the U.S. Capitol.
[…]. My point is not to peddle some lazy “Democrats are good, Republicans are bad” thesis. Rather, my point is that it’s worth recognizing that when it comes to democracy, the two parties are playing by very different sets of rules.
[…] Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina published a message of sorts to Jack Smith by way of social media the morning after Election Day. It read:
“It is time to look forward to a new chapter in your legal careers as these politically motivated charges against President Trump hit a wall. The Supreme Court substantially rejected what you were trying to do, and after tonight, it’s clear the American people are tired of lawfare. Bring these cases to an end. The American people deserve a refund.”
So, a few things.
First, as the sycophantic senator probably knows, there’s literally zero evidence to suggest that Smith’s cases are “politically motivated.”
Second, if Graham believes the Supreme Court’s ruling — written entirely by Republican-appointed justices — immunizing presidents from accountability is worth celebrating, I’d encourage him to take another look.
But even if we put these relevant details aside, it’s also worth appreciating what a departure this is from a position Graham took in the recent past.
Video of Andrew Weismann discussing the issue tops the article. The video is about six minutes long and is a good overview. Lots of facts, timelines and analysis.
In 2017, for example, as Trump wanted to oust then-special counsel Robert Mueller, it was Graham who told reporters that if the then-president got rid of the then-special counsel, it “could be the beginning of the end of the Trump presidency.”
The South Carolinian added that the system needed “a check and balance here,” and the senator even endorsed legislation that would prevent a president from acting unilaterally to remove a special counsel.
Months later, Graham also said that it would be “corrupt” for Trump to oust a special counsel investigating him, adding that a president stopping an investigation without cause “would be a constitutional crisis.”
To be sure, there’s one relevant detail that’s different — Mueller didn’t indict Trump, and Smith did — but Graham’s evolution on this speaks volumes about his partisan perspective.
Nick Fuentes and some other Trump-adjacent right-wingers have been circulating the phrase “your body my choice” on social media. Some women are reporting upticks in online abuse since the race was called for Trump.
Salon’s Amanda Marcotte put this well when she noted the number of men gleeful about Republicans’ “bringing women to heel.”
The Republican ticket really ran the gamut of these various flavors of misogyny: Vance brought the retrograde gender roles disguised as religious righteousness piece plus the edgelord fondness for particularly incendiary remarks (childless cat ladies and the many other remarks about the “misery” of women without children). Trump embodies the less Christian nationalist and more crude, crass “locker room talk” kind, as he mused over Harris’ “low IQ,” chortled at an audience member at his rally shouting out that she worked on a street corner and embarked on a tangent about how he likes to call Nancy Pelosi a [B-word].
You can argue about the extent to which Harris being a woman hurt her (and may have helped her with college educated women, the sole group that moved farther from Trump this time). But misogyny was a central appeal of the Trump campaign.
Giuliani Tries To Explain Away Why He Hasn’t Surrendered His Assets, Claiming Political Prosecution
Rudy Giuliani tried to explain away why he has not surrendered his assets to former Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss after he lost the $146 million defamation suit filed against him.
Despite the judge’s ruling, Giuliani explained that he remained unconvinced Freeman and Moss are legally entitled to “a lot” of his assets, including his grandfather’s watch, which he described as a “bit of an heirloom.” [I don’t think that line of argument will play well in front of the judge.]
“Usually you don’t get those, unless you’re involved in a political persecution,” the former New York City mayor said, according to NBC News. “In fact, having me here today is like a political persecution.”
Gov. Newsom Preps California To Fight The New Trump Admin
Less than two days after Trump declared victory in the 2024 presidential election, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) called in a special session of the state legislature to ask for an increase in state funding for litigation against the incoming Trump administration.
The added funding would help California defend civil rights, climate change, access to abortion, disaster funding and other policies in the state from the right-wing federal agenda the new administration is expected to set.
“The freedoms we hold dear in California are under attack — and we won’t sit idle,” Newsom said in a statement. “California has faced this challenge before, and we know how to respond. We are prepared to fight in the courts, and we will do everything necessary to ensure Californians have the support and resources they need to thrive.”
[…] “Every bit of property that they want is available, if they are entitled to it,” Rudy Giuliani groused. “Now, the law says they’re not entitled to a lot of them. […]”
Uh huh.
Once inside, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss’s pissed-off lawyer told Judge Lewis Liman they’d just found out Monday that Rudy had opened a new bank account and business entity, Standard USA LLC, over the summe r[…]
And Rudy’s lawyer Ken Caruso tried to go with my client doesn’t know where all the stuff is, what is stuff? The order was ambiguous, and you can’t take my client’s father’s watch, you vindictive monster!
Unsurprisingly Judge Liman was not there for it, and used judge words that mean STFU. Claiming Rudy doesn’t know where his stuff is is “farcical,” the vindictiveness thing is “ridiculous.” Rudy never filed an exemption for the watch, the court takes watches from bodega owners every day, and Rudy can suck it up like every other broke motherfucker the judge sees all the fucking time. His order was ambiguous? Let’s all go through the list together one by one, shall we? (You can read along yourself here starting on page 16.) Are we extra super clear? Make with the condo papers, the signed pictures, the rings, the mirror, the TV, the old guitar cord, the remote control, and your old skateboard, BY MONDAY. And especially the title and keys to that sweet-ass Mercedes. OR YOU WILL GET A MOTION FOR CONTEMPT.
[…] Is Rudy going to make with the keys or keep trying to push his luck with a federal judge? Can he hide his crap long enough for Lord Trump to come save him?
Steve Bannon Gonna Do ‘Rough Roman Justice’ To Everybody […]
As you can imagine, all the worst MAGA creepers are sowing their wild oats right now […]
Blah blah blah, they’re coming for you, etc. Aren’t they happy now that they actually won an election, fair and square (that we know of, some conditions may apply)? No they are still so mad. But happy! […]
None is more McMadHappy than Steve Bannon, who just got out of prison and might have to go back after his New York trial in December, related to that border-wall-building scam.
And in all his McMadHappy rants, Bannon keeps saying he’s going to do “rough Roman justice” to everybody.
He said it on election night. “You deserve rough Roman justice!” But it was a much longer rant than that. Mediaite has the whole transcript:
You stole the 2020 election. You’ve mocked and ridiculed and put people in prison and broken people’s lives because you said this thing was stolen. This entire phony thing is getting swept out. Biden’s getting swept out. Kamala Harris is getting swept out. MSNBC is getting swept out. The Justice Department is getting swept out. The FBI is getting swept out. You people suck, okay?! And now you’re going to pay the price for trying to destroy this country.
And I’m going to tell you, we’re going to get to the bottom of where the 600,000 votes [are]. You manufactured them to steal this election from President Trump in 2020. And think what this country would be if we hadn’t gone through the last four years of your madness, okay? You don’t deserve any respect, you don’t deserve any empathy, and you don’t deserve any pity.
And if anybody gives it to you, it’s Donald J. Trump, because he’s got a big heart and he’s a good man. A good man that you’re still gonna try to put in prison on the 26th of this month. This is how much you people suck. Okay? You’ve destroyed his business thing. And he came back.
He came back in the greatest show of political courage, I think, in world history. Like, [Roman statesman] Cincinnatus coming back from the plough [returning to politics to rescue the Roman Republic]. He’s the American Cincinnatus. And what he has done is a profile in courage. We’ve had his back. But I got to tell you, he may be empathetic. He may have a kind heart. He may be a good man. But we’re not. Okay? And you deserve, as Natalie Winters says, not retribution, justice. But you deserve what we call rough Roman justice, and we’re prepared to give it to you.
[Yikes!]
Yeah, there’s a whole lot there that we’re just not going to respond to except to say that just because we lost doesn’t mean Tim Walz’s belief that Republicans aren’t shedding the “weird” label any time soon is no longer operable. It’s here to stay.
He’s babbling about the 2020 election being stolen (McMadHappy, like we said), and he’s threatening MSNBC, the DOJ, the FBI and more, on charges of “You people suck, okay?!”
And then suddenly he’s talking about Cincinnatus and the plough and “rough Roman justice.” He says it’s what “we” call “rough Roman justice,” but the only Google results we found for that phrase came from the mouth of Steve Bannon.
Is there some kind of MAGA gay porn Discord chat where they write slash fiction about Cincinnatus? Maybe when he says “we,” he’s talking about whatever white gang he perhaps joined in lockup?
Do “we” really use that phrase, or is it more of just a Steve Bannon thing?
Who knows.
Today on his podcast, he was at it again, going on a bizarre, winding rant that namechecked Alex Wagner, MSNBC, Judge Juan Merchan, Special Counsel Jack Smith, Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow, NBC, the Washington Post, the New York Times. He whined about how they all tried to eliminate Trump, by, like, not allowing him to steal elections and/or trying to hold him accountable for his various crime sprees.
And he ended with:
The central part of our movement is resilience.
You can kick us to the curb. You can stomp us. You can beat us in a battle, but you can’t win the war, and you will not win the war. You people are revolting. Revolting.
What you have done to this country, what you’ve done to the citizens of this country, and yes yes yes, you will pay a price for that. You will pay a price for that. It’s called justice. Rough Roman justice.
Again, is this a porn thing?
[…] We really need to know the rules so everybody can have fun at the MAGA toga party.
Also, was this MAGA toga party organized by the “normal gay guy vote”?
whheydtsays
Re: Lynna, OM @ #55…
Traditionally, there are three types of people who get to use “we” when referring to themselves. Those are royalty, editors and tapeworms. Bannon sure isn’t royalty. He might be considered to be an editor. Has he had a good medical exam to rule out having a tapeworm?
whheydtsays
As regards California… I think one of the first things that the state should do is to arrange with a pharmaceutical company (or start a new one) to manufacture the standard abortion inducing drugs in state. That way, they can be delivered in California where needed without ever entering interstate commerce…or even the USPS.
One of the largest hazards for astronauts traveling to Mars will be overcoming exposure to high energy radiation from the solar wind, solar storms, and galactic cosmic rays that originate outside of our solar system. This radiation is more damaging to humans than medical X-rays used to see broken bones or treat cancer.
The Earth’s magnetosphere traps the high energy radiation particles and shields the Earth from the solar storms and the constantly streaming solar wind that can damage technology as well as people living on Earth…
The original article I linked previously is a bit muddled. The protection provided by the Earth’s magnetic fields is associated with the higher radiation levels in outer space; they are really the same issue. The International Space Station, which orbits at about 400 km altitude, is not high enough to be outside the protective magnetic fields. The only time Earthly astronauts have gone outside the protective magnetic fields is the Apollo missions.
The head of a company specializing in cryptocurrency was kidnapped and held for ransom in downtown Toronto during rush hour Wednesday.
Police were called about a kidnapping in the area of University Avenue and Richmond Street W. just before 6 p.m., says a spokesperson with the Toronto Police Service.
The suspects forced the victim into a vehicle and made a demand for money, the spokesperson said.
The man was later located in Centennial Park in Etobicoke uninjured.
CBC Toronto has learned the victim is Dean Skurka, the president and CEO of Toronto-based financial firm WonderFi. He was released after a ransom of $1 million was paid electronically, a source close to the investigation said…
Hurricane Rafael continues to intensify, now boasting a well-defined eye as it approaches Cuba and the Gulf of Mexico.
Radar data from the Cayman Islands, along with observations from NOAA and Air Force Hurricane Hunter aircraft, confirm that Rafael has developed a double eyewall structure — a feature typical of strengthening hurricanes.
Hurricane Hunters also found that maximum sustained wind speeds have increased to about 115 miles per hour, prompting the National Hurricane Center to upgrade Rafael to a Category 3 storm…
Forecast models are aligned on Rafael’s path over the next two to three days, but uncertainty grows significantly beyond that timeframe…
David Gardner
…
So, you might like to take heart in these five reasons why a second Trump White House might not be so bad, after all.
1. We Survived the First One
Except for the people who didn’t. Like all those who died from COVID. And while I personally did survive, I noticed some things during that time. Such as: Trump hires people who are incompetent, then he throws them under the bus. And every time a Trump acolyte gets fired, they get replaced with someone even worse. This time we are starting at rock bottom, but they will find a way to burrow lower.
2. At Least There Won’t be a Civil War
Only because the people who woud do such a thing are the people who won. I don’t see how that’s a good omen.
3. He May Even Stop a War or Two
While Trump did not start any new wars during his first term, I am not convinced that the policies he implements will lead to long term stability. For example, Ukraine is probably fucked. It’s bad for them. But does that in any way contribute to long term stability in Europe? Ask the same questions about Taiwan and East Asia.
4. He May Go Where No President Has Gone Before (Lately)
He may well relaunch the NASA program sending astronauts to the moon, framing it as a space race against China rather than Russia…
(roll-eyes)
5. It’s the Economy, Stupid
In which they fail to provide any evidence for their belief that the economy will be better under Trump than otherwise. Unless of course, you are a billionaire. I expect them to do especially well. We are going to have to adjust to a new term, trillionaire.
Opinion: Two Reasons Why The Above Is Fucking Moot:
1. Climate change
2. World War III, once Russia realizes it can now attack western Europe with impunity
birgerjohanssonsays
“Scathing Atheist 612 Recrudescent Edition”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=CtPg7put6cQ
I agree with the Diatribe. Hate won the election. Let’s hate everything the Republicans stand for. Keep the anger alive. No more “When they go liw we go high”.
The nearby bright star Vega is surrounded by a surprisingly smooth, 100 billion-mile-wide disk of cosmic dust, confirming that it is not surrounded by any exoplanets, JWST images reveal. And scientists cannot explain its lack of alien worlds.
Anyone who finds a monkey should not interact with it but instead call 911, authorities said.
A police search is underway after 43 monkeys escaped from a research facility in South Carolina on Wednesday night.
Police in Yemassee, Beaufort County, said the Rhesus macaque primates escaped from Alpha Genesis, a business that provides “nonhuman primate products and bio-research services,” according to its website.
The monkeys were a group of “very young females” that have never been used for testing. An Alpha Genesis spokesperson confirmed to police that the animals “are too young to carry disease,” according to police statement.
“Alpha Genesis currently have eyes on the primates and are working to entice them with food,” police said Thursday afternoon.
Traps have also been set up and officers are using thermal imaging cameras in an attempt to recapture the animals, police said.
“Residents are strongly advised to keep doors and windows secured to prevent these animals from entering homes,” Yemassee Sheriff’s Department said in a statement. Anyone who finds a monkey should not interact with it but instead call 911, it said.
The company works with monkeys to carry out clinical trials, including on brain disease disorder treatments, and says it has “one of the largest and most comprehensive nonhuman primate facilities, designed specifically for monkeys, in the United States.”
[…] The company secured a federal contract to run a colony of 3,500 monkeys on Morgan Island off the coast of South Carolina, also known as Monkey Island.
The Post and Courier newspaper in Beaufort County reported that primate escapes have happened several times before in the area, including in May this year, and in 2016 when 19 evaded security at Alpha Genesis before they were recaptured six hours later. […]
[…] This morning after reading the great discussions about the lack of a liberal or Democratic social media/current media landscape, I had a discussion with my 22-year-old son and wanted to add some commentary from a Gen Z (male) voice.
When asked why he (a Democratic Socialist who has reacted very emotionally to the election outcome) thought the younger male vote turned to Trump, he said this:
Anyone online who is interested in any subject that might be even remotely of interest to a young man is going to get fed a stream of content that is heavy bro-culture. Watch a Minecraft YouTube video and pretty quickly there will be a Joe Rogan clip offered up as the next watch. Anything remotely sports related, same thing. Then there will be “libtard roast compilations” that are funny in a middle-school way. Keep watching/clicking and it won’t take long before you are offered up Andrew Tate.
My son’s college roommate was into maps (historical maps), which the algorithm sensed meant male and away he went. He weaned himself off when he got to college and was exposed to other opinions. He said he was just a kid and didn’t really know how a guy was supposed to be or act and these videos (with their machismo and misogyny) made him feel powerful.
My son’s current job is as an after-school tutor at a middle school and he hears the young male students parroting the bro-culture all the time (especially the last two weeks when the election was a hot topic). So it isn’t just this generation of young men who wouldn’t vote for a woman, its probably going to be the next one as well.
I have no idea how this gets “fixed” or even countered. While I knew this was happening (kids getting exposed online to stuff – we had a central computer in the den so my kid’s online activity was done in front of us until high school so we tried…how naive that feels now), I don’t think I realized how our democracy would be affected by letting children on the internet.
What You Should Know About Climate Change Under Trump!
He can’t undo everything!
Here’s a data point to keep in mind as we prepare for another Donald Trump assault on efforts to fight climate change: Across the USA, Election Day 2024 saw millions of Americans voting in record heat. New high temperatures for November were hit in Rochester, New York (81 degrees F); Pittsburgh (also 81 — and the city hasn’t had rain since October 6); Columbus, Ohio (78); and Hartford, Connecticut (78 again, tying a 2022 record). That list, from the indispensable Heatmap News, goes on and on […]
So that’s a thing to remember about the day America sent Donald Trump back to the White House. Trump pledged to give the oil industry everything it wants, and industry lobbyists even helped out by writing up a bunch of executive orders he can use to sweep away many of the climate regulations Joe Biden put in place — just in case Trump forgets his promise while he’s arguing about the size of his Inauguration Day crowd.
There’s no two ways about it: Donald Trump will be returning to office at a crucial moment for America’s — and the world’s — long-delayed commitment to reducing the greenhouse emissions that cause climate change, and he will be able to set back those efforts as long as he’s in office. We’re finally taking our first steps toward a full-scale energy transition, and Trump wants to strangle that progress.
Fortunately, the energy transition is going ahead in spite of Trump. He can slow it — dangerously so, let’s not kid ourselves — but he can only set it back, not eliminate it. I’m going to make use of our new longform orientation to explain why, today and tomorrow.
Worst. Timing. Possible.
The timing really couldn’t be worse, honestly: Joe Biden’s climate policies have been the most significant of any American president, and not only because he has almost no competition. His signature climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), was praised by the head of the UN’s International Energy Agency as the most important climate agreement since the Paris Agreement — which, of course, Trump wants to pull the USA out of, again.
[…] the IRA and other bills have already racked up significant wins, like an explosion in clean-energy manufacturing thanks to the generous tax incentives for industry, the energy transition is still in its early stages. Both the IRA and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) are 10-year programs, and many of their provisions are only now starting to have an effect on clean energy and manufacturing.
Just one example: This spring, media and Republican sources (same, almost) mocked the fact that the BIL’s $7.5 billion program to build public EV fast-charging stations didn’t instantly make charging stations sprout up all over the country. A notorious March 2024 Washington Post headline whined that the program “has only produced 7 stations in two years.” Of course, you needed to actually read the article to learn that was actually right on schedule for the 10-year program, and that far more stations would be coming online at an increasing pace. Federal money spent now is expected to result in states actually reaching peak deployment — hundreds of new charging stations annually — between 2026 and 2028. (As of October, 19 stations are up and running, with many more on the way.) And those are only the stations directly funded by the program; hundreds more are also being built by private companies using other incentive programs, and will continue to be.
Trump, of course, lied about the program; at the Republican National Convention in July, he exaggerated the budget and the slow progress, saying “They spent $9 billion on eight chargers, three of which didn’t work,” which is bullshit, and implied that the full program cost over 10 years went into just those stations.
We Aren’t Dead Yet
Now, some maybe-good news: This is where a hell of a lot is riding on control of the House of Representatives, which is still not decided (25 uncalled seats as of this morning). If Democrats hold the House, Trump won’t be able to repeal any of Biden’s climate legislation outright, although Trump can still significantly embugger IRA programs by having regulatory agencies change how they work. The IRA is fairly specific about providing tax credits for consumers who buy EVs, but presumably Trump’s Treasury Department could write such stringent rules to qualify for the credit that they’d be practically useless.
Things obviously get far worse if Republicans take both houses, but even if that happens, the Biden bills may not be entirely doomed. BIL, or at least its transportation spending, is likely to survive, albeit with cuts, which would probably include most of the charging stations. But as the Washington Post notes, Republicans aren’t against climate programs that bring home the bacon to their districts. University of Texas at Austin oil and energy boffin Ben Cahill noted that
[The IRA’s] tax credits for consumers, including those for EVs, rooftop solar panels and heat pumps “will definitely be on the chopping block” but “the investment incentives for wind, solar and battery storage have proven to be quite popular with big business.”
Plus, since many of the IRA’s manufacturing incentives have boosted jobs and growth in red states, members of Congress from those states may decide that fine, OK, we can keep a lot of those benefits in place, especially since they’ll be hearing from the clean energy companies and their super PACs.
That was one of the smart things about the IRA: While it never actually mandated where green tech would be deployed, its benefits were definitely designed to go all over the country and win constituents that way […].
Needless to say, there are a lot of ifs in all of this, and none of it will prevent Trump from setting back climate progress in ways that will be dangerous for keeping the planet habitable. But as I’ll explore further this week, bad as it is, there are still good reasons to temper our dread about how much Trump will be able to fuck up the planet.
Donald Trump was reelected president on Tuesday, four years after fomenting a coup which saw a mob of his supporters storm the U.S. Capitol and then leaving the White House in disgrace. Trump owes his return at least in part to a rankly dishonest right-wing information ecosystem that helped carry him through countless scandals that would have ended the careers of most politicians, driving his comeback to the pinnacle of power.
Conservative audiences are dependent on a right-wing media complex that bombards them with falsehoods and grievances while dissuading them from consulting any alternative sources of information, be they legacy news outlets or government officials or medical experts.
[…] The January 6 insurrection presented Trump’s propagandists with a crossroads. Rupert Murdoch, whose media empire includes right-wing bastions like Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, and New York Post, privately sought for him to become a “non person.” But Tucker Carlson and his allies at Fox and elsewhere instead went to work creating a counternarrative in which Trump was blameless. People who knew better either played along or actively participated in the whitewashing of that day.
Trump’s various indictments for a host of crimes provided additional hinge points. Right-wing media figures who could have used evidence of his abject criminality as a rationale for cutting him loose instead rallied to him and sought to delegitimize those seeking to bring him to justice.
[…] the party’s propaganda wing had united behind him.
Trump […] selected Ohio Sen. JD Vance, a Carlson favorite, as his running mate, and demonstrated the importance of the right-wing echo chamber by giving Carlson himself a prime-time speaking slot at the Republican National Convention.
With the general election set between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, right-wing propagandists went to work […]
They flooded the zone with a bogus narrative of “migrant crime” while ignoring evidence that violent crime was actually plummeting from its Trump-era high.
They instructed their audiences to treat immigrants as a scapegoat, falsely claiming that federal disaster aid desperately needed to respond to hurricanes had been siphoned off to benefit migrants and ginning up grotesque lies about Haitian immigrants eating pets.
They lashed out at the press, urging the Republican base to treat Trump’s poor showing in his debate against Harris as the result of media bias.
When an unprecedented string of former Republican officials and Trump’s own former administration aides came forward with dire warnings of what Trump did in his first term and could do in a second one, they hid the news from their audiences.
[…] beating back burgeoning scandals over his alleged January 6 crimes, communications with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and a political event at Arlington National Cemetery.
[…] without the support of the right-wing propaganda machine, he would not have been in position to sweep his party’s nomination in the first place […]
Now, the same propagandists who helped him back to power are poised to help him carry out his extreme agenda of destruction and retribution.
[…] we have a country that is pickled in right-wing misinformation and rage. And one of the stories that they’ve heard, not for one year but for eight years, is that there is a deep state, a universe of people in government that are out there that have the real power. They’re the ones with the real power. They’re taking power away from you, the individual. And the only person that can give you back that power is Donald Trump. He’s going to — and that’s why they hate him so much, because he’s going to come in and he’s going to get rid of them once and for all. He’s not going to be duped again like last time. And he’s going to give you back your power. […]
I’m not so blinded to think that they all are deeply pro-democracy. Many of them don’t believe in democracy as a principle and they want something more autocratic and authoritarian. But there’s another part, a much larger part, that actually believe that a vote for Donald Trump is a vote for democracy because they have validated and internalized the idea that there’s an anti-democratic secret cabal that is actually preventing their desires and exercise of democratic power from being implemented and put in place, and that only Trump can restore their power.
[…] And the through line, the foundation […], is a large right-wing misinformation engine that has created an environment where, and a lens through which people see the world that is not the way that it is. And so, that’s how you get so many people going out there and saying, “Oh well, he does it because he has to,” or “he’s not really going to do those things,” or “he’s going to do them, but they have it coming to them.” Because they are also in belief that they’re being democratic and defending the system. […]
the goal isn’t to get all those people ultimately in prison or something. It’s to show a force very early on that [the Trump administration] means business, in hopes that most people do the natural thing, the thing that comes instinctually, which is to duck and cover. There’s a reason why, it’s so concerning about anticipatory obedience because it does speed up the process of giving authoritarians more power. And they’re very open about it in Project 2025. That’s the tactic. It’s not just about revenge, although that’s a part of it. It’s also about sending a message that this is the new order and everybody else best get in line. […]
Video and complete transcript are available at the link.
As the dust settles on the 2024 election cycle, and the scope of Republican successes come into view, some observers are drawing a predictable conclusion: If voters backed GOP candidates in such large numbers, it must be because the electorate agrees with the party on the major issues of the day.
Mark Penn, a former adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton, for example, published a flawed election assessment to social media, which began, “America is a center right country at heart. Only 25 per cent are liberal and the other 75 per cent won’t be ruled by the 25.”
[…] If most voters supported Donald Trump and Republican congressional candidates, the argument goes, then it stands to reason that voters prefer conservative ideas to progressive ideas.
But a closer look at some of the election results suggest the ideological lines aren’t nearly that clean. Trump and his party, for example, championed private school vouchers. But as The New York Times reported, voters in three states — including two red states where Trump won easily — rejected voucher schemes.
In Kentucky, nearly two-thirds of voters defeated a proposal to allow state tax dollars to fund private and charter schools. In Nebraska, 57 percent of voters approved a ballot initiative that repealed a small program intended to give low-income families tax dollars to pay for private-school tuition. In Colorado, votes are still being counted. But it looks likely that voters have narrowly rejected a broadly worded ballot measure that would have established a “right to school choice,” including in private schools and home-school settings.
Note, Nebraska voters backed the GOP ticket by more than 20 points. In Kentucky, the margin was more than 30 points. But those same voters nevertheless took a good look at one of the Republican Party’s top educational priorities and said, “No thanks.”
What’s more, it wasn’t just vouchers. Voters in 10 states considered abortion rights initiatives this year, and they passed in seven — including in some states Trump carried. (In Florida, a majority of voters supported an abortion rights measure, but it wasn’t a large enough majority to pass.)
In ruby-red Missouri, where Republicans such as Trump and Sen. Josh Hawley won easily, voters also easily approved measures to raise the minimum wage and require employers to prove paid sick-leave. Voters in Alaska, which also supported the GOP ticket by a wide margin, did the same thing, increasing the state’s minimum wage to $15 per hour and requiring employers to provide paid sick leave.
A few weeks before Election Day, YouGov conducted an interesting survey in which it asked respondents for their opinions about Trump’s and Kamala Harris’ policy priorities — except the twist was that participants weren’t told which policies were associated with which candidates.
The results were remarkable: Harris’ agenda was far more popular than Trump’s, but many people had no idea that the Democrat’s priorities were, in fact, her priorities.
Asked what they wanted, voters backed Harris’ vision. Asked who they wanted, voters backed the candidate offering the opposite of her vision.
To be sure, there’s room for a broader conversation about why many Americans who support progressive policies end up also supporting candidates who’ll reject those same progressive policies. But on a variety of key fronts, it’s nevertheless true that a true center-right nation, filled with an electorate where conservatism was ascendent, probably wouldn’t have backed quite so many progressive ballot measures.
True.
The article is topped by a video featuring Chris Hayes. His analysis is good, and it restores a broader perspective. That video is about nine minutes long. The “Global Anti-Incumbency Movement” chart is enlightening.
Last week, the church announced that it had developed an anime cartoon, Luce, who will serve as the Vatican’s mascot for this year’s Jubilee festival—a special celebration, held infrequently, that is meant to celebrate spiritual growth and transformation. For reference, Luce looks like this:
(image omitted)…
Yes, young people sure do love anime. But they also love porn. In what appears to have been a compromise between these two youthful preoccupations, web users have wasted no time in converting the holy cartoon into a dirty fantasy that less resembles an innocent religious avatar and more resembles something sprung from the dirtiest depths of the hentai-verse.
404 Media reports that, mere days after her debut to the world, there are now “dozens of AI-generated hardcore pornographic images” of Luce all over the internet. Those images seem to have mostly been generated via sites like Civitai, a site that allows users to generate AI imagery with the click of a button…
Donald Trump’s team appeared to be quietly distancing itself from Robert F Kennedy Jr in the immediate aftermath of the election amid speculation that the former presidential candidate could be handed control of US public health agencies.
Advisers to the president-elect questioned whether Mr Kennedy, a vaccine sceptic who has also been the subject of a series of bizarre stories involving animals, would make it through a security check for a cabinet position.*
It raises questions about what role, if any, Mr Kennedy would be given in the Trump administration, as the Republican’s transition team sets about filling thousands of federal posts for his return to the White House.
Mr Kennedy had previously said that Mr Trump had “promised” him control of the Department of Health and Human Services and public health agencies like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
However, there is disquiet in the Trump team about media attention on the former independent candidate after he was pressed in a post-election interview with NBC about his vaccine scepticism…
* Ha ha ha. Who appoints the people who hire the people who do security checks? Norms and institutions will not save us.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Similar to crisis hotlines, ‘warm lines’ offer non-emergency mental health support: to prevent crises. Anonymous, free, run by trained ‘peers’ with personal experience of trauma, recovery, and hope. Providing an empathetic ear, deescalation, coping strategies, resources. Orgs vary, most limit to 20 mins, and rarely 3-way-in crisis orgs much less 911—if ever. Lower stakes = less 1st-timer worry. Most calls are about isolation.
Inclusive Therapists’ crisis resources lists a few warm lines. There are many more regional ones out there: existing in most US states and a number of other countries.
mordredsays
Huh, it seems DNA analysis on some human remains from Pompeii shows that the traditional interpretation of gender and family relationships were often quite wrong:
One particularly famous set of remains revisited by the team is that of an adult with a golden bracelet and a child—the child being on the adult’s lap. Long interpreted as a mother and child, the remains actually belong to an unrelated male and a child. Another duo—long thought to be sisters who died together—included at least one male. Their exact relationship remains unclear, but they weren’t two closely related females…
“Most narratives spun around the victims take into account that they were likely attempting to flee the city, but these stories often link them to their discovery place,” Mittnik said. “For instance, the man found at the Villy of the Mysteries was portrayed as the custodian of the villa who dutifully remained at his post.”
“Our research demonstrates that such interpretations are often unreliable and instead we should consider a wide range of scenarios that could explain the evidence we find,” she added…
The influential historian and philosopher of biology Michael Ruse died on November 1, 2024, at the age of 84, according to the obituary in The Globe and Mail (November 4, 2024). Ruse was one of the founders of the field of philosophy of biology: the first of his more than 70 books was the seminal The Philosophy of Biology (1970) and he founded the field’s first journal, Biology and Philosophy. He was especially interested in evolutionary biology, which he discussed in books such as The Darwinian Revolution (1979, second edition 1999), Darwinism Defended (1982), Taking Darwin Seriously (1986), Monad to Man: The Concept of Progress in Evolutionary Biology (1996), and Darwin and Design (2003), among others.
Owing to his scholarly interest in evolutionary biology, Ruse was recruited by the plaintiffs in McLean v. Arkansas, a legal case challenging the constitutionality of Arkansas’s 1981 equal time for creation science law. His testimony that creation science failed to qualify as scientific was central to the favorable ruling, although it excited considerable controversy among his fellow philosophers. Ruse continued to discuss and criticize creationism, editing a collection of essays related to McLean, But Is It Science? (1988, second edition coedited with Robert T. Pennock 2008) as well as writing The Evolution War (2000), and The Evolution/Creation Struggle (2005). Raised as a Quaker, Ruse was not a believer, but he sought to promote peaceful coexistence of science and religion, articulating his views in books such as Can a Darwinian Be a Christian? (2001) and Science and Spirituality (2010). Despite his differences with his intellectual foes, Ruse was famed for his friendliness and conviviality. Kenneth R. Miller of Brown University, president of NCSE’s board of directors, commented, “I respected him as a philosopher who genuinely understood science and more importantly loved him as a friend.” …
With Donald Trump possibly bringing her father Elon Musk with him in his return to the White House, Musk’s transgender daughter, Vivian Jenna Wilson, has announced plans to leave the United States entirely.
In a message posted Wednesday on Threads, Wilson said Trump’s sweeping victory “confirmed” that she is better off elsewhere more accepting of transgender people…
The idea behind an electoral mandate is pretty straightforward: Presidential candidates present voters with a series of ideas they want to pursue in office, and if they win, they claim that they have the nation’s backing in support of that agenda. To stand in their way, the argument goes, is to reject the will of the American electorate.
With this in mind, Donald Trump said in the runup to Election Day 2024 that he wanted a mandate, and as the results came in, the Republican claimed to have one. NBC News reported early Wednesday morning:
Trump, claiming victory, said America gave him an “unprecedented mandate.” … “America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate. We have taken back control of the Senate. Wow, that’s great.”
Let’s note at the outset that Republicans’ interest in presidential candidates and electoral mandates is, at best, selective.
In 2008, Barack Obama won roughly 53% of the popular vote and 365 electoral votes. Were GOP officials on Capitol Hill willing to grudgingly concede that the Democrat had earned a mandate? No, they were not. Four years later, when Obama became only the sixth president in American history to top 51% of the popular vote twice, did Republicans acknowledge the then-president’s mandate? Again, no.
In 2020, when Joe Biden won the popular vote by a fairly wide margin and ended up with the strongest support of any presidential challenger since FDR, did his opponents on the right respectfully recognize his mandate? Take a wild guess.
If you’re thinking that, under GOP rules, only GOP presidents’ mandates matter, you’re not alone.
But let’s put recent history aside and consider the core question of whether Trump has a legitimate claim to a popular mandate — because there’s ample room for skepticism.
First, the president-elect might have a stronger case to make if he’d presented voters with a detailed governing blueprint, but he did not. Trump peddled some vague, bumper-sticker-style talking points, but the post-policy president became a post-policy candidate, indifferent to the substance of governing. It’s difficult, in other words, to credibly claim a mandate for a set of proposals that, for the most part, didn’t exist in a meaningful way. [So true! And, I would add that Trump often says one thing … and then promptly contradicts his earlier statement.]
Second, Trump’s policy priorities, to the extent that they existed, weren’t especially popular. It’s fair to say the GOP candidate prevailed despite his ideas, not because of them.
Third, the idea that Trump’s mandate is “unprecedented” is demonstrably silly. Did he win? Yes. Did he win by historically enormous margins? Not even close. He might eke out a narrow popular-vote win, but plenty of other presidents fared far better. What’s more, he’ll probably finish with 312 electoral votes, which will rank 41st on the presidential history list.
Just so we’re all clear, my point is not to argue that Trump’s win is somehow illegitimate. He won, fair and square, as Democratic leaders have been quick to acknowledge. I believe the electorate made a horrible mistake, but that doesn’t change the legitimacy of the outcome.
But if the president-elect and his allies are going to argue that his win was such a historic landslide that policymakers have no choice but to yield to his will — because he’s the true voice of the nation — that is not an argument worth taking seriously.
The Justice Department on Friday disclosed an Iranian murder-for-hire plot to kill Donald Trump, charging a man who said he had been tasked by a government official before this week’s election with assassinating the Republican president-elect.
Investigators learned of the plot to kill Trump while interviewing Farhad Shakeri, an Afghan national identified by officials as an Iranian government asset who was deported from the U.S. after being imprisoned on robbery charges.
He told investigators that a contact in Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard instructed him this past September to put together a plan within seven days to surveil and ultimately kill Trump, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in federal court in Manhattan. Two other men who the authorities say were recruited to participate in other assassinations, including a prominent Iranian American journalist, were also arrested Friday. Shakeri remains in Iran.
[…] The plot, with the charges unsealed just days after Trump’s defeat of Democrat Kamala Harris, reflects what federal officials have described as ongoing efforts by Iran to target U.S. government officials, including Trump, on U.S. soil. Last summer, the Justice Department charged a Pakistani man with ties to Iran in a murder-for-hire plot.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) laid out a plan to fight the second Trump presidency in a Time essay published Thursday afternoon.
Just like the last go around, Warren says Senate Democrats should do everything they can to fight “radical Trump nominees.”
“We asked tough questions and held the Senate floor for hours to slow down confirmation and expose Republican extremism,” Warren recalls about the first Trump presidency. “These tactics doomed some nominations entirely, laid the groundwork for other cabinet officials to later resign in disgrace, and brought scrutiny that somewhat constrained Trump’s efforts.”
Warren adds that “litigation can slow Trump down, give [Democrats] time to prepare and help the vulnerable, and deliver some victories.”
Warren ends by emphasizing Democrats “must do all [they] can to safeguard our democracy” before Trump takes office in January.
“To resist Trump’s threats to abuse state power against what he calls ‘the enemy within,’ Pentagon leaders should issue a directive now reiterating that the military’s oath is to the Constitution. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer must use every minute of the end-of-year legislative session to confirm federal judges and key regulators—none of whom can be removed by the next President.”
China sets up ‘Birth Encourgagement’ offices”:
.
“China’s Youth Face Hardship! Not Having Children Is Seen as a Crime, Even Punishable By Fines”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=HoSJb-qiAYY
I have not been able to check this on any deeper level, but it seems dumb enough and heavy-handed enough to be a real policy.
Israeli fans were assaulted after a soccer game in Amsterdam by hordes of young people apparently riled up by calls on social media to target Jewish people, Dutch authorities said Friday. Five people were treated at hospitals and dozens were arrested after the attacks, which were condemned as antisemitic by authorities in Amsterdam, Israel and across Europe.
Reports of antisemitic speech, vandalism and violence have been on the rise across Europe since the start of the war in Gaza, and tensions mounted in the Dutch capital ahead of Thursday night’s Europa League match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv.
Amsterdam authorities banned pro-Palestinian demonstrators from gathering outside the stadium, and video showed a large crowd of Israeli fans chanting anti-Arab slogans on their way to the game. Afterward, youths on scooters and on foot crisscrossed the city in search of Israeli fans, punching and kicking them and then fleeing quickly to evade police, Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema said.
On the social media platform Telegram, “there is talk of people going on a Jew hunt,” Halsema said. “That is so shocking and so despicable that I still cannot fathom it.” Dutch Minister of Justice and Security David van Weel vowed to track down and prosecute all of the perpetrators.
Police had to escort some fans back to hotels, according to authorities.
Ofek Ziv, a Maccabi fan from the Israeli city of Petah Tikva, said someone — he didn’t see who — threw a rock at him as he and a friend left the stadium. He was hit in the head, causing light bleeding. He said a group of men began to chase him, before he and his friend got into a taxi, picking up other fans. They took shelter at a hotel.
[…] Another Israeli fan, Alyia Cohen, said that he and his friends were approached by a number of hostile men as they got back to their hotel after the match. […]
Amsterdam police spokeswoman Sara Tillart said it was too early in the investigation to say if anybody other than soccer fans was targeted.
Five people were treated in the hospital and released, while some 20 to 30 people suffered light injuries, police said. At least 62 suspects were arrested, with 10 still in custody, the city’s public prosecutor, René de Beukelaer, told reporters at a news conference Friday.
With condemnation of the violence as antisemitic pouring in from around Europe, the attacks shattered Amsterdam’s long-cherished view of itself as a beacon of tolerance and haven for persecuted religions, including Sephardic Jews from Portugal and Spain who fled to the city centuries ago.
Halsema, Amsterdam’s mayor, described the violence as “an eruption of antisemitism that we had hoped never again to see in Amsterdam.”
In the past, Ajax was known as a soccer club with links to Amsterdam’s Jewish community because visiting fans had to pass the city’s Jewish quarter to get to the club’s former stadium. Ajax fans sometimes wave Star of David flags and chant the Dutch word for Jews.
Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Saar, flew to Amsterdam on Friday and in a message on X he said that hatred of Jews is “appearing in place after place after place.”
Police said security will be beefed up at Jewish institutions in the city, which has a large Jewish community and was home to Jewish World War II diarist Anne Frank and her family as they hid from Nazi occupiers.
Authorities outlawed demonstrations across the city for the weekend and gave police extra powers to frisk people.
The violence reverberated intensely in Israel and across Europe. Israel’s government initially ordered two planes sent to the Dutch capital to bring fans home. The prime minister’s office later said it would work to help citizens arrange commercial flights.
A statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he “views the horrifying incident with utmost gravity.” He demanded that the Dutch government take “vigorous and swift action” against those involved.
Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof condemned the violence and flew home early from a European Union summit in Hungary. […]
Tensions had been brewing in Amsterdam for days ahead of the match. A Palestinian flag was torn down from a building in Amsterdam on Wednesday, Dutch broadcaster NOS reported, and authorities banned a pro-Palestinian demonstration near the stadium.
Ahead of the game, large crowds of supporters of the Israeli team could be seen on video chanting anti-Arab slogans as they headed to the stadium, escorted by police.
“Let the IDF win, and (expletive) the Arabs,” the fans chanted, using the acronym of the Israeli military, as they shook their fists. It also showed police pushing several pro-Palestinian protesters away from a Maccabi fan gathering in a square earlier in the day.
[…] Israel’s national soccer team is scheduled to play France in Paris on Nov. 14 in the Nations League. French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said Thursday the match would go ahead as planned. […]
Bomb threats sent to polling places and ballot-counting locations in at least five battleground states across the U.S. Tuesday targeted mostly Democratic counties, an NBC News analysis has found.
The full extent of who received the bomb threats is not clear. […] NBC News compiled a list of 67 locations in 19 counties, based on local news reports and state and local election officials’ statements, all of which appear to have received similar threats. Of the 67 locations, 56 were in 11 counties that voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 election, including the eight most populated. Those high-population Democratic counties include voting locations for Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Detroit, Michigan; Phoenix, Arizona; Atlanta, Georgia; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Maricopa County, Arizona, which Biden won by a slim margin, has consistently been the subject of election denialism conspiracy theories. The other five — Michigan’s Wayne County, Pennsylvania’s Philadelphia County and Georgia’s DeKalb, Fulton and Gwinnett counties — were some of the largest Democratic strongholds in their respective states.
Bomb threats largely target Biden counties
Many of the threats called in on Election Day were in places President Joe Biden won comfortably in 2020. [Chart at the link]
[…] Some locations that temporarily shut down on Tuesday, like DeKalb and Philadelphia County, extended their voting hours that evening. None of the threats resulted in a voting location closing for the day […]
The FBI said in an emailed statement Tuesday that “many” of the threats “appear to originate from Russian email domains.” Some additional threats appeared to have been sent from a French service, a U.S. official briefed on the matter told NBC News. Anyone with unrestricted internet access can sign up for email services in other countries, making it difficult to deduce who actually sent the threats. […]
From Wonkette: These Little Nazi [B-word, plural] Are Trying To Terrorize Our Daughters And Children.
‘Your body, my choice’ is the newest rallying cry. [Image of red hat bearing that slogan]
Nick Fuentes, an Actual Nazi and erstwhile dining companion of our president-elect […] Donald Trump, posted what may have been his most popular rallying cry yet: “Your Body, My Choice. Forever.” That dude doesn’t even want to fuck women, he says fucking women is gay. He just wants to outlaw us not wanting to fuck him. Or something. I’m not entirely concerned with what he wants. But it’s not just him, actually, though he’s probably making a killing selling his little Nazi hats right now. […]
From Institute for Strategic Dialogue:
On TikTok, female users are reporting that accounts are commenting “your body, my choice” en masse on their posts. One TikTok creator stated: “I had to delete a video because I was being threatened and several men commenting [sic] saying they couldn’t wait until I get raped or ‘your body my choice.’” Another stated: “I woke up this morning to men commenting ‘your body, my choice.’ In a TikTok forum on Reddit, a user posted: “Last night I reported one of the many comments I’ve seen saying ‘Your body, my choice.’ The comment has been left up and the report has been marked as not a violation. How? HOW THE FUCK is that not a violation?”
There’s more, of course, at the link. And Teen Vogue is watching too. Here’s some of what they quote Andrew Tate — with millions of little boy followers thinking he’s the tits — as saying:
“I saw a woman crossing the road today but I just kept my foot down. Right of way? You no longer have rights,” he wrote in one post. “The men are back in charge,” he said in another. And in a repost of a woman saying she’s “asking for a President who isn’t a rapist,” Tate wrote “REQUEST DENIED.”
[Note reference to Andrew Tate in comment 73.]
It’s not just online threats. Anecdotes from social media like this one are terrifying:
I’ve now had two different friends with high school aged daughters who’ve been subjected to shitty teenage boys telling them “your body, my choice.” And to say I’m incandescently angry is an understatement. Guys, you shut that shit down if you hear it. This one is your work.
In the meantime, Black people all over the country are getting personalized texts, with their names on them, telling them to report for their enslavement in camps picking cotton. The texts are going to children as young as middle school — again, with the Black children’s names attached. They know the children’s names.
Incandescent with rage almost covers it … but I am scared. […]
I don’t have great ideas, I’m as lost as all of us right now. […]
I’m pissed off, and I’m scared, and I’m demoralized, and I’m not going to pretend I’m not. The fact that that’s what they want isn’t going to magically make me fightier. If you’ve got a daughter […] tell her to come to you or a grownup at the first sign something’s fucked. If you’ve got children of color, do the same. I have nothing else to offer, except MAKE SOME FUCKING NOISE, TELL YOUR FRIENDS THIS IS HAPPENING, SHOW THE WORLD THESE NASTY NAZI PRICKS. And if your friends or family voted for that, show them too. Show them exactly what they’ve unleashed. […]
There has been no small number of election post-mortems going around in the last two days, most of which I can honestly say I have not felt like reading. Mostly because so many have said, more or less, that if all these people voted for Trump, we must be wrong about them being assholes. Given that he actually got fewer votes than he did last time around, it’s not mathematically clear why that would be.
“It won’t do to dismiss a majority of the country as biased, ignorant or otherwise basely motivated,” said the editorial board of the Washington Post, whose owner barred them from endorsing Harris and eagerly congratulated Trump on his win this week, adding, “Yes, prejudices against foreigners, people of color and other targets of Mr. Trump’s rhetoric surely play a part in his extraordinarily durable appeal, but they can’t explain it all; indeed, the condescension of elites is itself a factor against which his voters were protesting by supporting him.”
So, just to be clear here — the issue is not that Trump and his supporters say horrific things about foreigners, people of color, etc., but that people criticize them for doing so or say that these things are the reason they voted for Trump, or that they were at least not enough of a problem for them to not vote for Trump and that this may be a reflection on their character.” Got it!
The explanation favored by the Post, by centrists, and by Republicans who were never going to vote for anyone but Trump anyway has largely been of the “They need to punch left and bow right if they want to win elections” variety. Surely you will be shocked to hear that this was the take favored by the New York Times’ Bret Stephens.
Here he goes!
Why did Harris lose? There were many tactical missteps: her choice of a progressive running mate who would not help deliver a must-win state like Pennsylvania or Michigan; her inability to separate herself from President Biden; her foolish designation of Trump as a fascist, which, by implication, suggested his supporters were themselves quasi-fascist; her overreliance on celebrity surrogates as she struggled to articulate a compelling rationale for her candidacy[.]
Well, that first part is certainly an interesting take, given that a large part of the reason she lost Michigan was because she refused to say she would stop supplying Israel with bombs with which to kill Palestinians.
The second part is fucking absurd given the completely batshit things that Trump has said about Harris and anyone else who opposes him. He has also called Harris a fascist (as well as a Marxist and a Communist […]), but you don’t see anyone grasping for their smelling salts over that, do you? […]
No, because we’re generally kind of just supposed to expect that Trump and the Right will say terrible things about us and about people we care about, while Trump and the Right demand respect and generosity from us. Indeed, much of Stephens’s op-ed is about the fact that the Left refuses to pretend that Trump is normal and his supporters are kind, wonderful people who just have some “concerns” and are “dismayed” about some things.
But these mistakes of calculation lived within three larger mistakes of worldview. First, the conviction among many liberals that things were pretty much fine, if not downright great, in Biden’s America — and that anyone who didn’t think that way was either a right-wing misinformer or a dupe. Second, the refusal to see how profoundly distasteful so much of modern liberalism has become to so much of America. [See comment 85 for a thorough debunking of that bullshit.] Third, the insistence that the only appropriate form of politics when it comes to Trump is the politics of Resistance — capital R.
Things were pretty much fine! They would have been a lot better if we could have stopped corporations from price gouging, but that would have drawn the usual right-wing hysterics about “price controls.” Every country on earth had economic issues and inflation following the pandemic and interruptions to the supply chain caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The United States has had lower inflation than pretty much every other country on earth. [Graph at the link]
Turkey, which is led by Trump’s good buddy and fellow “strongman” Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, had one of the highest inflation rates in the world, after Lebanon. Russia’s inflation situation was also a lot worse than ours. [Inflation map at the link]
What Stephens and others want to hear is “We feel your pain and you’re right, this whole thing is Joe Biden’s fault” just because it would make them feel good, when it damn well is not. There is almost no question that this would have been worse if Trump was in office.
As far as the “refusal to see how profoundly distasteful so much of modern liberalism has become to so much of America” goes, that’s a them problem. You’ll notice that most people rarely get too specific on points like this because they are at least self-aware enough to know that if they were to say exactly what they were bothered by, they would sound like monsters.
Stephens gave it a go and did not succeed:
The dismissiveness with which liberals treated these concerns was part of something else: dismissiveness toward the moral objections many Americans have to various progressive causes. Concerned about gender transitions for children or about biological males playing on girls’ sports teams? You’re a transphobe. Dismayed by tedious, mandatory and frequently counterproductive D.E.I. seminars that treat white skin as almost inherently problematic? You’re racist. Irritated by new terminology that is supposed to be more inclusive but feels as if it’s borrowing a page from “1984”? That’s doubleplusungood.
Oh, they’re “concerned”? They’re “dismayed”? Is that what we’re playing at? Sorry, no. It’s not like these people are just meekly saying “Oh gosh, I have some questions about whether a girl who was assigned male at birth would have too great of an advantage in sports if playing against girls!” because if that were true, surely they’d stick around to get some answers to their questions. Surely, if it were merely a concern and not merely the “reasonable” face of prejudice, there would be facts that could change their minds, no?
In 2023, there were a grand total of 15 trans teens playing high school sports in the entire United States. Only two of them were transwomen. There are maybe 30 transgender student athletes at colleges, total. We don’t know how many were transwomen, but it’s unlikely the ratio would change all that much. (Our own Crip Dyke has noted that actually, that’s a problem, because it suggests trans girls have been preemptively bullied out of participation.)
On top of that, current research suggests that, following testosterone suppression, “trans women who have undergone testosterone suppression have no clear biological advantages over cis women in elite sport.” [Important to note.]
This is not, by any means, a widespread problem or something that needs to be fixed with legislation. […] The goal with this nonsense is to get people to accept the premise and then use it as a way to justify the further persecution of trans people. [True]
On the second point, there have been diversity programs for decades and no one really gave a flying fuck until Christopher Rufo started ginning up outrage over them once he couldn’t get people hysterical enough about “critical race theory” theory anymore. Notice how you haven’t heard that term much lately? It lost its potency, because it was a nonsensical thing to be mad about in the first place. This will soon be true of DEI programs as soon as they switch to another thing.
There are a lot of things wrong with this argument, but the most glaring one is one that Stephens points out himself — that when Harris did pivot to the right on issues, it didn’t do her any favors because she just didn’t bend the knee hard enough to keep the goal posts from moving.
[H]er failure to forthrightly repudiate some of the more radical positions she took as a candidate in 2019, other than by relying on stock expressions like “My values haven’t changed.”
I am going to venture to guess that what he is talking about here is fracking — both because that’s what similar columns (like the one from the Washington Post’s editorial board) have addressed and because he’s previously complained that she didn’t do enough to push the idea that fracking is good (which it is not).
I just wish she could have made a better case for her current position. Like, if she had noted that by producing more natural gas in the U.S., we’ve become less coal-dependent, which is good for the planet. Or that by producing more oil in the United States, we’re also less dependent on the Middle East. Or that by becoming more energy independent, we can do more to ensure that we are extracting the energy in an environmentally sound way — something we can’t do when the oil is coming from Venezuela or Iraq.
So, just to be clear, it wasn’t enough to just say she’ll let oil companies continue fracking up the environment and our groundwater, she would have also had to lie and say it’s good for the planet, just to make someone like Bret Stephens feel good.
It wasn’t enough that she said she would put Republicans in her Cabinet, either. It wasn’t enough when she got endorsements from Liz and Dick Cheney, the latter of which Republicans used against her.
In fact, you will notice that literally every single time Democrats adopt right-wing positions in hopes of courting their votes, Republicans throw those things right back in their faces. It has never worked out, not once — and, in fact, it has only ever made things worse. If Democrats were to capitulate and say “OK, if it will make you feel better, we’ll bully some transgender kids for you,” they would not get a single thank you note in the mail.
[…] There is nothing wrong with our stances and our policies — policies that people, by and large, actually do support. In fact, a 2021 NBC/PBS/Marist poll actually found that 67 percent of US adults (including 66 percent of Republicans) don’t even want there to be laws banning trans kids from playing sports. Hell, that same poll actually found that Republicans were actually slightly more likely to oppose legislation outlawing gender transition-related medical care for children.
We have our work cut out for us in a lot of ways, but I promise you all, I promise Bret Stephens, that there is no amount of smoke we can blow up Republican asses or “moderate” positions we can take that will sway those voters. Even if that were true, if we have to throw anyone under the bus to get those votes, we don’t deserve to hold any office to begin with.
What we need, frankly, is better PR and better messaging so that the right-wing interpretations of our policies — so frequently laced with bizarre conspiracy theories — are not the ones that prevail.
A question for physicists and generally well-educated nerds.
.
Is there anything even remotely feasible in this article or is it more superconducting BS?
“Designing multicomponent hydrides with potential high Tc superconductivity” by Adam Denchfield, Hyowon Park and Russell J. Hemley, 1 November 2024, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2413096121
birgerjohanssonsays
Clarification. No, I did not mean the BS was superconducting.
The FBI is warning that hackers are obtaining private user information — including emails and phone numbers — from U.S.-based tech companies by compromising government and police email addresses to submit “emergency” data requests. From a report:…
A Russian court has sentenced two Russian soldiers to life in prison for killing a family of nine in occupied Ukraine, in a rare example of the country holding its troops to account for alleged war crimes.
The entire Kapkanets family were killed in their home in the Donetsk region last year by Anton Sopov, 21, and Stanislav Rau, 28, prosecutors said. Among the victims were two children aged five and nine.
The family had been celebrating a birthday at the time, Ukraine’s ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said a day after the killings.
Some details of the case are unclear, such as whether the soldiers pleaded guilty, as the trial was held behind closed doors due to military secrecy, Russian media reported.
Sopov and Rau were convicted of killing 53-year-old Eduard Kapkanets, his wife Tatiana, their adult sons with their wives, a nine-year-old granddaughter, a four-year-old grandson and a more distant relative of the family.
Ukrainian officials at the time said they believed the family was murdered for refusing to give up their house to the Russian troops.
State news agency Tass reported that the men had been convicted for murder “motivated by political, ideological, racial, national or religious hatred”…
Rafael was moving west across the Gulf of Mexico on Friday morning as the first major hurricane in the Gulf in November for almost 40 years, bringing the threat of life-threatening conditions to the southern United States coastline. Forecasters said the storm could cause dangerous surf and riptides across the whole Gulf region in the coming days, after causing havoc in Cuba where millions are still without power.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday congratulated Donald Trump on his election victory in his first public comment on the U.S. vote. … Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday the Kremlin is not ruling out the possibility of contact between Putin and Trump before the inauguration, given that Trump “said he would call Putin before the inauguration.”
President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday named co-campaign chair Susie Wiles as his White House chief of staff, one of the most important nonelected posts in Washington. She will be the first woman in that role.
A federal judge in Texas [a Trump-appointed judge] on Thursday struck down a new Biden administration program that sought to provide a path to U.S. citizenship for hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants married to American citizens.
The ruling, issued by Judge J. Campbell Barker of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, came months after 16 Republican-led states, led by Texas’ attorney general, Ken Paxton, filed a lawsuit claiming that the administration lacked the legal authority to enact the program. In August, Judge Barker temporarily blocked the initiative, just days after it had gone into place.
[…] The Biden administration started the initiative, known as Keeping Families Together, in August, allowing undocumented immigrants who were married to U.S. citizens and had been in the United States for 10 years or more a chance to gain a green card without leaving the country. [sounds reasonable to me]
[…] “It’s extremely disappointing because these are people who have all been here for many years and will move forward in the immigration system,” said Dan Berger, an immigration lawyer who submitted a memo in support of the policy to the Biden administration before it was announced. Now, he said, “their cases will take many years and further clog the system.”
Rebecca Shi, head of the American Business Immigration Coalition, which championed the program, said the lawsuit was a misguided effort.
“At some point, Republican leaders will need to represent all the families in their states instead of opposing every sensible step being taken,” she said in an email. “Polling showed that 41 percent of Trump voters support legal status for undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens.”
A White House spokesman, Angelo Fernández Hernández, said on Friday that the Biden Administration strongly disagreed with the decision, saying it would lead to families “being needlessly torn apart” while spouses went through the process of obtaining permanent resident status. Mr. Fernández said the administration was evaluating whether to appeal.
On Thursday, Fox News host Dana Perino suggested the “death penalty” as a course of action for lawyers who have gone after Donald Trump on legal grounds in the past few years.
The remark occurred during a discussion on the network’s panel show, “The Five.”
[video at the link]
Co-host Greg Gutfeld asked her if the lawyers involved in these cases require therapy following Trump’s successful campaign.
“Yes, they definitely need therapy, and maybe also the death penalty,” Perino responded.
Gutfeld agreed, adding, “Yes, I think the death penalty.”
[…] Going forward, the feedback loop between Trump and Fox News is sure to continue—he feeds them rhetoric and attacks, they amplify those attacks and give him fodder for more fury—and casual talk about death for legal officials doing their jobs will further be normalized.
Mike Davis, an adviser to Donald Trump who is said to be in the running to serve as his U.S. attorney general, has issued a violent threat against New York Attorney General Letitia James.
In an appearance on conservative pundit Benny Johnson’s podcast, Davis said, “Let me just say this to big Tish James: I dare you to try to continue your lawfare against President Trump in his second term.”
He added, “Listen here, sweetheart: We’re not messing around this time, and we will put your fat ass in prison for conspiracy against rights, and I promise you that.”
[…] Davis is the founder of the Article III Project, an advocacy group that wants to make the judiciary more conservative, or rather “a hell of a lot more conservative,” Davis told Politico. He also has a history of incendiary, threatening remarks. Speaking last month about legal proceedings that have occurred involving Trump, Davis said “retribution is a key component of justice.”
Previously, he has backed putting journalists and Trump detractors in a “gulag” and praised putting migrant children in “cages.” Davis has also called for dragging “dead political bodies through the streets,” in a reference to Trump opponents. […]
TikTok, and X are filling with the schadenfreude of a Latino man who voted for Trump, finding out what MAGA really means . . . the “G” slipped revealing the actual letter “W.” (Make America White Again).
From the English translations it seems that Mr. Angel Rodriguez is a Trump voter just like all the white people living in his neighborhood. And he was on good terms with them, their children played together until AFTER Trump won.
Mr. Rodriguez’s children went over to play with the white Trump supporters kids as they had always done and were met by Mr. White MAGA at the door telling them leave, to go back where they came from, and keep to their own kind. He even shot a pew pew in the air for emphasis.
Here’s Mr. Rodriguez’s post on TikTok: [available at the link. He speaks Spanish.]
[…]
Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party refers to a parody of regretful voters who vote for cruel and unjust policies (and politicians) and are then surprised when their own lives become worse as a result.
On October 16th, 2015, Twitter user @cavalorn tweeted, “‘I never thought leopards would eat MY face,’ sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party.” The tweet became a common way to refer to regretful voters over the following five years. — reddit
Dorothy Allison, Working Class Feminist, Author And Absolute Badass, Dies At 75
Excerpt:
[…] Born in South Carolina in 1949, she was a queer feminist, an activist, an author, a class warrior and genuinely kind and incredibly warm person. Her work dealt with themes of class, rape and sexual abuse (she was a survivor herself — like Bone, the protagonist of Bastard, she was sexually abused by her stepfather), sexuality, and infused these serious themes, somehow, with a humor that was so thoughtful it never seemed misplaced. […]
The horror of class stratification, racism, and prejudice is that some people begin to believe that the security of their families and communities depends on the oppression of others, that for some to have good lives there must be others whose lives are truncated and brutal. It is a belief that dominates this culture.
It is what makes the poor whites of the South so determinedly racist and the middle class so contemptuous of the poor. It is a myth that allows some to imagine that they build their lives on the ruin of others, a secret core of shame for the middle class, a goad and a spur to the marginal working class, and cause enough for the homeless and poor to feel no constraints on hatred or violence.
The power of the myth is made even more apparent when we examine how, within the lesbian and feminist communities where we have addressed considerable attention to the politics of marginalization, there is still so much exclusion and fear, so many of us who do not feel safe.
I grew up poor, hated, the victim of physical, emotional, and sexual violence, and I know that suffering does not ennoble. It destroys. To resist destruction, self-hatred, or lifelong hopelessness, we have to throw off the conditioning of being despised, the fear of becoming the they that is talked about so dismissively, to refuse lying myths and easy easy moralities, to see ourselves as human, flawed, and extraordinary. All of us—extraordinary.
Allison was a veteran of the Feminist Sex Wars of the 1980s, having bravely fought on the side of sex-positive feminism and anti-censorship, in opposition to anti-porn crusaders Andrea Dworkin and Catharine Mackinnon. In 1981, she and Jo Arnone founded the Lesbian Sex Mafia, now the oldest running BDSM support and education group for cis and trans women (Yep! There were trans-inclusive feminists in 1981! Allison was one of them!) [video at the link]
[…]
Uh … not good. “Musk joins Trump in call with Zelensky”
[…] Trump and billionaire Elon Musk talked with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as fears grow that the incoming Republican administration will cede territory in Ukraine to Russia.
Musk joined Trump in the conversation with Zelensky on Wednesday, when the Ukrainian president called the president-elect to congratulate him for his election night victory over Vice President Harris.
In the call, Musk said he would continue to support Ukraine with Starlink satellites, according to Axios. […]
Officially, the Trump campaign is not commenting on Musk’s involvement. […]
Zelensky previously described the phone call with Trump as “a productive conversation, a good conversation.” He was among the first world leaders to congratulate Trump after his victory early Wednesday morning.
The Ukrainian leader also said in a Thursday speech that it was vital for allies to stand by Ukraine and to ensure any deal with Russia benefits Kyiv.
On the campaign trail, Trump has repeatedly said he would end the war in Ukraine by the time he takes office on Jan. 20, a plan that observers fear would mean giving up territory in eastern Ukraine seized by Russia since the 2022 invasion.
[…] Musk, who is set to have some informal role in Trump’s administration, has provided Starlink for Ukraine but also has been in regular contact with Putin since 2022, according to The Wall Street Journal. Musk in October 2022 said on his social platform X that he supports a peace plan generally seen as favorable to Russia.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a close ally of Trump’s, predicted on Friday that the incoming U.S. president would end support for Ukraine.
“The situation on the front is obvious; there’s been a military defeat,” Orban said. “The Americans are going to pull out of this war.”
Kira Rudik, a Ukrainian member of parliament, said in a statement shared by the Atlantic Council think tank that with Trump poised to take office, “Ukraine must prepare a truly pragmatic and efficient victory plan.”
“It is true that many Ukrainians remain concerned over Trump’s earlier statements about ending the war in a single day,” Rudik said, “but we also hope that beyond the campaign trail, there is a clear understanding that wars cannot be stopped overnight without allowing dictators to have their way.”
[…] The stocks of the two biggest private prison operators — CoreCivic (formerly know as Corrections Corp. of America) and Geo Group — have doubled since election day. CoreCivic (CXW) is up 140% since Trump won in November; Geo Group (GEO) has risen 98%.
[…] The reason private prisons are back in vogue is simple: Trump has made sweeping promises to crack down on crime and illegal immigration. Wall Street calculated quickly that Trump’s rhetoric is likely to translate into more people behind bars. And that means more profits for private prisons.
[…] Wall Street expects prisons to get the biggest boost from Trump’s plans to deport illegal immigrants.
The Department of Homeland Security is already trying to hire 10,000 new immigration officers and 5,000 more border control agents. On top of that, DHS intends to ask for more money to fund additional detention facilities.
Both CoreCivic and Geo Group have several thousand beds currently available that could be used for undocumented immigrants, says Michael Kodesch, a stock analyst at Canaccord Genuity. Private prisons currently house roughly 8% of America’s 1.5 million federal and state prison population, according to Kodesch.
Trump’s team embraces private prisons [Because all of the Bad Guys should profit.]T
[…] the Obama Administration slammed them for being more expensive and less safe than government-run facilities.
Private prisons “simply do not provide the same level of correctional services, programs, and resources; they do not save substantially on costs; and as noted in a recent report by the Department’s Office of Inspector General, they do not maintain the same level of safety and security,” former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates wrote at the time. […]
The text below is from a Fortune article posted yesterday.
Trump’s election win sends private prisons stocks soaring as investors anticipate hard crackdown on migration.
[…] Trump’s pledge to crack down hard on mass migration promises to mean big business for private prisons.
Companies like CoreCivic and Geo Group may be known for profiting from the growing population of incarcerated Americans, but they struck gold after expanding into the operation of detention centers for undocumented migrants on behalf of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Now investors are betting heavily their earnings are set to soar, bidding up shares on Wednesday in the aftermath of Trump’s election. Stock in CoreCivic surged 29% while Geo Group saw an even bigger gain, vaulting 42% in a single session.
[…] Trump and his allies have long attacked the Democratic Party for being too soft on crime and too soft on borders […] Elon Musk—himself an immigrant—who made the issue of illegal migration the core argument why he was spending millions in a risky gamble to return Trump to the White House.
[…] During the Trump administration, the federal government expanded its immigration detention system by over 50%, a move that “overwhelmingly benefitted private prison companies”, according to findings from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The number of migrants detained reached a peak of 55,000 in 2019.
It didn’t end with Biden’s election either. Even though he immediately issued an executive order ending private prison contracts with the federal government when he took office in January 2021, Biden made one exception—migrant detention facilities.
[…] Following Trump’s election on Tuesday, the new president-elect now has to deliver on a promise to launch the “largest deportation in the history of our country.” Vice President-elect JD Vance suggested his boss should start with 1 million undocumented migrants “and then we can go from there”.
There’s just one catch that could potentially throw a wrench in the cogs for CoreCivic and Geo Group. Cities and states need to cooperate with ICE, which is not necessarily a given. Some speculate Trump will use the threat of withholding federal funding as a means to force compliance. […]
birgerjohanssonsays
Paleolithic ocher mine in south africa is 48000 years old – the site was identified by the ‘fingerprint’ of the substance used at paleolithic sites. But the oldest documented use of ocher is by homo erectus, 285 000 years ago.
Lynna, OM, quoting Steve Benen @ # 85: [Trump] won, fair and square…
Surely a line we’ll hear for years from wimp liberals. I wish I could force Benen and his damn ilk to go state by state, starting with Florida and Georgia, and count the total of voters finagled off the rolls by Republican bureaucrats over the last, say, 10 years, and to do some surveys and calculations as to how the elections over that decade might have turned out if those citizens had not had their democratic rights stolen through sleazy manipulations.
Trump may have done something fair/square in his life, but winning this year’s election wasn’t it.
Bekenstein Boundsays
Trump may have done something fair/square in his life
Indeed he did: he lost fair and square in 2020.
As for 2024, I call shenanigans. In the past two (post-Dobbs) years special election after special election has delivered a sharp rebuke to any MAGA candidate running. More recently we heard of massive, unusual early voting turnout that skewed female.
Did all of that just evaporate on the morning of Nov. 5 by magic?
How many votes ended up not being cast because of the Russian bomb threats? Or last minute illegal voter roll purges that were allowed through by Trump-appointed judges? Or assorted threats and intimidation by “election security” brownshirts menacing people near polling stations in heavily D-leaning areas?
KGsays
Pierce R. Butler@114, Bekenstein Bound@115,
No doubt such shenanigans made some difference, but leading Democrats are not contesting the result. If enough Americans (particularly young Americans – I’ve seen a turnout figure of 42%) had turned out to defeat fascism, Trump would have lost. Best to face the facts: a majority of Americans either want fascism, or couldn’t be bothered to vote against it.
lumipunasays
Hello again. I have some comments to post, after having been rudely distracted by a workweek in the midst of watching US election fallout.
lumipunasays
Reginald Selkirk at 49 and 59:
The original article I linked previously is a bit muddled. The protection provided by the Earth’s magnetic fields is associated with the higher radiation levels in outer space; they are really the same issue. The International Space Station, which orbits at about 400 km altitude, is not high enough to be outside the protective magnetic fields. The only time Earthly astronauts have gone outside the protective magnetic fields is the Apollo missions.
If I understand correctly, particle radiation levels are even higher in some regions well within Earth’s magnetic field (the Van Allen belts), because particles from solar wind and cosmic radiation trapped into swirling around the planet. The actual flow of particles toward Earth’s atmosphere is much reduced by magnetic deflection, but the trapped particles accumulate and move around horizontally within the Van Allen belts. The atmosphere stops almost all downward moving particles before they reach Earth’s surface, but the magnetic field is important in reducing the particle flux entering atmosphere, which helps reduce surface radiation levels and the solar wind erosion of Earth’s atmosphere.
The ISS is largely protected, because it orbits within the thin upper reaches of atmosphere, and in lower latitudes where the strong magnetic field generally blocks downward particle flux most efficiently, directing it into polar regions (where the entry of particles into atmosphere creates the auroras). At slightly higher altitudes, radiation levels would increase very rapidly, because the Van Allen belts are concentrated in these very areas, where the magnetic field is strong. There’s still enough radiation at the ISS altitude that it’s potentially harmful to astronauts in the long term.
(please correct me if I’m wrong – I’ve struggled to understand this stuff in simple terms)
A press conference held earlier today was an opportunity for NASA to explain why four Crew-8 astronauts were sent to a hospital after splashing down on Earth on October 25, but the agency and its astronauts quickly shut down any attempt by journalists to glean more information.
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-8 mission returned to Earth after spending eight months on board the International Space Station (ISS). Upon their return home, all four astronauts were hospitalized and one was forced to spend an overnight stay due to an unidentified medical issue…
It took three thieves to pull of this grand caper at Govanni Used Cars on Thursday. One to drive the getaway vehicle into a pole, one to use a sawzall to cut through the gate lock and snag a single catalytic converter and another to fall out of said getaway car. Oh, and he dropped his gun, too. From CBS News: …
(video)
birgerjohanssonsays
At 95, Noam Chomsky has lost the ability to speak or write.
😞
It is not shenanigans exactly, but it is there that the “asymmetrical information ecosystem” affected the election.
Here are some comments from Kate Riga on that subject:
I’ve been thinking for a long time about the asymmetrical information ecosystem, and how Republicans don’t just dominate — Democrats don’t even compete. I’m talking about “cultural” shows from which politics flow downstream — right-wing ideology wrapped in chatter about MMA and the stock market, or hand-making Cheerios and removing seed oils from food.
Democrats are clearly realizing the points/10s of millions of votes they’re leaving on the board; look at Kamala Harris’ forays onto popular podcasts this cycle.
But it’s not enough to make a guest appearance. Democrats need well-produced, well-funded, compelling content that can go punch for punch with the Rogans and the Theo Vons. That’ll require creativity, lots and lots of capital and a search for talent. This is, of course, more difficult because billionaires have a symbiotic relationship with right-wing ideology. It’ll be harder to rustle up wealthy backers for an ideology that explicitly wants them to have less money.
The lefty pods and streams already out there […] won’t cut it, because most of them despise normie Democrats. This was the heart of the great Bernie-Hillary divide, and the “dirtbag left” that adored Sanders and saw Hillary as a figurehead for the institution of the party, which they abhor.
In that way, things are easier for Republicans and the media that supports them. Under Trump, the party has only become more homogenous. Anti-Trump Republicans have either been run out of the party, or self-selected out. Trump doesn’t have to worry about the institutionalists vs. the radicals; there are no institutionalists left.
For Democrats, a serious saturation into this space won’t look like the fawning conspiracy theories and repressive ideology of Ben Shapiro; and it won’t be the irreverent, burn-it-all-down disgust of the far left. They need some other thing, creators that espouse a populist liberal ideology in a non-overtly political way, so as to attract back low propensity voters who would never tap on an explicitly political show.
It’ll require some experimentation and some trial and error to shape this content. Luckily, Democrats have the next two and then four years to figure it out.
“Media analysts say Sinclair, known for anchors reciting script in lockstep, promotes conservative talking points”
Sinclair, one of the largest owners of US television stations, has established itself as an influential player in the conservative movement by using trusted local news channels to spread disinformation and manipulated video of Joe Biden, media analysts say.
The company, which gained notoriety in 2018 for requiring local anchors across the country to read the same segment, has since created a national news show that produces stories distributed to its stations – often at the expense of local news coverage, the experts say.
As local journalism continues to decline, that formula could have an especially big impact on the upcoming presidential election when swing voters may then base their decision on fears over exaggerated problems. [Yes, that’s exactly what happened. The Guardian posted the article in July 2024.]
“When you stress a story the way Sinclair does, say on immigration, and you don’t look at the numbers and you don’t reflect on what has been going on, that is different than a news story. That is a political talking point,” said Anne Nelson, journalist and author of Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right. […]
Sinclair owns or operates 185 TV stations in 86 markets. When the company buys a station, its coverage of national politics increases significantly, as does a shift to the right, according to a 2018 American Political Science Review journal study.
[…] the company distributed stories to its local news websites based on videos manipulated by the Republican National Committee […]
“It’s being distributed through the lens of these trusted local outlets that are branded with ABC, CBS, NBC – media brands that people do not view in the same category as a Fox News – but if you look at a lot of what they are covering, it’s a lot of the issues you might find Trump talk about in a stump speech,” said Judd Legum […]
Sinclair, like Trump, also presents crime as a grave threat, Vogel said, despite violent crime decreasing significantly in recent years.
[…] Sinclair stations also promote misleading concerns about migrants committing crime. […]
Abstractly, I get why somebody might vote for a violent autocratic movement over the price of eggs. Personally, I prefer to live in a society, but I do get it. I would probably check first, to see if said violent autocratic movement actually had a viable plan to bring down the price of eggs, but then, I am a libtard.
Anyway, I’ve been having a grand old time, pinballing between all the same fun, fun emotions you’ve been feeling. The “I guess America is basically evil now” despair, the banging-my-head-on-my-desk-till-it-splinters outrage that lying works so goddamn well, and of course, that burst of “if this is what voters want, they deserve what they get” spite, complete with practicing the smug look I’ll shoot at the bewildered Trump voters as they enter the reeducation camp six months behind me. (Ideally, you want one that’ll still convey the intended level of disdain once your teeth’ve rotted out.) [That last bit is a reference to RFK Jr. removing fluoride from water.]
Most of all, the shaking-my-head-so-hard-my-jowls-ripple-with-measurable-frequency disbelief that anyone anywhere could possibly still believe this visibly decomposing con man is some sort of business genius, who could fix anything, even if he possessed the slightest interest in doing so. Which he doesn’t.
(I don’t actually have jowls, for the record. Though if I keep drinking at the rate I have been this week…)
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me after crashing the economy and causing tens of thousands of senseless Covid deaths, to say nothing of the rapes and felony convictions and staffers calling him a fascistand so on, ad infinitum, well, shame is the least of our worries […]
All in all, a fairly crappy Tuesday, even as Tuesdays go. Always been a lousy TV night, frankly, but I confess I found the season finale of American Democracy particularly dissatisfying. Certainly disappointed the Jack Smith subplot won’t play out. The Russian bomb threats targeting minority precincts were a clever detail, though; my compliments.
And the trailers for next season look awful. So many of my least favorite characters returning in prominent roles. Not excited for this “vengeful narcissist can prosecute anybody he wants” angle, or the economy-wrecking tariffs they’re teasing, and I don’t care for the elevation of this “Elon” fellow, because how many idiot racist billionaires do really you need? Sometimes less is more.
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
Beyond that, most of the political news this week involved sifting through the wreckage for explanations, and it turns out it’s pretty difficult to write jokes about early post-mortem hypothesizing.
“How many points rightward does the electorate have to shift to screw in a dictatorship? THREE TO FIVE, APPARENTLY, BUT WE’RE STILL WAITING FOR MORE DATA…is this thing on?”
See?
Anyway.
[…] Previous blog hiatuses have proven productive, so I’m gonna step away for a bit, to focus my energies on dragging this little bastard [a new comic book] across the finish line, yes, but most of all, to rest up for the fights to come. Feels like the perfect time to unplug, honestly; skip the gloating and the dread, drink some beers, take some walks, drink some more beers, fill any and all available receptacles with fluoridated water before RFK Jr. floods my pipes with whale juice, and then drink any beers that may have evaded my attention, however improbably. […]
Stay safe out there. Take care of yourselves. Above all else, do not, under any circumstances, allow the bastards to grind you down.
The White House announced Saturday that the president and president-elect will meet in Washington next week.
President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump will meet at the White House on Wednesday morning, officials announced on Saturday.
The two will meet in the Oval Office at 11 a.m. that day, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement. […]
At her concession speech at Howard University in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, the vice president told supporters, “Earlier today, I spoke with President-elect Trump and congratulated him on his victory. I also told him that we will help him and his team with their transition and that we will engage in a peaceful transfer of power.”
In a phone call with NBC News on Thursday, Trump praised Harris for her commitment to a smooth transition between administrations, saying that in a phone call, Harris “talked about transition, and she said she’d like it to be smooth as can be, which I agree with, of course.”
[…] In a separate speech on Thursday, Biden echoed the same sentiment, telling reporters at the White House, “I will do my duty as president: I will fulfill my oath and I will honor the Constitution. On Jan. 20, we’ll have a peaceful transfer of power here in America.”
In 2020, following Trump’s loss to Biden, the previous Trump administration stonewalled the transition between administrations, spending weeks denying that Trump lost and fighting the Biden team’s efforts to begin transition work.
[…] Trump explicitly did not invite Biden to meet at the White House in 2020 […]
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) announced […] a convicted felon armed with rifle, a suppressor, and body armor was arrested near his Florida home Monday with a manifesto and apparent plans to harm him. The manifesto allegedly contained “antisemitic rhetoric” as well as a list of targets
A good-governance group is warning of severe consequences if President-elect Donald Trump continues to steer clear of formal transition planning with the Biden administration — inaction that it says is already limiting the federal government’s ability to provide security clearances and briefings to the incoming administration.
Without the planning, says Max Stier, president and CEO of the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, “it would not be possible” to “be ready to govern on day one.”
Expect to see a lot of this in the near future. A lot of government officials are going to have to deal with this sort of situation. Where the laws, standards and regulations on how things are done are considered a problem by the new government. Some of these rules are new, trying to prevent some of the chaos of the previous Trump administration and some are long standing. The Trump officials are just going to ignore them or order them swept aside. Rules on who can get a security clearance? The Trump officials will issue them to anybody they want, no matter their history. Background checks? Hollowed out to signing a few forms. Ethics rules? The new president is a felon, that sets the bar on ethics.
There are some issues where I expect the law is strong enough to hold up. If only out of self interest Congress and the courts will try to keep Trump from stepping on their territory. The stuff that is just department regulation or tradition is going to get slashed though.
In the face of this some officials will resign, some will glumly put up with it and a few will side with Trump for their own advantage.
[…] Trump is already wanting to giftwrap Crimea for Putin. [X post at the link: “[…] “If Zelensky insists peace requires Crimea, he’s not serious… We have news for President Zelensky: Crimea is gone,” said Bryan Lanza.]
Russian TV, however, is showing nude photos of Melania.
Putin has apparently decided to show Trump who the boss is by humiliating him.
The hosts could barely keep from laughing. [X posts at the link]
[…] Another 1,660 Russians. [List of Russian personnel killed or wounded, plus list of Russian equipment destroyed is available at the link. It is estimated that in the first half of December the number of Russians killed in the war will reach the 3/4 million mark.]
[…]
🇺🇸 The Biden administration has lifted the ban on sending American contractors in Ukraine, allowing them to directly assist in servicing U.S.-provided weaponry, such as F-16s and Patriot systems.
Makes way more sense to service them in Ukraine instead of taking them out of the country to be serviced.
[…]
Panama cancels registration of four tankers from Russia’s shadow fleet
Flag cancellation procedures started after US sanctions targeted the LNG carriers’ Singapore-based operators over connections to Russian gas producer Novatek.
[That’s four tankers out of a much larger shadow fleet estimated to be more than 100 tankers.]
[…]
Ukraine finds US, German, Swiss parts in Russian new stealth drone Okhotnik despite sanctions
A rare Russian drone valued at $15 million met its end in Donetsk Oblast, revealing Moscow’s continued access to restricted Western technology. [image at the link]
Qatar, one of the chief negotiators of a potential cease-fire between Hamas and Israel, said it will suspend its mediation efforts, according to officials.
The move comes amid growing frustration over the lack of progress in the yearlong war in Gaza and fear around widening conflict in the region, The Associated Press reported. Though, the outlet added, it is unclear whether remaining Hamas leadership hosted by Qatar will be required to leave.
If both Israel and Hamas show “serious political willingness” to reach a deal, Qatar could return to the negotiating table, according to an official from Egypt — another mediator alongside the U.S. — per the AP.
Qatar explained to both sides of the aisle that it cannot continue negotiating if both sides refuse to seek a deal “in good faith,” the official said.
“As a consequence, the Hamas political office no longer serves its purpose” in Qatar, another diplomatic source familiar with the matter said, according to the news wire. The outlet added that the Hamas officials said they were aware of the withdrawal of Qatar, but not that they had to leave.
A U.S. official said the Biden administration had been in talks with Qatar about the Hamas office in Doha since the militant group rejected the last proposal for a cease-fire, informing them that the office was no longer useful. The official, AP reported, said the Hamas delegation was informed of the decision 10 days ago.
The news comes just weeks after Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar — the architect of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that sparked the war — was killed in a strike on Gaza late last month. It was unclear when, or if, cease-fire negotiations would continue after his death.
Previous talks fell apart as some officials blamed Sinwar’s stonewalling, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also faced criticism for moving the goal posts on keeping his military forces in control of key territory in the Gaza Strip.
Netanyahu has also called for the return of more than 100 hostages still in Gaza before agreeing to a deal. More than 250 people were taken captive by the militant group at the onset of the war.
More than 44,000 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict — many of them women and children — according to local health officials […] that number does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Cities under fire alerts include New York City and Boston, where wind gusts up to 35 mph and relative humidity around 25% to 30% is expected.
Wind gusts and [low] humidity are helping to fuel wildfires burning across the Northeast. A whopping 27 million people from New York to Massachusetts are under fire alerts Saturday afternoon.
[…] Vegetation in the area also remains very dry, with this region of the country about 6 to 8 inches behind on rainfall since Sept. 1. A cold front is expected to pass through the region Sunday, bringing up to 1 inch of rain.
A brush fire in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park burned overnight Friday into Saturday after about 2 acres of dry vegetation ignited during heavy wind gusts, the New York City Fire Department said on X. Firefighters worked overnight to extinguish the fire.
[…] In Passaic County, New Jersey, the 100-acre Cannonball 3 Wildfire continues to burn with 0% containment, according to the New Jersey Forest Fire Service. Fifty-five structures are threatened by the fire, and its cause is under investigation.
[…] Northern New Jersey is under a red flag warning until 6 p.m., meaning the area is experiencing critical fire weather that “can contribute to extreme fire behavior,” according to the National Weather Service.
The active wildfires are increasing concerns around air quality, especially in the New York City area.
On the West Coast, the Mountain Fire continues to burn in Ventura County, California, and has spread across more than 20,600 acres, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire). The fire was 17% contained as of 7:25 a.m. PT and its cause is under investigation.
Sunny and dry conditions are expected in the area Saturday, with wind gusts up to 20 mph. Air quality alerts are in effect throughout Southern California due to wildfire smoke.
lumipunasays
birgerjohansson at 93:
Better a pig than a fascist
I grew up with Porco Rosso, but haven’t watched the film in many years, and generally I’m not much into film analysis. I mainly love Ghibli films for the aesthetics.
Anyway, some time before the US election I saw that famous quote again on social media. It occurred to me that since Porco/Marco makes his living as a bounty hunter, he’s basically a poorly regulated freelance cop. A complicated, flawed character – and still better than a fascist, to make the point. At least, if he’d still be doing essentially the same job while serving formally in Mussolini’s air force. Better a wild pig than a fascist pig. Perhaps not a perfect analogy for Harris vs. Trump, since Harris is very much part of a system, while Trump’s fascism is poorly disciplined and amateurish.
I have to wonder if Marco’s pig transformation is, in part, a deliberate allusion to the English characterization of cops as pigs. And how that relates to whatever connotations “pig” has in Japanese culture.
lumipunasays
Lynna at 103 and 110:
I suppose Trump having chats with world leaders is not considered a violation of the Logan Act now that he’s the incoming president (even if not formally confirmed by Congress yet).
However, I wonder if this license extends to his private supporters and possible future officials, such as Musk, who seems eager to insert himself in Trump’s future foreign policy.
Joshua Johnson will be the face of the resurrected “Onion News Network.” […] ONN effectively ended in 2013 […] under the ownership of private equity […] In January, [Ben Collins, a former disinformation reporter for NBC News] posted on social media that he was trying to recruit people to help him buy the Onion. What started as more or less a joke, though, eventually succeeded
Segments resumed Sep 30. Extra gags lurk in the chyrons. =)
“I think Trump is putting forward a clear and forceful vision of vengeful bloodshed. […] the ad is not entirely partisan. Don Jr. appears in there several times, and there are rumors JD Vance might show up in the next ad. […] But at the end of the day, is this just Trump being Trump, or is he actually planning on literally killing all these people? Maybe. Maybe he isn’t. I don’t know.”
“We’ll just have to wait and see. […] As someone who is featured prominently in the ad, I’ll be keeping a close eye on the story”
* Chyron: Critics argue new ad could alienate swing voters who do not want to die.
* Among the targets were the state of Maryland, a puppy, and Tom Hanks.
@128 JM
AP: Trump’s shunning of transition planning may have severe consequences, governance group says
Trump does not give a fuck about policy nor governance. The reasons he wants to be president are: to feed his narcissistic ego and to stay out of jail.
He farms out everything else.
Judicial appointments? He makes a deal with the Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society. It basically amounts to ‘help me get elected, and you I’ll appoint whatever judges you recommend.
Project 2025 was basically the same deal. The people behind the project would help get Trump elected, and he would give them free rein over policy. He claimed to know nothing about it, and that might possibly be true.
Someone moved the UK’s oldest satellite and there appears to be no record of exactly who, when or why.
Launched in 1969, just a few months after humans first set foot on the Moon, Skynet-1A was put high above Africa’s east coast to relay communications for British forces.
When the spacecraft ceased working a few years later, gravity might have been expected to pull it even further to the east, out over the Indian Ocean.
But today, curiously, Skynet-1A is actually half a planet away, in a position 22,369 miles (36,000km) above the Americas.
Orbital mechanics mean it’s unlikely the half-tonne military spacecraft simply drifted to its current location.
Almost certainly, it was commanded to fire its thrusters in the mid-1970s to take it westwards. The question is who that was and with what authority and purpose? …
The loon is the state bird of Minnesota, a black and white duck like creature with piercing red eyes.
It’s also the mascot of Minnesota United, whose owner Bill McGuire commissioned a giant steel sculpture of a loon, to sit outside the club’s new stadium in St Paul.
…
“You’re going to think this is a bit daft, but the only thing I knew about the loon back then was that it had been sampled on various dance tracks I used to listen to back in the Sub Club in Glasgow in the early 90s,” said Andy.
But after much research into the bird and its relevance to Minnesota, Andy came up with a design and asked Chris and Emily to build it, using the same shipbuilding techniques used on the Kelpies…
Trump does not give a fuck about policy nor governance. The reasons he wants to be president are: to feed his narcissistic ego and to stay out of jail.
He farms out everything else.
That is very true. The point is that there is an existing huge governmental organization that will have to deal with the Trump administration. In some cases Trump and his administration will be able to sweep away standards, more then you would expect are ultimately set by the president or by tradition. In others the will have trouble because they are set by the Constitution or law or the organization is simply too big to redirect with a handful of edicts from the top.
It’s going to get very messy and it isn’t clear how things will turn out.
Lynna at 103 and 110:
I suppose Trump having chats with world leaders is not considered a violation of the Logan Act now that he’s the incoming president (even if not formally confirmed by Congress yet).
However, I wonder if this license extends to his private supporters and possible future officials, such as Musk, who seems eager to insert himself in Trump’s future foreign policy.
I have seen a lot of dispute about this online.
In my opinion (IANAL), Trump is violating the Logan Act because he is conducting “unauthorized negotiations.”
Text from January 30, 1799:
Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
Does Trump have “authority”? No, he does not. Not yet. He will have authority after the inauguration, when he is officially sworn in as president.
Trump’s discussions with Putin about Ukraine should qualify as violations of the Logan Act, in my opinion. Ditto for Trump’s discussions with Bibi Netanyahu about the conflict in Gaza.
As for Elon Musk, that guy should no where near even quasi-official discussions of foreign policy, nor the making of USA foreign policy. Not at this time anyway. If he ends up with an official cabinet post, that could change. Meanwhile Musk appears in the “Trump Family Election Photo.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-family-election-photo-features-elon-muskbut-not-melania/
[…] Elon Musk appears to have been absorbed into Donald Trump’s family fold. The billionaire was included in an election-night group photo—posted to Musk’s X by Don Jr.’s daughter Kai and captioned “the whole squad”—featuring all the Trumps except Melania. In the pic, Musk is sandwiched between Eric and Lara Trump, holding his son X-AE-A12 and sort of smiling. Unfortunately he has a lot to sort of smile about: For starters, the $119 million he spent on the Trump campaign proved to be a lucrative investment, the win accompanied by a $21 billion stock-fueled surge in Musk’s net worth. Trump has also floated the idea of offering Musk a cabinet position; something fake-sounding and as-yet nonexistent like “secretary of cost-cutting.” And now, it looks like he’s part of the family. […]
Bekenstein Boundsays
Reginald Selkirk@120:
NASA Remains Stubbornly Silent on Why Crew Went to Hospital After Dragon Splashdown
Oh, wonderful. So, on top of bird flu, that nasty orange rash, and the continuing saga of COVID, now we get to deal with the Andromeda Strain, too?!
birgerjohansson@122:
At 95, Noam Chomsky has lost the ability to speak or write.
Why?
Lynna@125:
Always been a lousy TV night, frankly, but I confess I found the season finale of American Democracy particularly dissatisfying.
he had “a massive stroke” in the U.S. last year. “He has difficulty speaking, and the right side of his body is numb,” […] visited daily by a neurologist, speech therapist, and pulmonologist. “His condition has improved significantly,” the paper added. “He left the ICU and is now in a regular room.”
birgerjohanssonsays
‘MAGA Panics McConnell Launches Senate “Coup” Against Trump’
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZasRucqgV0
.
Trump cannot get re-elected and some of his plans will be too impopular for his sycophants in the senate.
We have to rely on Mitch Fucking McConnell to stop Project 2025 ???
birgerjohanssonsays
It is now 30 years since TLC’s album “Crazysexycool” (with music like ‘Waterfall’) arrived. They influenced artists all over the world.
birgerjohanssonsays
Margaret Atwood is 85.
As she was born 1939, I realised those who were 15 at the start of WWII and just barely old enough to be soldiers at the end of the war will be 100 years old this year.
This means we will be losing those with living memory of fighting in WWII right about now.
lumipunasays
Lynna at 144 – Thanks for your opinion. Meanwhile,
In the pic, Musk is sandwiched between Eric and Lara Trump, holding his son X-AE-A12 and sort of smiling.
It’s been a few days since the election, and surrealism levels in US news are rapidly rising, evoking memories from the first Trump term. I knew from several years ago (since I’m extremely online) that Musk has a record of giving his children weirdo names that wouldn’t pass child protection scrutiny here in Finland. I had almost forgotten that – Musk regularly tries to provoke the media with something new, and I generally try to avoid paying attention to him (I’ve long had him blocked on Twitter).
This also caught my eye with its delightful absurdity (from Reginald Selkirk quoting The Telegraph at 79):
Mr Kennedy, a vaccine sceptic who has also been the subject of a series of bizarre stories involving animals,
Just the other day, I saw a tweet from a well-reputed US medial doctor named Ashley G. Winter, saying simply “Just because you have great pecs, doesn’t mean you understand public health policy”. I hate that I’m not even American but I still knew instantly who and what argument this was about. Seriously, people have argued that Kennedy is well suited for managing public health because he’s deeply interested in health issues (like many nutcases are) and takes care of his own health (has a steroid body that signals fitness to other misguided idiots).
@147. birgerjohansson : “Trump cannot get re-elected ..”
Under current rules?* Sure.
Will Trump change those rules to serve more terms or rule by proxy?
Franklin D. Roosevelt had 4 terms before the rule was in place.. Trump, well, does he play by the rules and accept limitations and has he talked about abolishing the US Constituition (the document not the old ship) before?
Yeah, I wouldn’t count on it. Even with his age and likely poor health.
.* Which, to be fair, I don’t think are the best given frex a third Obama term could have been comfortably won and a lot better than what we got post 2016 & the whole lame duck effect thing although can see both sides of this. Whole USA political system is rubbish anyhow given who it’s allowed to come into power and keep winning even when they don’t actually get a majority of the people wanting them. Allthat is by the bye tho’ as saying goes.
StevoRsays
^ Not that I’d put it past him to destroy the eponymous old sailing frigate either. After all, what use would Trump see in preserving maritime history and honouring the oldey timey “suckers and losers” who gave their lives to create the nation he parasitises.
Oh, better that her shattered hulk
Should sink beneath the wave;
Her thunders shook the mighty deep,
And there should be her grave;
Sure Trump wouldn’t mind seeing those verses come true.. Besides, did her cannons capture any airports in that war huh? Did they?!!1ty!!?
Albeit I’m sure he’d rather flog it off to some billionaire for cash and favours for his own gain if he could..
StevoRsays
British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has apologised and withdrawn a children’s book he wrote after it was criticised for causing damaging and disrespectful offence to Indigenous Australians.
[…] Let us gather together today to honor a man who weathered this nation’s racial and economic barriers to rise in triumph against them.
Let us gather together today to honor a man who weathered this nation’s racial and economic barriers to rise in triumph against them. The life and work of Quincy Delight Jones Jr., affectionately known as “Q,” is one such story. A trumpeter, producer, conductor, composer, and arranger, Jones was born on March 14, 1933, in Chicago, and left this earthly realm on Nov. 3, at his home in Los Angeles. He was 91.
For over almost five decades, Jones persevered, rising from a life of abject hardship to become a major influence in not only the music industry, but also in the worlds of film and television. From the moment the news of his death was announced by his family, people from across the nation and around the globe have paid homage to Jones—and not only his friends, but from all whose lives he touched through his craft.
Join us in celebration of his life and legacy. […]
Lots of thoughtful praise in written text from various sources, plus many delightful videos, are available at the link.
Interesting history is also presented. For example:
His ability to slip between genres may well have involved a degree of pragmatism. He had become a recording artist in his own right in the late 50s, leading bands staffed with impressive musicians – one session for his second album featured Charles Mingus, Milt Jackson, Art Farmer and Herbie Mann – but when he formed his own 18-piece big band in Europe in 1959, they achieved both critical acclaim and penury. Resolving to “learn the difference between music and the music business”, he took a job at Mercury Records, where his breakthrough hit was Lesley Gore’s 1963 teen-pop anthem It’s My Party, rush-released to beat a version of the same song Phil Spector had recorded with the Crystals.
On the one hand, you could view that record’s adolescent soap opera as being at odds with the sophisticated and complex music Jones had released on his own recent albums. These included The Quintessence – home to an astonishing, breakneck take on Thelonious Monk’s Straight, No Chaser – and Big Band Bossa Nova, which opened with Jones’s evergreen composition Soul Bossa Nova, best known today as the theme to the Austin Powers films.
On the other, perhaps you could tell they were the work of the same man: after all, beneath the campy melodrama of the lyrics, there was a distinct Latin-American flavour to the rhythm of It’s My Party, an elegance to its punchy horn arrangement. Besides, nobody else in music was shifting with apparent ease between recording chart-topping teen pop singles, arranging and conducting the Count Basie Orchestra for a collaborative album with Frank Sinatra (1964’s It Might As Well Be Swing), releasing progressive jazz albums and pursing a parallel career as a film composer
Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) is projected to beat Republican Kari Lake in a consequential race for Arizona Senate, dealing the former local news anchor her second straight electoral loss, according to Decision Desk HQ.
Gallego, who has served in the House for nearly a decade representing a Phoenix-based House seat, will succeed outgoing Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.). Sinema opted against reelection after changing her political affiliation from Democrat to Independent last year, as Sinema faced steep odds in getting reelected. […]
A Federal Emergency Management Agency employee was fired after recently advising a survivor assistance team not to visit homes with yard signs that support President-elect Donald Trump during Hurricane Milton relief efforts.
FEMA did not clarify when or where the incident happened, and did not identify the employee. But in a statement on Saturday, FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell called the incident “reprehensible.” …
When Rebecca gave me the green light to write weekly dispatches from America’s northern neighbor last year, I introduced myself as “your aspiring new Canadian boyfriend” to riff on the trope of fictional romantic partners you wouldn’t know because they live in Canada. Plus of course I wanted all of y’all to like me.
I didn’t expect a day would come where I might be fielding marriage proposals from Wonkette readers keen to acquire citizenship.
My ex-wife and I are too lazy and amicable to have bothered with finalizing divorce paperwork after things went sideways so it might take some time before I’m free to walk down an aisle again. Manic pixie dream girls are preferred but it seems kinda selfish to at least not be open to a sexless gay marriage if it helps save someone’s life. I’ve written newspaper advertorials and impersonated tech bro CEOs as a ghostwriter so it’s not like I’m a stranger to prostituting myself.
I’m only half-kidding about this but I won’t be surprised if a maple-scented cottage industry pops up similar to Russia’s mail-order brides but without the stigma or borscht. Google Trends say searches for “Move to Canada” nearly broke the internet last week, particularly early Wednesday morning when people woke to the news a majority of their compatriots had voted for what George Orwell called “a boot stamping on a human face forever.”
You will not be surprised to hear the queries were most common in non-Dumbfuckistan states Kamala Harris won, such as Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Minnesota, and Oregon. (Hawaii not so much, but they wouldn’t do well in the cold anyway.) Others that reached “breakout” status, which Google defines as a search increase of more than 5,000 percent, include:
– Cost to move to Canada from U.S.
– Can I move to Canada if Trump wins
– How to move to Ireland from U.S.
– Easiest country to move to from U.S.A.
– Jobs in Canada for Americans
I can see the appeal of Ireland since they famously banished all the snakes from the island instead of letting them form a political movement. Also they speak adorable English. But simply fleeing to Canada isn’t as easy as you might think. Comedian Marc Maron, who saw the bloody writing on the wall years ago, is currently applying for residency and has talked about it on his podcast. One thing he found is that being a wealthy celebrity with powerful connections doesn’t mean you get to skip to the front of the line, and nor should it.
I’ve always envied the way members of the European Union can simply work in each other’s countries hassle-free, and I used to wish — at least in the pre-MAGA days of yore — that we had a similar working arrangement like the Aussies and Kiwis do. My first grownup job was actually in the US where I worked as a whitewater guide on the Penobscot River in northern Maine during my university years.
The first two summers were under the table but my boss chose to sponsor a visa application for the final two, and one of the hoops required to jump through was convincing a bureaucrat that there weren’t available American workers who could do it instead. Being a job involving a very particular set of skills located in the middle of nowhere, it wasn’t a tough argument to make, but the process was far from automatic.
I’ve since regretted not using this as a stepping stone to a Green Card or maybe even dual citizenship. If only to use it just to vote against Republicans.
Sad to say but there’s a good chance I may never visit the United States ever again. I don’t have a criminal record but as a journalist I am very much now an alleged “enemy of the people.” I just googled my byline plus the soon-to-be-self-pardoning convicted felon as an experiment, and the top results were tweets linking to unfavorable assessments of the man on this here mommyblog as well as an old story for VICE about the grand opening of a Trump Tower in Vancouver. (Yes, it’s since gone out of business because duh.) I’m a tall, strapping white dude but even the dimmest border official would easily see whose side of the culture war I’m on without much digging.
It’s worth reminding the same anti-immigrant bullshit is boiling up north as well. Last month, the Trudeau government announced it was slashing the number of new permanent residents for the next three years, down from the targeted 500,000 a year to 395,000 next year, 380,000 in 2026 and 365,000 in 2027. The reason the PM gave is they simply screwed up juggling the numbers post-COVID:
In the tumultuous times as we emerged from the pandemic, between addressing labor needs and maintaining population growth, we didn’t get the balance quite right. With the plan we’re announcing today, along with previously announced measures, we’re making our immigration system work better.
He even said it with a straight face. More likely he’s watched his rival Pierre Poilievre riding brown-skinned boogeymen at the border to a commanding lead in the polls and realized welcoming legions of new Canadians — which historically has kind of been the country’s main jam — isn’t going over well at a time when most people can’t afford igloos and are blaming him specifically.
There’s a sense that a silver lining for Canada might be that voters will back away from the Conservatives if the current HOLY SHIT THE MURICANS DID WHAA?! revulsion sticks. A prime minister Poilievre seemed almost a fait accompli with Team Trudeau tanking in the polls. That he was inevitable, like Thanos. Although it’s fair to wonder how much Justin Trudeau would even still want the job if he’ll have to deal with that fucking monster in the Oval Office all over again.
One of the sadder notes for me personally in an evening full of them was the news Wayne Gretzky attended an election night party at Mar-a-Lago. I guess he has more in common with Vladimir Putin’s good pal Alex Ovechkin than just being really, really good at hockey. The Great One’s jersey number was 99 but he’s a one percenter at heart, and we should really stop calling him “the Great One.”
No doubt a certain president-elect would happily take the nickname for himself. [Image at the link]
In its first episode since the election, the cast of “Saturday Night Live” marked President-elect Donald Trump’s victory with a message powered by sarcasm: “We have been with you all along.”
The cast opened the show by striking a subdued chord. Ego Nwodim reflected on the presidential vote, noting that many viewers considered the results “shocking and even horrifying.”
“Donald Trump, who tried to forcibly overturn the results of the last election, was returned to office by an overwhelming majority,” Heidi Gardner said, with Kenan Thompson continuing: “This is the same Donald Trump who openly called for vengeance against his political enemies.”
Bowen Yang chimed in to say that “now, thanks to the Supreme Court, there are no guardrails,” before Thompson flipped the mood entirely, turning to false flattery.
“That is why we at SNL would like to say to Donald Trump: We have been with you all along,” Thompson said, with Yang later adding that the team was “so excited for Trump 2.0.”
[…] The cast’s satirical U-turn came as world leaders who previously criticized Trump are also contending with their past comments, preparing for a new phase of their relationship with the United States.
“We have never wavered in our support for you, even when others doubted you,” Yang said, while Sarah Sherman added: “Every single person on this stage believed in you.”
Gardner later told viewers that she voted for Trump “50 times” in the swing state of Pennsylvania.
“Every single person on this stage voted for you,” Marcello Hernández added.
“Because we see ourselves in you. We look at you and think: That’s me,” Nwodim quipped.
“So, if you’re keeping some sort of list of your enemies, then …” Thompson began, before Hernández finished his sentence: “We should not be on that list.”
A new character, with bulging biceps and a red tie wrapped around his head a la Rambo, was introduced to the audience as “Hot Jacked Trump,” played by James Austin Johnson, the show’s star Trump impersonator.
“That’s right, it’s me, Hot Jacked Trump,” he said. “They finally got the body right.”
Johnson told the audience that “from now on,” the cast will convey only a “very flattering portrayal of Trump because, frankly, he’s my hero” and that he will make “an incredible president and eventually king.” […]
Re: Lynna at 159, plus the recent main blog thread on US immigration enforcement
One of the sadder notes for me personally in an evening full of them was the news Wayne Gretzky attended an election night party at Mar-a-Lago. I guess he has more in common with Vladimir Putin’s good pal Alex Ovechkin than just being really, really good at hockey. The Great One’s jersey number was 99 but he’s a one percenter at heart, and we should really stop calling him “the Great One.”
Lately, I’ve been thinking about two specific case studies on the successes (to be a bit snarky, but mostly serious) of the US immigration system. Both are Finnish persons also featured on English Wikipedia.
Tony Halme (1963-2010) was a socially dysfunctional, toxic-masculine muscle man from a broken family. He spent his young adult years (most of the 1980s and 1990s) in California, working odd jobs and building a career as actor, boxer and show wrestler. He appeared in a number of US and Finnish movies, including a minor role in Die Hard 3. After returning to Finland, he dabbled with politics in the ascending nationalist populist Finns party. His single term in the parliament (2003-2007) brought him to the attention of those Finns who didn’t already know him from the jackass sports. Personally, I still didn’t pay much attention to him, because I didn’t follow politics or celebrity screwup tabloid headlines at the time.
Just recently, I started looking up info about Halme because I heard a semi-credible rumor that he was actually deported from the US back in the 1990s. That was for possessing an illegal firearm, which turned into a recurring theme in his later life, together with alcoholism and drug abuse. Wikipedia only mentions that he had a green card acquired via his already broken first marriage, with an American. He ended up divorcing twice before his death, both times involving allegations of infidelity or domestic abuse. His whole life story is a remarkable clusterfuck. One could say America dodged a bullet in deporting him, perhaps literally. Finland wasn’t sending her best there.
Toward the end of his stint in parliament, Halme became known for occasional hate speech, drug/DUI and firearm offenses and worsening drug and alcohol related physical and mental health problems. I think his boxing career may have also contributed to the scrambling of his brain. Eventually, he was too ill to do any political work (he was also elected into Helsinki city council, but didn’t even try to work there). In January 2010 he shot himself dead in his home, again with an illegal gun. It is unclear whether it was a suicide or accident. That was a couple days after his 47th birthday, which was on January 6.
Meanwhile, Teemu Selänne (born 1970) was a world class ice hockey star. Since 1988 he played in the US National Hockey League, according to Wikipedia, and presumably lived mostly stateside. Officially, he became a resident of California in 2000. That was around the peak of his career, when he was Finland’s national pride and even some sort of celebrity in the US. Nowadays, he has a place in the NHL Hall of Fame or whatever. Personally, I never watched ice hockey and barely knew him by name.
By 2014, Selänne retired from ice hockey and became a regular rich asshole guy with fading celebrity value. In the age of social media, he and his wife became best known for spewing rightwing and anti-immigrant political opinions. In 2016 he spread a dubious story of a Syrian refugee rapist. In winter 2022-23, when there was a mild energy crisis and some Finns were struggling to heat their homes, he complained (while living in California) about the heating bill of his large, mostly empty second home in Finland.
In March 2024, Selänne and his wife became US/Finnish dual citizens. Later this year, they proudly reported on having voted for Trump. An immigration dream come true.
[…] he and his wife became best known for spewing rightwing and anti-immigrant political opinions […] In winter 2022-23, when there was a mild energy crisis and some Finns were struggling to heat their homes, he complained (while living in California) about the heating bill of his large, mostly empty second home in Finland. […] Later this year, they proudly reported on having voted for Trump. An immigration dream come true.
Aaarrrgghhh, well that’s a story that is all too typical. Anti-immigrant bluster, privileged and clueless (plus lacking in empathy), and then voting for Trump.
By Chabeli Carrazana and originally published by The 19th
In every state where paid sick leave was on the ballot, voters approved it. On Election Day, measures in Missouri, Alaska, and Nebraska passed by wide margins: In Alaska, 57% of voters approved it, in Missouri it was 58%, and in Nebraska a whopping 74%. [Voters in those states supported Trump.]
The three new initiatives will give workers earned sick time depending on the size of their employer. If the business has 15 or more workers in Missouri and Alaska, or 20 or more in Nebraska, workers earn up to 56 hours of paid sick time a year. That’s equivalent to seven days if they work eight-hour shifts. Those who work for smaller businesses can earn up to 40 hours a year, or five eight-hour days.
The paid leave laws go into effect in May (Missouri), July (Alaska), and October (Nebraska).
Workers can use the time in case of illness or to care for a family member who is sick. The benefit is considered critical to help support and retain low-wage workers, who are the most likely to have limited or no access to paid sick time. The majority of them are women.
About 80% of workers in the country get some paid sick time, but among the lowest earners, only 38% do. Different industries provide different levels of leave. Only half of hospitality and food service workers—who are predominantly women—get paid sick time.
The United States is one of a handful of countries that doesn’t have a national-level paid leave policy, and so over the years, states have created their own measures guaranteeing either paid sick leave, paid parental leave, or both.
With the three new laws, 18 states and Washington, D.C., now have their own guaranteed paid sick time laws. Alaska’s and Missouri’s ballot measures will also increase those states’ minimum wages up to $15 an hour, following in the footsteps of 30 other states. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour and hasn’t been raised in 15 years.
Inimai Chettiar, the president of A Better Balance, the nonprofit organization that helped draft the three ballot measures, said that, as the voting results show, “paid sick time is a winning issue that is overwhelmingly beneficial for families and popular among voters across party lines.” […]
In a district demolished a century ago in the Tulsa Race Massacre and rebuilt from the rubble, state Rep. Monroe Nichols declared victory as the first Black Tulsan elected as the city’s mayor.
Black residents say Nichols’ election adds a new, inspiring page to the history books of a city known for its dark past. In 1921, hundreds of African American Tulsans lost their lives, homes, and businesses when a white mob attacked the affluent neighborhood of Greenwood.
The Greenwood Cultural Center was alight with music and cheering Tuesday night on Tulsa’s Black Wall Street, as Nichols won the mayoral seat 56% to 44% over Tulsa County Commissioner Karen Keith. Nichols scored a decisive win despite raising about $1 million less than his opponent, campaign finance records show.
“Tonight on the grounds of greatness, we proclaim that Tulsa is a city on the move,” Nichols said in his election night remarks.
A fellow Democratic lawmaker, Sen. Kevin Matthews, said Wednesday that Nichols’ victory “one of the most historic and significant things that I’ve seen in my lifetime in Tulsa,” where only 15% of the population is Black. […]
There’s a sense that a silver lining for Canada might be that voters will back away from the Conservatives if the current HOLY SHIT THE MURICANS DID WHAA?! revulsion sticks.
Not so sure. There was a poll done which asked how Canadians would have voted in the US election (I could dig up the link). Harris 60+%, Trump 20+%, the rest undecided. But of Conservative voters, more than half would have voted Trump. The pro-authoritarian populist sentiment is rising in Canada as it is elsewhere. And the left-of-centre vote is always split between Liberal and NDP. I’m not optimistic about the near future.
All three Republican Ohio Supreme Court candidates swept their races Tuesday night, giving them a 6-1 majority on the state’s highest court and striking fear into abortion rights advocates while giving hope to anti-abortion advocates.
[…] Republicans have controlled the Ohio Supreme Court since 1986 and their current 4-3 majority will become a 6-1 majority starting next year.
[…] Last year, 57% of Ohioans voters enshrined reproductive rights in the Ohio Constitution, but it did not automatically wipe away the anti-abortion laws on the books. There are two ways to get rid of those laws: the legislature repealing them or the court ruling they are unconstitutional under the amendment.
“We are deeply concerned that the majority of the Supreme Court of Ohio will now be held by justices that have been endorsed by extreme anti-abortion organizations,” Abortion Forward Executive Director Kellie Copeland said in a statement. “(The Ohio Reproductive Freedom Amendment) is the law of the land, and it must be enforced, regardless of the personal views of justices sitting on the court.”
It’s up to the Ohio Supreme Court to figure out what exactly the amendment language means.
“As we think about this court going forward, they are going to be more likely to scrutinize the language and look for loopholes […]
This was Ohio’s second supreme court election since Republican state lawmakers added party labels to the Ohio Supreme Court races in 2021.
[…] Ohio is one of seven states that elects state supreme court justices based on partisan elections. Nonpartisan elections are used in 14 states for state supreme court races.
[…] The Ohio Chamber of Commerce, who endorsed the winning candidates, celebrated the election results.
“As our state continues to grow, our business community needs a legal climate that is both predictable and consistent,” Steve Stivers, President and CEO of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement to the Ohio Capital Journal. “We endorsed these three judges because they will serve with fairness and impartiality to ensure that Ohio businesses and residents can thrive.”
Turcer cautions people against getting overly worried about a Republican dominated supreme court just yet.
“We should focus on their judicial ethics and just pay attention to what’s happening, because at the end of the day, Democrat or Republican, you can be a really good judge or good justice,” she said. “It’s how they make decisions and how they operate ethically or unethically that matters.”
The drone attack was the largest on the Russian capital since the war began in 2022, as the U.K. defense chief estimated that Russia suffered its worst ever month of casualties.
Ukraine launched its largest drone attack on the Russian capital city of Moscow since the full-scale war began in 2022, injuring one person and forcing three major airports to divert flights, as Russia fired an unprecedented 145 drones against Ukraine.
Moscow’s regional governor, Andrei Vorobyov, called it a “massive attack” and said two houses in the village of Stanovoye, 15 miles southeast of the city, had caught fire after the drones fell. He said a 52-year-old woman was in intensive care after she was injured by shrapnel and hospitalized with burns to her face, neck and hands.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense said it “intercepted and destroyed” 34 drones over Moscow following the latest strikes on the capital.
All three airports have since resumed operations, including Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport, Russia’s busiest.
It is not the first time Ukraine has struck the capital, but its largest attack on the city to date comes as the United Kingdom’s defense chief, Adm. Tony Radakin, estimated that Russia had suffered its worst ever month for casualties since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022.
In an interview with the BBC on Sunday, Radakin said Russia’s forces suffered an average of about 1,500 dead and injured “every single day” in October, bringing its total losses to 700,000.
He said Russia was having to bear “enormous pain and suffering because of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s ambition,” and that losses came at the expense of “tiny increments of land.”
However, he added there was “no doubt that Russia is making tactical, territorial gains and that is putting pressure on Ukraine.”
Across the border, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that Russia launched “a record 145 Shaheds and other strike drones against Ukraine” on Saturday night. The Iranian-made Shahed drones are a cheap but effective weapons being widely used by Russia.
Zelenskyy added Russia had used “more than 800 guided aerial bombs, around 600 strike drones, and nearly 20 missiles” this week.
Ukrainian officials said at least two people were injured and buildings were damaged as Russia launched an overnight attack on the southern region of Odesa.
“The enemy has once again launched a massive attack on our region,” the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in the Odesa region said on its social media account. “Garages with cars and property were on fire, residential buildings, shops were damaged.” […]
As Russia continues its offensive, Ukraine is also reckoning with a shifting political landscape as its biggest funder elects a new president. [snipped Trump’s repetitive blather.]
[…] Russia’s Defense Ministry said it destroyed 14 drones over Bryansk and seven over the Kaluga region overnight, including a further seven over Oryol and six over Kursk, the border region invaded by Ukraine in August.
[…] Moscow has developed a series of electronic “umbrellas” over the city, with a complex web of air defenses capable of shooting down drones before they reach the Kremlin at the heart of the Russian capital.
Zelenskyy also said Thursday that North Korean troops had suffered losses in clashes with Ukraine.
Two weeks ago, the Pentagon confirmed that some 10,000 North Korean troops have been sent to Russia for training and are presumed to be joining the fight against Ukraine, intensifying their partnership and alarming the United States and its allies.
According to Zelenksyy, there were 11,000 North Korean soldiers in the areas bordering Ukraine and were taking part in “combat against Ukrainian militaries.”
“There are losses, this is a fact,” he said.
birgerjohanssonsays
The Boss nazgul: “Your body, my choice!”
Eowyn: (runs him through with a sword)
whheydtsays
Re: birgerjohannson @ #177…
…while the Hobbit slices his knee tendons from behind with an Arnorian blade.
Bekenstein Boundsays
Oilievre hobnobbed with Nazis. I think he could be very dangerous.
birgerjohanssonsays
whheydt @ 178
Yes, both contributed to the prophecy “no man can kill him”.
But I was referring to a meme at Facebook (responding to idiot MAGA trolls).
whheydtsays
Re birgerjohannson @ #180..
My late wife used to do an extended analysis of that. Starting from the fact that she had a degree in Linguistics and Tolkein was a philologist. Going to Latin, she pointed out the distinction in one word that gets translated as “man”, but in Latin distinguished “man” from “woman”. There there was another Latin word that also gets translated as “man” but distinguishes between a human being and an animal.
So she has Eowyn pointing out that she is a woman, not a man. The Nazgul replies but using the other term, to which Eowyn replies by say, “The meet the Hobbit–not a man under that term–who has just introduced an Arnorian blade into the back of your knee.” So, getting “not by the hand of man” regardless of which version is meant.
If I’m not too much mistaken (I don’t know Latin…she knew at least two versions), I think it is “homo” that is the man/woman distinction and “wer” that distinguishes between men and animals. But I could be wrong on which is which, and–indeed–in the spelling.
It appears that, besides Tolkien’s reservations about “when Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinan” being the army being hidden by cut branches, and instead, creating trees that could induce a forest to actually travel (the Ents and Huorn herding trees), he also appears to have felt that being delivered by C-section was a way to get around not being slain “by the the hand of man born of woman” was a weak solution.
So…back to MacBeth for both of these.
YIKES!! Trump Supporters Instantly Ruin Their Lives with Vote
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=pOg-PSE08HU
Myself, I might not ostracise people who voted for Trump as I understand most of them have a typically Merican level of ignorance, as distinct from being blatant racists.
But then again, I have the whole of the Atlantic Ocean as a moat, shielding me from the fallout.
A new colloidal thermal interface material (TIM) promises to significantly outperform commercially available liquid metals like Thermalright, Thermal Grizzly, and Coollaboratory products. Researchers at the Cockrell School of Engineering, part of the University of Texas, summarize their new invention as a mechanochemistry-engineered mix of Galinstan alloy and ceramic aluminum nitride. The bottom line is that the new TIM can outperform the best commercial liquid metal alternatives by between 56% and 72%, highlights Golem.de…
A key cooling performance figure shared by the researchers is that the new TIM can cut the energy needed for the cooling pump by 65%…
The major difference with this new TIM is how it is made into a colloidal substance using mechanochemistry. Basically, a liquid metal alloy called Galinstan (gallium, indium, and tin), is mixed with microscopically dispersed insoluble particles of ceramic aluminum nitride. A mechanochemistry technique ensures the optimal dispersion of the ceramic in the liquid metal – resulting in its attractive thermal properties…
Less than a month into his first term, Donald Trump thought it’d be a good idea to whine to reporters for a while about the conditions he inherited from Barack Obama. “To be honest, I inherited a mess — it’s a mess — at home and abroad. A mess,” the then-president said in February 2017. He added, “We’re going to take care of it all. I just want to let you know I inherited a mess.”
On CBS’ “Late Show,” Stephen Colbert joked soon after, in a message to Trump, “No, you inherited a fortune. We elected a mess.”
[…] Trump had no idea how good he had it: He took office at a time of low unemployment, steady economic growth, the lowest uninsured rate on record, low crime, low inflation, a modest deficit, a rising stock market, and a country that was broadly respected around the world.
The incessant “mess” nonsense notwithstanding, Obama effectively handed his successor a gift, complete with a nice little bow on top.
Eight years later, I have every confidence that the incoming president will whine some more, but the truth is that conditions are even more favorable for him than they were in early 2017.
The morning after Election Day, JP Morgan published an analysis marveling at the fact that Democrats “were not able to convert” excellent economic conditions — labor market, manufacturing boom, wage growth, etc. — into electoral gains. And while I’m mindful of the fact that there are hundreds of competing explanations, the assessment was a timely reminder of the golden situation awaiting the next president.
The Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell summarized matters nicely in a column that ran late last week:
How could Donald Trump deliver on his promise to fix the U.S. economy? On Day 1, the president-elect should simply proclaim he’s already fixed it — and go play golf. By which I mean: Declare victory but do absolutely nothing else. Execute none of the economic policies he’s promised and appoint no one to carry them out.
This might seem like a joke, but the underlying point has real merit. The looming question for 2025 isn’t whether Trump will, as his closing message argued, “fix” what’s “broke”; the more sensible question is whether Trump will screw up the gift Biden is leaving behind in the Oval Office.
Trump has vowed to improve the economy, but the Biden/Harris administration already did that.
Trump has vowed to lower unemployment, but the Biden/Harris administration already did that.
Trump has vowed to address border crossings, but the Biden/Harris administration already did that.
Trump has vowed to increase energy production, but the Biden/Harris administration already did that.
Trump has vowed to create a manufacturing boom, but the Biden/Harris administration already did that.
Trump has vowed to lower crime, but the Biden/Harris administration already did that.
Trump has vowed to improve the nation’s international standing, but the Biden/Harris administration already did that.
All Trump has to do, in other words, is nothing. I assume he will fail spectacularly at the task.
President-elect Donald Trump said Saturday he will not ask his former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley or his former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to serve in his incoming administration. “I will not be inviting former Ambassador Nikki Haley, or former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, to join the Trump Administration, which is currently in formation,” said Trump on Truth Social. “I very much enjoyed and appreciated working with them previously, and would like to thank them for their service to our Country.”
Commentary:
[…] Part of what makes the developments notable is the practical implications for U.S. foreign policy: As The New York Times reported: “By ruling out Mr. Pompeo and Ms. Haley, Mr. Trump was rejecting two Republicans who had backed U.S. support for Ukraine.” It suggests Moscow was likely pleased by Trump’s Saturday announcement. […]
We remember that Haley endorsed Trump, and that she spoke approvingly of Trump at the Republican Convention. Her political career is still limited (if not ruined) because Haley ran against Trump in the Republican primary race. Trump’s decision is probably partly revenge, and partly sucking up to Putin.
The post-election presidential transition period is relatively brief — Donald Trump will be inaugurated in just 70 days — and there is an enormous amount of work to do to ensure a smooth transfer of power between administrations. Even competent presidents-elect who care about governing find the challenges daunting.
All things considered, however, the last thing Trump has to worry about is Senate confirmation of his nominees. The Republican majority is likely to have 53 members in the new Congress, and there will be nothing the Democratic minority — or even the GOP’s so-called “moderate” faction — can do to stop the Senate from serving as a rubber stamp for the incoming White House’s administrative selections.
And yet, the issue is apparently very much on the president-elect’s mind. NBC News reported:
President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday involved himself publicly in the Senate leadership race for the first time, writing on Truth Social that anyone running to be the next Senate majority leader should agree to let him make recess appointments to his cabinet.
The Senate GOP’s current leader, Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell, is poised to step down after 17 years. Three Republicans — South Dakota’s John Thune, Texas’ John Cornyn, and Florida’s Rick Scott — are vying to succeed him, and by most accounts, Thune is the frontrunner, though Scott has picked up enthusiastic backing from a variety of right-wing figures, including Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, Glenn Beck, and Charlie Kirk. (The leader will be chosen by way of a private ballot, so members won’t have to worry about too great a backlash.)
It was against this backdrop that Trump turned to his social media platform to make an unexpected appeal. “Any Republican Senator seeking the coveted LEADERSHIP position in the United States Senate must agree to Recess Appointments (in the Senate!), without which we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner,” the president-elect wrote.
I suspect that many political observers have forgotten what recess appointments even are, and for good reason: It’s been a while since they were relevant.
The basic idea is that the Constitution empowers a president to make emergency personnel appointments when Congress is not in session. Plenty of White Houses have tried to do play fast and loose with this power, but in 2014, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court strengthened lawmakers’ hand.
What’s more, for the last couple of decades, lawmakers have held pro forma legislative sessions precisely to prevent presidents from making appointments without congressional consent.
Trump, evidently, finds this unacceptable.
Predicably, McConnell’s would-be GOP successors responded to the president-elect’s missive by issuing statements designed to make Trump happy, offering fresh evidence that too many congressional Republicans are prepared to act as Trump’s employees, rather than elected officials serving in a co-equal branch of government.
But let’s not miss the forest for the trees: Five days after he won a second term, one of Trump’s first priorities was to take aim at a basic element of checks and balances. Despite the circumstances that will effectively ensure that all of his nominees are confirmed anyway, regardless of merit or qualification, the incoming Republican president wants greater authority to circumvent the Senate altogether and simply install whomever he wants to powerful posts.
When many of us warned ahead of Election Day that Trump, running on an authoritarian-style platform, would deliberately take steps to undermine democracy if he prevailed, we weren’t kidding.
[…] the fact that Trump is demanding the Senate allow recess appointments is a likely sign that he knows that his picks are so extreme that even a GOP Senate wouldn’t confirm them.
For example, Trump has said he wants Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to take a leading role in the country’s health—a terrifying prospect as Kennedy is an anti-vaxxer who also wants to get rid of fluoride in the country’s water systems, something that could lead to a rise in dental decay and infections in children.
Trump is also reportedly eyeing Kash Patel to head the CIA, NBC News reported. Patel is a conspiracy theorist and MAGA loyalist who wants to shut down the FBI and target anyone who was involved in the probe into Trump’s collusion with Russia during the 2016 campaign.
The three Senate Republicans running to replace Mitch McConnell as leader all quickly came out to say they support Trump’s demand to make recess appointments—a bad sign for anyone hoping that the Senate would serve as a backstop to Trump’s dictatorial impulses.
[…] Even if Trump wants to make recess appointments, it’s unclear if he’d be able to.
The Supreme Court ruled in 2014 that the Senate has to be in a true recess for 10 full days in order for a president to make a recess appointment.
“Of course, now that Congress is effectively a year-round operation, the Recess Appointments Clause has become all-but anachronistic,” legal expert Steve Vladeck wrote in a piece examining whether Trump truly could make recess appointments. “The last time either chamber adjourned before mid-December was 2002. The Senate instead began using ‘pro forma’ sessions in the mid-2000s—at least partly to prevent President George W. Bush from making recess appointments.”
However, given the fact that the current Supreme Court has ruled that Trump is above the law, never put it past them to change the rules to allow Trump to get his way.
Some decisions that Trump has made, including choosing an ambassador to the United Nations:
Republicans began scrambling to replace Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) as House GOP conference chair almost immediately after news broke that President-elect Trump had picked her to serve at the United Nations, with multiple contenders stepping into the race. […]
Stephen Miller, who served as a top adviser during the first Trump administration, will return to the White House in January to serve in a top policy job, multiple officials confirmed Monday.
President-elect Trump has chosen Miller to serve as deputy chief of staff for policy. Miller is expected to take on a leading role implementing Trump’s immigration agenda, which includes plans for mass deportations of immigrants without legal status. […]
Miller was the architect of some of Trump’s first-term immigration policies, including family separation and an order to ban travel into the U.S. from several majority-Muslim countries. […]
Homan touts hard-line immigration views and has previously vowed to “run the biggest deportation force this country has ever seen.”
[…] Trump announced late Sunday that Tom Homan, the former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement who backed his controversial “zero tolerance” policy, will be his administration’s “border czar.”
“I am pleased to announce that the Former ICE Director, and stalwart on Border Control, Tom Homan, will be joining the Trump Administration, in charge of our Nation’s Borders (‘The Border Czar’), including, but not limited to, the Southern Border, the Northern Border, all Maritime, and Aviation Security,” Trump said on Truth Social.
“I’ve known Tom for a long time, and there is nobody better at policing and controlling our Borders,” the post continued. “Likewise, Tom Homan will be in charge of all Deportation of Illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin. Congratulations to Tom. I have no doubt he will do a fantastic, and long awaited for, job.”
Homan touts hard-line immigration views and previously vowed to “run the biggest deportation force this country has ever seen.”
Two people familiar with the decision told NBC News that Homan will have power over policy including, potentially, mass deportations. They said Homan was not vying to be the Department of Homeland Security Secretary — a job one official described as “all of the work and all of the blame,” based on Trump’s frequent firings of DHS Secretaries in his first administration.
He was an early supporter of the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy, which led to thousands of families being separated at the southern border. Trump eventually signed an executive order in 2018 reversing the family separation policy after public outcry.
In an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” that aired in October, Homan was asked whether there was a way to carry out mass deportations without separating families.
“Of course there is. Families can be deported together,” he responded. [video at the link]
Homan is a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative group. He was a contributor to Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership book. He is also the president and CEO of Border911, a nonprofit group that warns of the supposed threat posed by undocumented immigrants. […]
Private prison stocks rose on Monday after President-elect Donald Trump selected immigration hard-liner Tom Homan as his “border czar.”
The Geo Group jumped more than 4% and and CoreCivic nearly 8% in premarket trading. Homan served as the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement during Trump’s first term.
Trump said Sunday on Truth Social that Homan “will be in charge of all Deportation of Illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin.” Homan will be responsible for the southern border, the northern border as well as all maritime and aviation security, Trump said.
[…] “With Trump returning to the White House, there will be a far firmer embrace of Geo Group and CXW,” Isaac Boltansky, an analyst at BTIG, told clients in a Nov. 6 note. The second Trump administration would allow for contracting with the U.S. Marshalls Services and the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Boltansky said.
“More importantly they would take a far more aggressive stance on border enforcement, which would impact the ICE business lines at these firms,” the analyst told clients.
Yes, information is already being obscured by the trumpian way of doing things (compounded by the Russian way of doing things):
After unconfirmed reports of a phone call between United States President-elect Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Ukraine said Monday it was not informed of any such call and even doubts it ever took place.
The Kremlin, meanwhile, claimed Monday the call never happened.
“Reports that the Ukrainian side was informed in advance of the alleged call are false. Subsequently, Ukraine could not have endorsed or opposed the call,” Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi said in a statement sent to journalists.
The Washington Post on Sunday published a report, citing anonymous sources, that Trump talked to Putin on Thursday, for the first time since he was elected. He asked Putin not to escalate in Ukraine and reminded him about U.S. troops’ presence on the continent, the sources said, adding that Ukrainians were aware of the call and did not object. [sounds off to me]
However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office was also not informed the call happened and even has doubts it did, an official close to Zelenskyy told POLITICO.
[…] The Kremlin said it was indeed “made up.”
“It does not correspond to reality … completely false information,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov told Russian media on Monday.
Ukraine has repeatedly said that no talks about the settlement of Russia’s invasion should be conducted without Kyiv and has already adjusted its strategy to appeal to Trump’s hard-nosed approach to foreign policy, offering the use of its natural resources and its battle-hardened troops to secure Europe after the war.
However, Putin saw an opportunity in Trump’s presidency, publicly congratulated him, and declared he would pick up the phone if Trump called.
The United Kingdom wants to use this week’s COP29 climate summit to sell itself as a global environmental leader.
But it’s got a two-letter problem: BP.
One of the U.K.’s largest companies, BP is a global force in fossil fuel drilling — and thick as thieves with COP29’s host Azerbaijan.
BP is Azerbaijan’s biggest foreign investor. There’s even a joke popular in the region that the Azerbaijani government sees two U.K. power bases in Baku: the British Embassy and BP’s office.
That three-way relationship means the U.K. oil and gas multinational’s influence — and the British government’s ties to it — will loom large over the U.K.’s participation in the key United Nations-organized climate summit in Baku this week.
This relationship — between a new government boasting its green credentials, a U.K. firm steeped in fossil fuels and a petrostate battling allegations of human rights abuses — has already exposed ministers to charges of hypocrisy.
“The U.K. government has turned a blind eye to this toxic relationship for too long,” said Louis Wilson, head of fossil fuel investigations at the NGO Global Witness. “BP’s presence in Azerbaijan is wrecking the U.K.’s COP29 climate goals, and undermining U.K. foreign policy interests too.”
[…] It’s an inconvenient truth for new British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, who will lead U.K. negotiations at COP and want to flaunt the fresh Labour government’s climate cred.
They can point to an ambitious domestic climate agenda to cut gas from the British power system by 2030 and ban new licenses for oil and gas exploration.
But the role BP plays in British diplomacy can’t be understated.
[…] “BP’s investments in Azerbaijan mean that the U.K. has far more diplomatic weight in Azerbaijan than would otherwise be the case,” Stuart said. “It provides the senior level engagement, frequency of engagement and access which otherwise we could not hope to have.”
[…] “They need to make clear to U.K.-based oil and gas companies like BP that, as the International Energy Agency and the U.N. secretary-general have said, we cannot be developing any new oil and gas fields if we want to keep below 1.5C of temperature rise set out in the Paris Agreement. To do otherwise risks what scientists describe as catastrophe.” [said Ken Penton, a former Labour adviser who now works with the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative and co-chairs the Labour-affiliated green campaign group SERA.]
[…] Baku rarely misses an opportunity to remind London who really matters in this relationship.
When President Ilham Aliyev sent formal congratulations to Starmer after the general election, by the third paragraph he was hailing Azerbaijan’s “close and reliable partner BP,” for helping the country usher in “the transition to clean energy.”
In reality, BP’s fossil fuel interests in the country still dwarf its renewables plans.
[…] The company confirmed in October that it would build a solar plant, partnering with SOCAR, in the Jabrayil region. The Azerbaijanis call this “liberated territory,” fought for in 2020 in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh war with Armenia, language repeated in SOCAR quotes used on BP’s website when it announced the deal.
And the purpose of that solar farm? It will provide electricity for the Sangachal complex south of Baku — one of the largest oil and gas terminals in the world.
Looks to me like oligarchs dictating government policy.
The vote tally in Nevada’s U.S. Senate race took a little while, but incumbent Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen prevailed over Republican challenger Sam Brown, despite the fact that Donald Trump was the first GOP presidential candidate to win in Nevada in 20 years.
As summarized by Steve Benen from an NBC News article.
[…] To mark this Veterans Day, President Biden will announce that his Administration has delivered more benefits and health care, more quickly, to more veterans than ever before. In 2024 alone, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) delivered $187 billion in earned benefits to 6.7 million veterans and survivors, and processed a record 2.51 million disability claims.
VA delivered more than 131 million health care appointments, over 6 million dental procedures, and provided services and assistance to more than 88,095 family caregivers. Veterans’ trust in VA also reached an all-time high in 2024.
[…] Nick Fuentes, who dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, later went on his show “America First” and said to his 113,000 followers, “Hey [B-word]! We control your bodies. Guess what? Guys win again, okay? Men win again.”
This comes after reports by ProPublica of women like Amber Thurman and Josseli Barnica dying preventable deaths due to being turned away from hospitals in states with abortion bans.
On TikTok, women have been airing their rage, grief, and disappointment in powerful waves of shared emotion. Within 48 hours after Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, the “4B movement” hashtag started trending. Women joining the movement refuse to let their bodies be used as bargaining chips in a patriarchal society.
[…] The upshot: Men are lonely—and this has made them vulnerable to becoming radicalized.
This all points to a disconnected, lonely, and socially awkward generation of Gen Z and millennial men who find Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance’s simplistic masculinity and alpha male posturing appealing. Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, tried to appeal to this group by showing a more evolved version of masculinity, with little success. [sounds a bit overly simplistic to me]
[…] “I teach a concept called the locus of control—many things are outside of your control that can give you anxiety—and the election results certainly are causing many women to feel completely out of control,” she said. “Choosing to abstain from sex, dating, marriage—those are all things an individual can control, even if the country voted for a sexual predator, canned three abortion resolutions, and decided, again, a woman shouldn’t be president.”
The 4B and blue bracelet movements aren’t about what women are withholding, but what they’re demanding—like safety, equality, and respect. And if the respect isn’t willingly given, women will emulate the many political movements that came before and mobilize to create it for themselves.
New Yorker linkHow Syria Became the Middle East’s Drug Dealer
Bashar al-Assad has propped up his regime by exploiting the Middle East’s love of an amphetamine called captagon.
[…] There is a long tradition of petty smuggling in the region. His surname is derived from Ar-Ramtha, a city on the northern edge of Jordan which grew prosperous through the illicit transit of goods in and out of the country.
Until the civil war in Syria began, in 2011, a group of Jordanians known as bahhara (or “sailors”) were licensed to drive taxis across the border. There were about eight hundred such drivers, and everybody understood the real purpose of their journeys: to return to Jordan, where the cost of living is sixty per cent higher than in Syria, with cheap goods. The bahhara brought back fresh produce, cigarettes, and other everyday items, and sold them at a considerable profit. Jordanian customs officials and the bahhara had an informal deal: for a bribe, a driver could bring trunk loads of Syrian products into the country tax free.
When the civil war broke out, rebels opposing the regime of President Bashar al-Assad seized control of the city of Daraa, across the border from Ar-Ramtha. As the two sides fought in the streets, the bahhara trade came to a standstill. According to a report by the Carnegie Middle East Center, eighty per cent of Ar-Ramtha’s stores had closed by 2017. The following year, Assad’s forces recaptured Daraa, and the border crossing reopened. Many of the bahhara resumed their old profession. A few locals pursued a more lucrative opportunity: drugs. […]
Syria has now endured thirteen years of civil war. More than half a million Syrians have died in the fighting; five million have fled abroad. The country’s infrastructure and legitimate economy have been shattered, and the regime is heavily sanctioned internationally. But, with the support of Iran and Russia, Assad has survived, and his government now controls about three-quarters of the country. In the past few years, he has found a desperately needed source of income in captagon.
In Syria, a single pill of the stimulant costs a few cents to produce. But that pill can be sold elsewhere in the Middle East—the only part of the world where captagon is a popular drug—for as much as twenty-five dollars, especially in wealthy cities such as Riyadh. The margins of the business are high enough that exporters can be unsuccessful as often as not and still reap giant profits. The Assad regime now controls much of the captagon trade, making billions of dollars a year. The most significant figure in the government’s production and distribution of captagon is reportedly the President’s younger brother Maher al-Assad, who is the head of the 4th Division of the Syrian Army, a unit founded in 1984 to protect the government from all threats to its authority. Caroline Rose, who studies the captagon trade at the New Lines Institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C., told me that Syria’s amphetamine business is worth some ten billion dollars. The country’s official gross domestic product is only nine billion.
Michael Kenney, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh who researches the transnational drug trade, told me that although the term “narco-state” is often misused, it describes Syria perfectly. […]
Kenney said of the Assad regime, “State institutions have been thoroughly penetrated and corrupted by drug activities. Significant elements of the Army, of the security apparatus, are directly involved in various aspects of the trade. And the government itself—to the extent that there is one—has become heavily reliant on the revenues from captagon exports in order to maintain its governance.”
[…] “The Assad regime was organizing this on a massive scale,” Urben said. “There was a certain professionalism, in terms of organized crime.” Intelligence from within Syria confirmed that the Assad family, and in particular the President’s brother Maher, controlled the supply, in partnership with producers in Lebanon. The Hezbollah connection was significant, Urben explained, “because they’re experts in terms of transportation, facilitation, and corruption in those regions and outside those regions—corruption at ports, money laundering.”
[…] the D.E.A. shared its intelligence on captagon with legislators […] The concern wasn’t that captagon would soon flood America—the country was already in the grip of more powerful and addictive synthetic drugs, such as fentanyl.
The politicians wanted to stop the billions of dollars flowing to Assad’s sanctioned regime, and also to his allies and enablers in Iran and Lebanon. […] the Captagon Act of 2022 was designed to “disrupt and dismantle the Assad regime’s production and trafficking of the lethal narcotic,” and, more recently, the Illicit Captagon Trafficking Suppression Act––which President Joe Biden signed into law as part of April’s foreign-aid package—to widen the ambit of sanctions against those involved with the trade. […] principal goal is cutting off the funding to Assad.
[…] Since the Caesar Act was passed, captagon trafficking has, in fact, increased dramatically. Matthew Zweig helped to implement that legislation as a senior sanctions adviser in the Trump Administration. He is now at the lobbying arm of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a think tank. “For many of the Syrian actors, and for actors in the Iran threat network, captagon is a major sanctions-evasion tool,” he said. But, in his reckoning, this was a reason to work even harder to stifle the trade, rather than a reason to weaken sanctions.
[…] The situation seemed absurd: the Jordanian government knew that the Assad regime was directing much of the captagon trade, and yet it was pretending that Syria was committed to stopping that trade […]
drug empires develop rival centers of power, and the criminals involved in the captagon trade were no doubt determined to keep their businesses going. Zweig [Matthew Zweig, the sanctions expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies] didn’t doubt that Syria’s 4th Division was heavily involved in the captagon business. But the amphetamine and methamphetamine markets in the Middle East had possibly grown beyond Assad’s control.
Zweig noted that the Arab League’s decision to resume relations with Assad was made partly in the hope that he could stop captagon from saturating the region. But the captagon trade was still strong, and possibly growing. Zweig asked, “Is that because Assad won’t stop it—or because he can’t?”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will not allow Sen.-elect Dave McCormick (R-Pa.) to participate in Senate orientation this week because he doesn’t consider the race to be resolved yet.
Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) has also not been invited to orientation yet as his race against Republican Kari Lake has yet to be called. Gallego is ahead by approximately 48,000 votes.
There are two undecided races, one favoring Republicans and one favoring Democrats. The lead is not likely to change but could and both of them are close enough that major news organizations have not called them. McCormick is well ahead in PA but the remaining votes are largely mail in votes in cities that are heavily Democratic. I don’t know about the situation in Arizona but I suspect the news organizations don’t want to call that one until Lake has clearly lost because she is going to sue somebody.
A University of Zagreb virologist treated her own recurring breast cancer by injecting laboratory-grown viruses into her tumor, sparking debate about self-experimentation in medical research. Beata Halassy discovered her stage 3 breast cancer in 2020 at age 49, recurring at the site of a previous mastectomy. Rather than undergo another round of chemotherapy, she developed an experimental treatment using oncolytic virotherapy (OVT).
Over two months, Halassy administered measles and vesicular stomatitis viruses directly into the tumor. The treatment caused the tumor to shrink and detach from surrounding tissue before surgical removal. Post-surgery analysis showed immune cell infiltration, suggesting the viruses had triggered an immune response against the cancer. Halassy has been cancer-free for four years. OVT remains unapproved for breast cancer treatment worldwide. Nature adds: …
[…] John Oliver and his show “Last Week Tonight” returned for its first episode since making an impassioned statement to undecided voters in support of Vice President Kamala Harris, just days before Donald Trump won office.
“There is no right reaction,” Oliver said. “The stage I’m currently locked in is anger,” he added.
“I am mad for trans people who are being threatened. I’m disgusted at the prospect of mass deportation,” Oliver continued. “I’m furious at Biden for not dropping out earlier, and the egos and inaction of two men older than credit cards themselves have led us to this point.”
“I’m mad that women have to hear ‘Your body, my choice,’ from right-wing dipshits,” Oliver said in reference to surging misogyny directed at women online since Trump’s election victory.
“And I might have the prospect of four more years of people saying, ‘so, is your job, like, so much easier with Trump as president?’” Oliver jokes about the personal-professional cost of Tuesday’s election results.
“No, it is not! No, it fucking isn’t! Fuck you so much! You don’t know what you are talking about! Fuck you like a lot. Fuck you!” […]
Board members at Southwest District Health, outside of Boise, questioned the vaccine’s safety […] and narrowly voted to stop providing the shot in the six counties they serve.
[…]
Health departments in Texas, Florida and Michigan […] have also pushed back against the COVID-19 vaccine.
[…]
Research and safety surveillance around the world have repeatedly shown COVID-19 vaccines to be generally safe and effective
The main airport in Haiti is shut down after gang violence erupted Monday attempting to seize control, the U.S. Embassy said.
In a statement, the embassy said it was aware of “gang-led efforts to block travel to and from Port-au-Prince” and the Touissant L’Overture airport has a “temporary pause in operations.”
“The security situation in Haiti is unpredictable and dangerous. Travel within Haiti is conducted at your own risk. The U.S. government cannot guarantee your safety traveling to airports, borders, or during any onward travel,” the embassy said.
Fights between gangs and police broke out in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, The Associated Press reported.
A Spirit Airlines flight was hit by gunfire at the airport. The flight was headed to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and was diverted to Santiago, Dominican Republic.
One flight attendant on board reported “minor injures” and is being evaluated by medical personnel, and no airline guests reported injuries.
The violence comes a day after the transitionary council created to reestablish democratic control in Haiti signed a decree firing its interim Prime Minister, Garry Conille. He was replaced with Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, marking another rocky democratic transition for the country that’s been plagued by gang violence, the AP reported. […]
From many of America’s most “reasonable” pundits and corners of the internet, a narrative in two parts has emerged.
Part 1: People voted for Donald Trump because they hate and despise the Left and needed to punish us for being “condescending” to them and for our refusal to throw transgender people under the bus.
Part 2: The Left is being unreasonable and cruel by not wanting anything to do with those people, refusing to date them, be friends with them or spend holidays with them.
And, you know, I have a whole lot of questions about this. I’d love to know what it is, specifically, that we were supposedly condescending about, because they don’t really seem to mention that, ever.
But I suppose I will start all of this by pointing out that when Groucho Marx said he didn’t want to belong to any club that would have someone like him as a member … that was supposed to be a joke, not an obligation.
As much as I would love to never have to talk about Bill Maher again, we’re gonna talk about Bill Maher for just a moment, because he’s always very big on this particular diatribe. Here he is on Friday, having a chat with former Trump administration spokesperson Sarah Isgur about how bad it is for our society that the Left refuses to be inclusive of Trump supporters, and, of course, the evil liberal women who refuse to date nice Trump supporters just because they do things like scream “YOUR BODY, MY CHOICE!” at them. [video at the link]
“Just because someone voted for Trump, you don’t get to then ostracize them from polite society,” Isgur said, after Maher conceded for a moment that Trump was perhaps a little Hitler-like, what with his comments about how he would have liked to have had his generals.
Counterpoint: You can absolutely do that, because no one is obligated to interact with these people, give them a platform or otherwise acknowledge their existence if they do not feel like it.
Another example: “Influencer” Autumn Witbeck made a teary TikTok video about how her mother and grandmother (and potentially her other relatives) don’t want to speak to her anymore after she voted for Trump. [video and more commentary at the link]
[…] So, just so we’re clear — the rule is that these people are allowed to despise us; to insult large groups of people on the regular; to demand that transgender people be pushed out of public society for their own comfort; to talk gleefully about how they can’t want to watch ICE agents pull grandmothers from their beds and deport them; to — again, because this deserves repeating — shout “YOUR BODY, OUR CHOICE!” at women and girls’; to call Puerto Rico a pile of garbage; to denigrate women who don’t have children; to repeatedly claim that “liberalism is a mental disorder”; to talk about how they voted for Trump to punish us; to regularly claim that Black people are lying about the existence of racism and police brutality, to force their religion on us, and so forth!
And yet, we’re supposed to want to be their friends, want to hang around them, invite them to parties? We’re mean if we don’t want to date them and bring them around our friends so that they can insult and denigrate them, because who doesn’t love that?
I need to be clear here when I say that the reason I, at least, do not like Trump supporters and Republicans is because they say horrific and cruel things about people like me and also people I care about — or at least they vote for and with people who do those things. Why the hell would I want to be friends with anyone like that, when I can be friends with people who are actually nice? Explain this to me. Do I have to be friends with people who insult me and people I care about in other ways? Where is the line?
If they didn’t do and say and believe these very insulting things, or if they didn’t vote for and with people who do and say and believe these insulting things, this “problem” wouldn’t exist. Like, literally, the whole entire problem is that they are assholes. That’s it. It does not go deeper than that.
Much of the Right’s anger is based in their personal terror over a lack of social power. Social power can mean a lot of things, but one of its most potent immediate forms is getting to be really shitty to people and having them treat you with respect anyway. It’s getting to be the person about which people say, “Oh, he’s an asshole when you first meet him, but once you get to know him he’s the greatest guy on earth.” It’s getting people to hold it in when you say cruel things to them or other people because they want so badly to be accepted by you. Another form is going along with them and being shitty to the people they’ve decided are even worse than you are in order to appease them and get them to leave you alone. They will never be satisfied until they get the fealty they crave, until we, as they love to say, “bend the knee.”
That’s no way (outside of middle school) to make friends. If Trumpists want people to be friends with them (which we know they do not actually want to do), they will have to be kinder people — and they’re not off to a very good start.
They join the ranks of a small group of insects that have been found to be capable […] first time that an insect species native to Africa has been found
[…]
the Kenyan lesser mealworm can chew through polystyrene and host bacteria in their guts that help break down the material. [A] larval form of the Alphitobius darkling beetle.
[…]
we hope […] Instead of releasing a huge number of these insects into trash sites (which isn’t practical), we can use the microbes and enzymes they produce in factories, landfills and cleanup sites. […] The bacteria won’t be harmful to the insect or to the environment when used at scale.
Last week I got my COVID vaccine update, and at the same time my flu shot. In the nick of time.
I have friends who have been reminding each other to get their vaccinations while they could. RFK Jr. has speculated before about ending vaccine distribution. And then he tried to walk that back by claiming he wouldn’t take vaccines away.
Trump seems ready to let RFK Jr. “go wild on health.” We cannot, at this point, sort the the lies from the real intentions. We cannot, at this point, predict the coming changes to healthcare in the USA. With reasonable certainty, we can predict that whatever changes the Trump administration decides upon, they will make matters worse, not better.
It is very demoralizing to see an individual state, (Idaho), preemptively making COVID-19 vaccines unavailable.
We will watch what they do, not what they say.
Trump has made contradictory statements about the ACA (Obamacare). Republican supporters of his have vowed to repeal the ACA. Ignorant people who are better at getting stuff done than Trump seem to be intent on repealing Obamacare. We don’t know how this is going to shake out.
Followup to comment 212, I should clarify that, as CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain noted, only six counties in Idaho are facing that vaccine unavailability. Not a policy taking effect statewide.
My bet is that Trump will arrange to have a lackey who does pay attention attend the intelligence briefings with him. That way the Trump administration will be ready to leverage the information to their benefit, and to Putin’s benefit, and to the detriment of our allies.
The usual BS. FauxNews takes someone’s opinion and elevates it to unattributed fact. And, the assumption by conservatives fascists that they are “the American people” and anyone who disagrees with them isn’t.
[…] In addition to getting infrastructure projects off the ground before Trump takes office, White House advisers said Biden will also work to safeguard freedoms the president believes are under threat, strengthen global alliances, and take steps to reduce costs for Americans.
The White House is working to get funds and weaponry into the hands of Ukrainians by January, according to CNN.
“Democrats in Congress have shared the administration’s concerns that any of the billions in aid to Ukraine that have already passed could be slow walked or blocked if it isn’t entirely transferred to Ukraine by the time Trump is sworn in,” said the report.
Biden is also expected to move quickly to ensure Ukraine receives all of the $6 billion in security assistance before Trump has the power to stop equipment shipments, according to Politico. This would allow for all of the funding that has been approved through Congress to be sent off before Trump begins his term.
With Biden’s exit, the decision in June to give NATO more control over aid should prove beneficial to Ukraine’s ability to access weapons and funding if Trump were to halt it.
Biden’s climate and environmental regulations, particularly those tied to the Inflation Reduction Act, are likely to face strong opposition from the incoming Trump administration. According to CNN, EPA Administrator Michael Regan highlighted that the agency has worked to make its pollution-reducing rules legally robust […]
As of October, Biden had allocated a vast majority, 92%, of the IRA budget. This means that the contents of the bill to support clean energy projects, pollution reduction, and climate-resilient efforts are underway.
Trump has threatened to rescind any unspent funding from the IRA. However, this is politically risky due to significant private investments flowing into Republican districts. Nearly 78% of investments in new electric vehicle factories and large wind/solar projects have gone to GOP-controlled areas, according to a CNN data analysis.
As Democrats prepare for a likely Republican trifecta, Biden and Congress are prioritizing getting judicial nominees passed in their lame-duck session before Trump takes office, according to The New York Times. Around 30 nominees are already in progress.
A post-election session of the Senate begins Tuesday, according to Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. “We are going to get as many done as we can,” Schumer said in a statement. […]
Democratic governors are preparing to fight Trump. [See comments 42 and 53]
The Wisconsin Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Monday on whether a law that legislators adopted more than a decade before the Civil War bans abortion and can still be enforced.
Abortion-rights advocates stand an excellent chance of prevailing, given that liberal justices control the court and one of them remarked on the campaign trail that she supports abortion rights. Monday’s arguments are little more than a formality ahead of a ruling, which is expected to take weeks.
Wisconsin lawmakers passed the state’s first prohibition on abortion in 1849. That law stated that anyone who killed a fetus unless the act was to save the mother’s life was guilty of manslaughter. Legislators passed statutes about a decade later that prohibited a woman from attempting to obtain her own miscarriage. In the 1950s, lawmakers revised the law’s language to make killing an unborn child or killing the mother with the intent of destroying her unborn child a felony. The revisions allowed a doctor in consultation with two other physicians to perform an abortion to save the mother’s life. […]
As of mid-2023, there has been a housing shortage of 4 million homes
[…]
Trump has talked about enacting a mass deportation of immigrants […] the construction industry depends on immigrant labor [31% of workers]
[…]
He also claimed that he would pull down mortgage rates back to pandemic-era lows, although presidents do not control mortgage rates
[…]
Trump called for slashing regulations and permit requirements, which can add onto housing costs for homebuyers. […] About 24% of the cost of a single-family home and about 41% of the cost of a multifamily home are directly attributable to regulatory costs at the local, state and federal level
[…]
Trump has also blamed rising home prices on a surge of illegal immigration […] However, experts say that most undocumented immigrants are not homeowners. Instead, they live in homes owned by U.S. citizens […] If a mass deportation were to happen, such homes would remain occupied
[…]
Trump has proposed a 10% to 20% tariff on all imports across the board, as well as a rate between 60% and 100% for goods from China. […] materials like lumber could push housing costs higher
Darn, even his Nazi house-stealing plan wouldn’t work… unless he deports the citizens too. *taps forehead*
An international group of scientists is researching the impact of climate change and glacier retreat on seismic activity and volcanic eruptions in Iceland. One hypothesis suggests that up to three times more magma is forming beneath the surface due to glacier retreat — and that this process is already underway, reports RÚV.
The study, part of the ongoing ISVOLC project, led by Michelle Parks from the Icelandic Meteorological Office alongside geophysicist Freysteinn Sigmundsson from the University of Iceland, is examining how Iceland’s changing glaciers could be linked to seismic activity and volcanic eruptions. The ISVOLC project, which began in April 2023 and will span three years, includes 20 scientists from 11 institutions worldwide. Its main goal is to assess how the melting of Iceland’s glaciers affects underground magma systems and to explore possible changes in volcanic and seismic activity. The project will also construct a comprehensive database of Iceland’s glacial changes since 1890, creating high-resolution, 3D time-based models that predict land uplift and magma production as glaciers continue to thin.
According to Freysteinn, modeling suggests that two to three times more magma is forming beneath Iceland now compared to before the glaciers started retreating. To examine this hypothesis, scientists are specifically studying the effects of glacial changes on four volcanic systems: Katla, Askja, Grímsvötn, and Bárðarbunga.
“There is a concerted effort to study the links between glacial changes and volcanic activity,” says Freysteinn, adding that these four volcanoes were chosen is that they are the most active ones lying beneath glaciers in Iceland.
How pressure reduction affects magma systems
Freysteinn says that throughout geological history, increased volcanic activity has followed glacial periods. When the Ice Age glacier retreated from Iceland around ten thousand years ago, a period of intense volcanic activity began, which “in fact lasted for several thousand years until all glacial ice had disappeared and the crust reached equilibrium,” says Freysteinn.
It is known that major changes on the Earth’s surface can influence what happens beneath it. “And now we’re seeing significant glacial thinning, both in Iceland and globally,” says Freysteinn. This leads to a variety of conclusions.
“We know how much these glaciers have thinned in Iceland since 1890,” he says, “and we can try to assess how the pressure beneath the ground has changed as a result of this thinning.”
“We know how the glacial load has changed, and we expect that with such significant changes in the glaciers, there will be a response within the Earth, and the land will begin to lift,” he says.
Precise measurements of crustal movements over recent decades have revealed that widespread uplift is occurring in Iceland due to glacial thinning. A large portion of Iceland’s central highlands is rising by 20 to 30 millimeters per year due to glacier retreat.
This reduction in pressure beneath Iceland affects the magma systems under volcanoes and influences how magma forms.
“Magma generally forms beneath Iceland due to pressure relief because we have an upwelling zone in the Earth’s mantle. As pressure decreases when mantle material or deep-earth material moves towards the surface, new magma is created,” he explains.
However, as the glaciers are now retreating, the pressure is decreasing even further, resulting in additional magma production. Freysteinn says that according to the models used in this research project, it is estimated that two to three times more magma is forming under Iceland today compared to when the glaciers were stable.
Increased volcanic activity possible
When asked whether this could lead to increased volcanic activity in Iceland, Freysteinn acknowledges that it’s a definite possibility.
“We’re trying to better understand what happens to this magma being generated,” he says.
“This could indeed impact volcanic activity, and one potential outcome is that this additional magma reaches the surface. However, this could take some time, meaning that although magma is forming more rapidly beneath Iceland now, it’s uncertain if or when it will reach the surface,” Freysteinn explains.
At Askja, located in Iceland’s northern volcanic zone near Vatnajökull, there has been substantial uplift and an increase in pressure. In recent years, Askja has risen by over 80 centimeters, likely due to the flow of magma into shallow depths beneath it.
Freysteinn notes that this process has been ongoing for several years, prompting investigations into whether it’s connected to newly formed magma approaching the volcanic system. Askja has become a focal point for these studies because of significant changes in the area since 2021.
There are various signs that the effects of glacier retreat could be multifaceted. First, it leads to increased magma production, but it could also alter magma chambers and shallow reservoirs within the crust.
“This may occur at depths between three and fifteen kilometers,” Freysteinn says, adding that it might also lead to new areas of magma movement or volcanic activity.
While more magma is forming, Freysteinn emphasises that it’s still uncertain if or when it will reach the surface — one of the key questions this project aims to answer.
One of the possible consequences of increased magma formation is that eruptions could become more powerful due to the larger volumes of magma accumulating.
“When magma is stored at shallow depths within the crust, just a few kilometres down, the effects could manifest as either more frequent eruptions or increased accumulation. There are certain indications of a slightly altered eruption pattern at Katla compared to recent decades,” says Freysteinn.
Katla is Iceland’s fourth most active volcanic system, having erupted at least 21 times over the past 1,100 years. Its last eruption occurred in 1918. Scientists have long speculated about when Katla will erupt again, with the average interval between eruptions historically around 50 years. This year marks 106 years since Katla’s last eruption.
“It’s possible that more magma may accumulate, which could mean a more hazardous eruption if it eventually reaches the surface in a major Katla event,” Freysteinn adds.
“This project is ongoing, and we hope to significantly improve our understanding of these processes through the research being conducted,” he concludes.
Dead Last
Authoritarian rule always entails corruption. With Donald Trump in office, watch your wallet.
By Rachel Maddow
If nothing else, it was an insult to historians.
At the change of each Administration, C-span conducts a broad survey of Presidential scholars, asking them to rank every Commander-in-Chief across ten aspects of leadership. The 2021 survey, published less than six months after the January 6th mob attack on Congress, ranked Donald Trump among the worst Presidents in U.S. history. […]
[…] The following year, the Siena College survey of Presidential scholars also listed Trump among the worst Presidents ever. In this past June’s debate between Trump and President Joe Biden, Biden cited another academic survey—the 2024 “Presidential Greatness Project”—in which a hundred and fifty-four scholars and historians ranked Trump dead last, even below James Buchanan, whose disastrous Presidency dragged the nation into the bloody maw of the Civil War.
[…] Even if history hasn’t been a guiding light for voters in this election, it may yet offer some hints about what to expect next: in short, watch your wallet. […] America’s most ambitious and accomplished demagogues have also all been crooks.
In 1939, the U.S. Justice Department sent prosecutors to Louisiana to clean up the Huey Long political machine, which was still chugging along four years after Long’s murder. Part of Long’s legacy in the state was a magnificent Louisiana grift that became known as the “hot oil” scam. Long’s puppet governor and the bagman who used to collect Long’s cash bribes from state contractors each took a personal financial cut of every barrel of off-the-books (so-called “hot”) oil produced in the state.
One middleman testified about sending an express-mail package of forty-eight thousand dollars in one-thousand-dollar bills to Long’s bribe collector. The governor admitted that in his one term in office he pocketed almost five hundred thousand dollars (more than ten million in today’s dollars). The governor and the bagman went to prison, but the judge hearing the hot-oil case expressed doubt about whether any of the lower-level functionaries who had been press-ganged into the scheme really had a choice. “It is a matter of general and common knowledge that the state of Louisiana was more or less under a dictatorship,” he said.
If there was a rival for Long’s oratorical skill and demagogic power in the nineteen-thirties, it was Father Charles E. Coughlin, whose tens of millions of weekly radio listeners were treated to his frequent harangues against the “filthy gold standard,” which he ascribed to Jews and communists. Coughlin instead preached the virtues of what he called “Gentile silver.”
[…] a U.S. Treasury audit in 1934 found that, alongside entities like Chase National Bank of Manhattan, one of the largest single holders of silver in the United States was an unmarried secretary in Royal Oak, Michigan: Miss Amy Collins. Collins turned out to be Coughlin’s secretary.
Coughlin’s office soon released a letter in Collins’s name, insisting that the purchase of those half a million ounces of silver was her own idea, pursued at her own initiative, and that “Neither Father Coughlin nor any other officer except myself” had anything to do with it.
One of the underappreciated demagogues of the second half of the twentieth century was Vice-President Spiro Agnew, whose meteoric rise from local Maryland politics to the White House was aided more than anything by admiration, among Nixon’s advisers, for his relentless invective against protesters and civil-rights groups. As Nixon’s Vice-President, Agnew developed his own zealous national following by training rhetorical fire on the press and, when he fell under criminal investigation, on the legal system.
In 1973, Agnew, facing the prospect of a forty-count felony indictment, was allowed to plead nolo contendere to a single count and escaped all the other charges in exchange for his resignation. Because Agnew’s nolo count was a tax-related charge, it’s sometimes forgotten that the bill of particulars against him described not run-of-the-mill tax fiddling but the sitting Vice-President of the United States literally taking envelopes full of cash at the White House and stuffing them into his desk.
In our own time, Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation has done more than anyone, anywhere, to remind us that authoritarian rule always entails thievery. Three years ago, as Navalny voluntarily returned to Russia after surviving an assassination attempt, he released a film titled “Putin’s Palace,” revealing evidence that the Russian leader had a secret billion-dollar Black Sea lair, which Navalny called “the biggest bribe in history.” […]
[…] The banner headline of Navalny’s leadership was his insistence that opponents of Putin’s regime must not be afraid. If Navalny himself could deny the regime his fear, as their persecution of him relentlessly escalated, then surely no one else should lend the regime their fear either. But the core of Navalny’s work against Putin was exposing his thievery from the Russian people.
Dictators and demagogues are thieves—here, there, always, and everywhere.
[…] the guy we’ve just put back in the White House. He starts the new gig while being legally barred from serving as an officer or a director in any New York corporation or from taking out loans with New York banks, and while the longtime C.F.O. of his company, convicted of tax fraud and perjury, is still adjusting to life outside jail. Here is a man who took time out of his Presidential campaign to launch not only a line of watches and sneakers and commemorative coins but also a new cryptocurrency scheme in which his partners are the self-proclaimed “dirtbag of the internet” and the entrepreneur behind Date Hotter Girls, L.L.C.
Let’s not be surprised about where this is heading.
We’ll shout down our own fear, yes. But we’ll also expose and humiliate thieves. […] Historians may or may not have the ear of the electorate, but the history of this era, at least, will be told. And, if past is prologue, it’s likely to be lurid.
Russia has massed ‘tens of thousands of troops’ as part of a major effort to retake land in its Kursk region that was seized by Ukraine, according to the commander in chief of Kyiv’s armed forces.
A federal judge on Friday overturned Illinois’ ban on semiautomatic weapons, leaning on recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings that strictly interpret the Second Amendment right to keep and bear firearms.
“Concealed carry reciprocity” is the latest example of […] Trump’s shifting views on state rights.
“I will protect the right of self-defense everywhere it is under siege, and I will sign concealed carry reciprocity. Your Second Amendment right does not end at the state line,” Trump said in a video.
If implemented, this would force states that don’t allow for concealed carry—i.e., carrying a firearm out of public view—to recognize permits from other states. That means a person from Arizona, which does not require a permit for concealed carry, could legally carry a hidden firearm in California, which requires a permit for concealed carry.
At the heart of Trump’s push for concealed-carry reciprocity is the idea that certain rights, like the right to bear arms, are so fundamental to American life that they should supersede state laws. But when it comes to, say, abortion? No, Trump feels very differently. For nearly half a century, abortion was constitutionally protected under Roe v. Wade, but now, due to the conservative majority on the Supreme Court, it’s been left up to the states.
[…] Donald Trump Jr. posted on his Instagram on Sunday, “BOOM! My father just announced full conceal carry reciprocity! The 2nd Amendment will stay and remain protected.”
Trump had no specific gun policy on his campaign website during the election cycle, but announcing this policy before he takes office shows its priority—and that it’s something he didn’t want to inform voters about before they voted. Sneaky.
In June, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared gun violence to be a public health crisis. Mass shootings have become a part of American life, and they vastly exceed those in other developed countries. According to Small Arms Survey, a Switzerland-based research organization, the U.S. has 121 firearms per 100 residents as of 2017. In other words, more guns than people that exist in the country. The U.S. also quadruples other developed countries when it comes to gun homicides per 100,000 people.
Democratic governors are planning to fight the Trump administration’s policies tooth and nail. But it remains to be seen how they’ll manage to keep other state’s gun laws out of their home states. After all, federal law supersedes state law.
What is the basis for Trump or even Congress telling a state it has to allow open carry? Not really a commerce clause issue and clearly isn’t something a President has the power to declare by executive order. I don’t have much faith left in the Supreme Court so I’m not trying to be naive. It is just hard to imagine how this would be justified.
————————
The 2nd Amendment. The Republican/MAGA/Trump justification will be to cite a constitutional right to keep and bear arms, unlike abortion, healthcare, or other things we consider rights, but which are nowhere to be found in the constitution. Have no doubt, this Supreme Court will affirm.
—————————-
Unfortunately, bearing arms is mentioned in the US Constitution. While we can argue all day about the comma after the militia phrase, the unfortunate fact is that it is in there, even though we hotly dispute who it applies to, while abortion is not. So really the goal should be to fight hard for an abortion amendment and a limiting amendment for the 2nd Amendment.
—————————-
the 4th amendment states a person is to be secure in person and effects. i’m not sure what is more personal than what is inside a person’s body.
i am so tired of this bs, lying argument that abortion is not in the constitution. if not by specific word, it is embodied in the 4th amendment.
—————————–
the entire GQP are nothing but hypocrites. Remember how they all voted against Build Back Better, then went home to their districts and took credit for all the improvements?
——————————-
So much for Trump’s statements that he would do nothing on guns as he was proud to have not done in his first term. I guess he meant you would do nothing to control them, nothing to help stop school shootings, nothing to stop the greatest source of death for children. He can be real proud of that.
—————————
Oh yeah, authoritarian government and easy access to firearms. A prescription for chaos.
StevoRsays
The nearest single star to the Solar System has just yielded up a rare and wonderful treasure.
Around a red dwarf known as Barnard’s star, which lies just 5.96 light-years away, astronomers have found evidence of an exoplanet.And not just any exoplanet. This fascinating world, known as Barnard b, is tiny, clocking in with a minimum mass of 37 percent of the mass of Earth. That’s a little shy of half a Venus, and about 3.5 Marses.
The reason it’s so marvelous is that tiny exoplanets are really, really hard to find. Although Barnard b is not habitable to life as we know it, its discovery is leading us closer to the identification of Earth-sized worlds that may be scattered elsewhere throughout the galaxy.
NB!
.
“SHOCK: Dem Senator Finally ADMITS Why Bernie Sanders was “Shunned” by Dem Leadership”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=lrbcIu3Sh5U
Neoliberalism Uber Alles.
Bekenstein Boundsays
he released a film titled “Putin’s Palace,” revealing evidence that the Russian leader had a secret billion-dollar Black Sea lair
So, Putin is a Bond villain.
Let me know when they pop in the third reel so I can go grab some popcorn and watch his comeuppance.
So much for Trump’s statements that he would do nothing on guns as he was proud to have not done in his first term. I guess he meant you would do nothing to control them, nothing to help stop school shootings, nothing to stop the greatest source of death for children.
Oh, I disagree. He will end gun violence being the greatest source of death for children. He’ll replace it with measles, polio, and rubella.
The Call-And-Cower Response Cycle
As we observe the Trump II transition kicking into overdrive, MAGA loyalists are talking big, boasting of their newly acquired power, and spewing threats against all the usual suspects but in a more robust and full-throated way now that they have power back.
It sets up a dynamic that we saw the first time around, but presents more acutely in Trump II. The power to cow itself bestows more power on those doing the intimidating. [Yep. And that is a dynamic I did not want to see … but it is now happening.] It creates a call-and-cower response cycle that emboldens the aggressor, humiliates the victim, and demoralizes the opposition.
Note the pattern as we make our way through the lengthy list of developments over the long holiday weekend …
Trump Wants GOP Senate Under His Thumb
Trump insisted publicly that whichever senator is elected Senate majority leader “must agree” to allow him to make recess appointments bypassing the usual advice and consent process. The leading candidates for majority leader for the most part quickly acquiesced.
Meanwhile, Trump allies are pushing him to take the unprecedented step of getting involved in the Senate majority leader race by scuttling the candidacy of Sen. John Thune (R-SD), the current No. 2 Republican.
Pentagon Girds For Trump
“Pentagon officials are holding informal discussions about how the Department of Defense would respond if Donald Trump issues orders to deploy active-duty troops domestically and fire large swaths of apolitical staffers, defense officials told CNN.”–CNN
DOJ Hunkers Down For Trump II
“A collective sense of dread has taken hold at the Department of Justice, which drew Donald Trump’s rage like no other part of the federal government during his campaign.”–Politico [Embedded links are available at the main link.]
Chasing Down Jan. 6 Rioters While There’s Still Time
“The Justice Department plans to focus on arresting the “most egregious” Jan. 6 rioters — particularly those who committed felony assaults on law enforcement officers but have not yet been arrested — in the remaining 72 days before President-elect Donald Trump is back in the White House, a law enforcement official told NBC News this week.”–NBC News
‘We Will Put Your Fat Ass In Prison’
An awful attack on New York Attorney General Letitia James from Mike Davis, a stalwart of the Trump II camp that wants revenge and retribution against those whom he claimed engaged in “lawfare” against Donald Trump. Davis is a former clerk to Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and former staffer to Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA).
[…] with the economy starting from, essentially, full employment in his second term, Trump, with mass deportations, would degrade productive capacity, balloon deficits and — yes — bring inflation roaring back, keeping a grim pledge on punitive immigration policy while breaking one on providing relief to American consumers.
Here’s what I mean: If you’re upset about grocery prices now, see what happens if Trump goes after a huge part of the agricultural work force; immigrants are around three-quarters of agricultural workers — and roughly half of them are undocumented. (And do you really doubt that many workers legally here will be caught up in Trump’s threatened dragnets?) Undocumented immigrants also play a large role in food processing. For example, they account for an estimated 30 to 50 percent of workers in meatpacking.
If these workers are deported, the food industry will probably have great difficulty replacing them. Even in the best case, the industry will have to offer much higher wages — and, of course, these higher wages will be passed on in higher prices.
(Oh, and while we produce most of what we eat, we also import a lot of food — whose prices would be raised by tariffs.)
A New York judge delayed a Tuesday decision on whether President-elect Trump’s conviction can withstand the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling, following his election victory last week.
Judge Juan Merchan agreed to freeze the case until Nov. 19, newly public court records show, enabling prosecutors to respond to Trump’s demand the case be dismissed entirely now that he is president-elect.
Trump’s sentencing, which would be the first of any former president, is scheduled for Nov. 26. He was convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with a hush money payment made to porn actor Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election to conceal an affair, which he denies.
Trump’s attorneys believe his election as president compels the dismissal of his criminal prosecutions. [He is not president now. He is not the president! JFC.]
“The stay, and dismissal, are necessary to avoid unconstitutional impediments to President Trump’s ability to govern,” Trump attorney Emil Bove wrote in an email to the judge.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s (D) office agreed to delay the proceedings as they assess how to respond to Trump’s demand.
“The People agree that these are unprecedented circumstances and that the arguments raised by defense counsel in correspondence to the People on Friday require careful consideration,” prosecutor Matthew Colangelo wrote to the judge.
[…] The high court [Supreme Court] held that former presidents enjoy absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for exercising core constitutional powers and at least presumptive immunity for other official acts. Unofficial conduct can be prosecuted, but the jury cannot question the motivation behind a presidential decision, the court said.
Trump’s attorneys said prosecutors with the district attorney’s office showed jurors evidence during his seven-week trial that was protected by the justices’ ruling, which the state rejected.
The case is taking a similar path as Trump’s federal prosecution in the nation’s capital, where he stands accused of unlawfully conspiring to subvert the 2020 election results.
Last week, a judge granted special counsel Jack Smith’s office request to suspend all deadlines in that case and provide an update on Dec. 2 about next steps.
The former president’s other two criminal prosecutions are also on ice. Trump’s classified documents case was dismissed by a different federal judge, and his Georgia criminal case is paused indefinitely while an appeals court weighs a challenge from Trump and his co-defendants.
Donald Trump’s former White House chief of staff failed in his bid to move the case to federal court to mount immunity arguments.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday dealt a setback to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in his defense against 2020 election interference charges in Georgia, turning away his attempt to transfer his case from state to federal court.
His lawyers argued that the case should be moved because he was acting as a “federal officer” at the time and could therefore argue for immunity from prosecution.
The argument failed in lower courts, with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concluding that because Meadows is no longer a federal official, the provision that would allow the case to be moved to federal court does not apply to him.
The appeals court also found that even if he was deemed to be a federal officer, “the events giving rise to this criminal action were not related to Meadows’ official duties.” [Duh]
Meadows faces two counts in the sprawling Georgia election interference case over his role in efforts to keep Trump in power after he lost the 2020 election. He has pleaded not guilty. […]
Well, there’s one bit of good news. Mark Meadows may not escape justice. We’ll see.
A coalition of parents sued the state to prevent implementation of a law that would require all public K-12 schools and colleges to display the religious text by January.
[…] U.S. District Judge John deGravelles issued an order Tuesday granting the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction, which means the state can’t begin its plan to promote and create rules surrounding the law […] while the litigation plays out.
The judge wrote that the law is “facially unconstitutional” and “in all applications,” barring Louisiana from enforcing it and adopting rules around it that require all public K-12 schools and colleges to exhibit posters of the Ten Commandments.
DeGravelles, who heard arguments over the legislation on Oct. 21, also ordered the state attorney general’s office to “provide notice to all schools that the Act has been found unconstitutional.”
[…] Gov. Jeff Landry signed the GOP-backed legislation in June, part of his conservative agenda that has reshaped Louisiana’s cultural landscape, from abortion rights to criminal justice to education. [Good point. Reshaping the cultural landscape is the goal.]
The move prompted a coalition of parents — Jewish, Christian, Unitarian Universalist and nonreligious — to sue the state in federal court. They argued that the law “substantially interferes with and burdens” their First Amendment right to raise their children with whatever religious doctrine they want.
The American Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Freedom from Religion Foundation have supported the suit.
[…] Steven Green, a professor of law, history and religious studies at Willamette University in Oregon, testified against the law during the federal court hearing, arguing that the Ten Commandments are not at the core of the U.S. government and its founding, and if anything, the Founding Fathers believed in a separation of church and state.
At a news conference after the hearing, Murrill dismissed Green’s testimony as not being relevant as to whether the posters themselves violate the First Amendment.
“This law, I believe, is constitutional, and we’ve illustrated it in numerous ways that the law is constitutional. We’ve shown that in our briefs by creating a number of posters,” Murrill told reporters. “Again, you don’t have to like the posters. The point is you can make posters that comply with the Constitution.”
[…] One poster compared Moses and Martin Luther King Jr., while another riffed off the song “Ten Duel Commandments” from the musical “Hamilton.” [image at the link]
[…] The state has anticipated that the case could go to the U.S. Supreme Court, which last weighed in on the issue in 1980, when the justices ruled 5-4 that Kentucky’s posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools was unconstitutional.
Another state, Oklahoma, is facing similar lawsuits over a requirement that the Bible be part of lesson plans in public school grades five through 12, and that the Bible be stocked in every classroom.
When asked what he would tell parents concerned about having the Ten Commandments in public schools, Landry said in August: “Tell your child not to look at them.”
Exclusive C and C++ programmers may not need to learn Rust after all to participate in the push for memory safety.
Speaking to us remotely from the W2140 conference in Bangkok, Thailand – which started today – Robin Rowe, a former computer science professor, product designer, and graphics expert, plans to announce a memory-safe fork of the C programming language called TrapC. Its goal is to help developers create software that can’t crash.
TrapC code resembles C/C++ code, but, according to Rowe, it’s memory safe. That is to say, its pointers cannot produce segfaults, buffer overruns, or memory leaks. The programming language is designed to be link compatible with C, because it uses the same application binary interface (ABI). And supposedly it’s safer than Rust because it lacks an “unsafe” keyword while also being easier to learn…
A group of people carrying Nazi flags demonstrated outside a community theater performance of “The Diary of Anne Frank” in Livingston County, Michigan, in a display of antisemitism.
Several masked men showed up waving Nazi flags and reportedly shouted antisemitic and racist slurs outside the American Legion Post 141 in Howell on Saturday during the play, according to CNN affiliate WXYZ…
KGsays
with the economy starting from, essentially, full employment in his second term, Trump, with mass deportations, would degrade productive capacity, balloon deficits and — yes — bring inflation roaring back, keeping a grim pledge on punitive immigration policy while breaking one on providing relief to American consumers. – Lynna, OM@233 quoting Paul Krugman in the NYT
My hunch is that Trump will perform plenty of performative cruelty against undocumented immigrants, but avoid measures such as real mass deportations that would annoy those oligarchs who depend on undocumented workers or their profits, while complaining that such mass deportations are being obstructed by Democratic governors, and mayors, liberal elites, and the “deep state”.
Donald Trump’s victory this week may feel, to some, beyond comprehension. But it must be reckoned with and understood, with both rigor and humility. When it comes to the work that we set out to do at The New Yorker, little has changed. The work is to get the story right, to be fair and accurate, to write with an open mind and without fear.
A primary role of the press has always been to apply pressure to power. I’ve always thought that we should take Donald Trump at his word. When a candidate for President tells the American people that he is going to use his power to initiate mass deportations, when he threatens to pursue and punish the “enemy within,” we should take it seriously, and not simply wait for it to happen or wish it away. And if and when he follows through on those dark vows, we need to report on it, with a sense of scope, clarity, and resolve.
Everyone, especially those in positions of power or influence, has a choice: to act with decency and resolution or to promote or abide cruelty. Here at The New Yorker, we are committed to the standards that have long guided us. We make mistakes, to be sure, but we strive always to do what we can to help our readers be more informed, more attuned to the art and beauty around us, more committed to a shared sense of civic life.
The New Yorker is celebrating its centenary in February, 2025. This is just weeks after Trump will begin his second term in the White House. He is not going anywhere, but neither are we. Thank you for being part of our continued endeavor to put facts, narrative, and accountability at the forefront. Democracy depends on a free press, and we depend on you, our readers, to support our mission by becoming a subscriber or giving a gift subscription. It means more today than ever before.
Putin And Trump Celebrate Election With A Good Old-Fashioned Phone-Bone
Dad-dimir is so proud of Trump!
Aren’t we all loving this news about how Elon Musk has been basically with Donald Trump ever since he won re-election […]
We even got word that when Trump talked to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the phone last week, Elon jumped on. We guess he just wanted to say hi.
Now the Washington Post reports that Trump got to do some real over-the-phone tongue-kissing with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. Was Elon there? Don’t know, but it doesn’t matter, because all these boys talk to each other like all the time anyway.
The call happened on Thursday, and what they said doesn’t even sound that terrifying. […] It says they talked about Ukraine. And even that part doesn’t sound that bad.
Luckily, we know Donald Trump is a traitor and a pathological liar, so we know not to trust anything he says, about anything, ever.
Among other things, Trump reportedly told Putin not to escalate the war against Ukraine. He also “briefly raised the issue of land,” per the reporting, which suggests he was talking about one of his famous “peace deals” for Ukraine, all of which involve bending over and letting Putin steal more of Ukraine than he’s entitled to, by which we mean one square inch of it or more.
Trump is a wannabe dictator, so he isn’t doing these world leader phone calls the way professional American presidents do it, with coordination from the State Department or with interpreters who work for the government. Trump’s transition also hasn’t signed papers with the General Services Administration to actually, you know, officially start the transition, so he doesn’t have access to that stuff yet anyway. […]
They’re just calling him on his cell phone. You know, the same phone their intelligence agencies are probably already furiously bugging:
“They are just calling [Trump] directly,” one of the people familiar with the calls said.
[…] The Washington Post says the Kremlin initially “responded coolly” to its puppet winning the election, “with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov telling reporters that Putin had no plans to call the incoming president of ‘an unfriendly country that is directly and indirectly involved in a war against our state.’” Sure, Dmitry, whatever you need to say […]
But then Putin issued his official congratulations and said all kinds of weird shit about how brave and manly Trump was when that assassination attempt happened. See, Dmitry? You don’t have to hide your love!
[…] All of this is happening, as the Post reports, as Ukraine has just launched its biggest drone attacks on Moscow and other targets since the war started, and Russia has started using North Korean troops as cannon fodder in the Kursk and Belgorod regions of Russia, reportedly preparing an offensive to take back land Ukraine has seized. (Because they are outside North Korea for the first time and getting to play on the internet, one report says they are “gorging on pornography” […])
In a recent Radio Atlantic conversation with Hanna Rosin and McKay Coppins, historian and authoritarianism expert Anne Applebaum discussed what she’s been hearing from inside Trumpworld on what he really wants to do to Ukraine. It is, to say the least, all over the place, depending on who you talk to:
I know a lot of people who spent a lot of time in the run-up to the election trying to find out what Trump meant when he said, I’ll end the war in one day, which has been his standard response when asked about it. And you can literally find almost as many interpretations of that expression as there are people in Trump’s orbit.
I mean, it ranges from, We’re just going to cut off all the funding, to, We’re going to give Ukraine to the Russians, to something quite different. There are people who said: No. We’re going to threaten the Russians. We’re going to tell them we’re bringing in a thousand tanks and a thousand airplanes unless you pull back. And so that’s another version that I’ve heard. There are versions that suggest offering something to Russia — you know, some deal. But honestly, I don’t know.
[My opinion: Trump does not really have a plan. He is going to talk to Putin until Putin convinces him to put some forth some kind of Russia-friendly plan.]
[…] Meanwhile, Daily Beast reporter Julia Davis flags this report from Russia’s Tass news agency, quoting a Putin aide who has quite a different opinion on how Trump will act vis a vis Russia and its genocidal war on Ukraine.
MOSCOW, November 11. /TASS/. In his future policies, including those on the Russian track US President-elect Donald Trump will rely on the commitments to the forces that brought him to power, rather than on election pledges, Russian presidential aide Nikolay Patrushev told the daily Kommersant in an interview.
“The election campaign is over,” Patrushev noted. “To achieve success in the election, Donald Trump relied on certain forces to which he has corresponding obligations. As a responsible person, he will be obliged to fulfill them.”
Certain forces, huh? Corresponding obligations, huh?
Sure would like to know more about that.
Sounds like we’re going to learn a lot of things about a lot of things before this upcoming hellscape passes out of view.
The lawsuit challenges the state’s strict abortion laws, seeking clarity about when doctors can provide abortions without facing jail time.
Four women who are suing the state of Idaho after they were denied abortions will testify starting Tuesday about their experiences traveling out of state to end nonviable pregnancies.
The lawsuit at the center of the trial in Ada County District Court seeks to clarify the medical exemptions to Idaho’s strict abortion laws. The plaintiffs are the Idaho Academy of Family Physicians, two physicians and the four women testifying this week, who learned while pregnant that their fetuses were unlikely to survive.
The suit, filed last year, argues that the woman suffered “unimaginable tragedy and health risks due to Idaho’s abortion bans,” and that Idaho doctors lack sufficient guidance about when they can perform the procedure without risking jail time.
Idaho has two laws restricting abortion: Under the most stringent, it is a felony to terminate a pregnancy at any stage, with limited exceptions, and providers who violate the law face two to five years in prison. A second law allows private citizens to sue health care providers who perform abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. Neither policy makes an exception for fatal fetal abnormalities, which is a focus of the lawsuit.
[…] Rebecca Vincen-Brown, a plaintiff who lives in Ada County, said she’s hopeful.
Vincen-Brown learned last year, at 16 weeks of pregnancy, that her fetus had several abnormalities — among them, a compromised airway, a missing bladder and a heart and brain that weren’t properly developed. Her doctor told her the pregnancy wasn’t viable, and she would likely miscarry or have a stillbirth. DNA testing later revealed that the fetus had a rare chromosomal condition called triploidy.
“In no world were we going to have a living baby at the end,” Vincen-Brown said.
She and her husband decided to end the pregnancy at 17 weeks to avoid endangering her health or fertility. Because that was not permitted in Idaho, they drove seven hours to Portland, Oregon. After the first day of the two-day procedure, Vincen-Brown passed the fetus in the hotel bathroom at around 4 a.m. […]
“Deciding to have the abortion was probably the hardest decision of our life, but the trauma that came with it when we went to Portland was completely unnecessary and could have been 100% preventable,” she said.
The lawsuit alleges that Idaho’s laws violate pregnant people’s rights to safety and equal protection, as well as physicians’ rights to practice medicine under the state constitution. It asks the court to declare that physicians in Idaho can provide abortion care in three specific scenarios:
– A pregnant person has a medical complication that makes it unsafe to continue a pregnancy or poses a risk of infection or bleeding.
– A pregnant person has an underlying medical condition that is made worse by pregnancy, cannot be treated effectively or requires recurrent, invasive intervention.
– A fetus is unlikely to survive the pregnancy or birth.
The trial comes on the heels of an election in which abortion was a key issue and seven states passed measures to protect it, including two (Missouri and Arizona) that reversed existing restrictions. The case is one of many ongoing legal challenges to abortion bans. […]
In April, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in another case challenging Idaho’s total abortion ban — that lawsuit alleged that the state law violated federal policy mandating certain standards for emergency care. The justices dismissed the case in June, sending it back to an appeals court.
Idaho’s two abortion bans took effect in August 2022, roughly two months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The state’s six-week restriction makes exceptions for rape, incest and to save a pregnant woman’s life or prevent “substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.” The full ban, meanwhile, makes exceptions for physicians who decide an abortion is necessary to save a pregnant woman’s life, and for cases of rape and incest. However, abortions in those cases must be completed in the first trimester and the pregnant person must report the incident to law enforcement.
Yet another Idaho law makes it a crime to help a pregnant minor travel out of state for an abortion, but that one has been temporarily blocked by a federal judge.
[The] legal team intends to argue in the trial this week that Idaho’s abortion bans will lead to deaths if the exceptions aren’t clarified further. Such deaths are nearly impossible to track, however, because the state declined to renew its Maternal Mortality Review Committee, which investigated pregnancy-related deaths, so it expired in July 2023. [That figures. If you don’t look at it, it will go away.]
“It may be the case that someone has died in Idaho, but there was no one there to really evaluate that death,” [the legal team said].
Donald Trump’s name may have been on the ballots when Republicans won the presidential election, but there are already signs that billionaire Elon Musk is asserting ultimate control over the party. [Overstated in my opinion, but yes Elon does seem to have way too much influence. Richest oligarch in upcoming fascist dictatorship.]
When Trump first accepted the 2016 Republican nomination, he infamously proclaimed, “I alone can fix it.” But eight years later, showing signs of physical and mental decline, Trump is relying on Musk to prop up his political ambitions.
Musk’s political action committee, America PAC, spent a reported $200 million to support Trump in the election. Some of its money was used to prop up X, formerly Twitter, which is owned by Musk. This served a dual purpose of feeding X advertising funds it lost after sponsors left largely due to racist content, but it also aided a social media network that was the center of multiple pro-Trump falsehoods, conspiracy theories, and attacks. [Layers of corruption]
[…] America PAC is not winding down after the election. Musk has said it will continue to operate, backing Republican candidates, including likely contestants in the 2028 presidential primaries. Before this development, the biggest influence in Republican primaries since 2016 has been Trump. His hand-selected candidates have frequently underperformed, but now Musk’s actions threaten to overshadow Trump’s power base.
Musk potentially undermined Trump by announcing on Sunday that he is backing Florida Sen. Rick Scott to be Senate majority leader. Trump, in the midst of making administration personnel announcements, has yet to weigh in on the key position. Musk’s premature announcement coming after flexing his political muscle puts Trump in a tough position: go with his own selection or appear to fall in line with his money man?
The growing power of Musk can be seen even within Trump’s familial relations. Trump’s granddaughter Kai posted a photo with herself and Musk, remarking that he was “achieving uncle status.” Similarly, Musk posed with Trump and the rest of the family for photos after the election win, while Melania Trump was oddly absent from the photo session.
Since the election win, a spate of stories have emerged gushing over Musk’s new power. […] The pattern of Trump’s inner circle leaking stories to the press to undermine him could very well be repeating itself, this time benefitting Musk and possibly coming from Musk himself.
During Trump’s first presidential term, similar stories circulated around Steve Bannon, who served as Trump’s chief strategist in the White House after leading his 2016 campaign. Time Magazine asked if Bannon was the “second most powerful man in the world” and featured him on the cover as “The Great Manipulator.” The meme that “President Bannon” was truly in charge took hold, and Trump lashed out at it, writing in February 2017, “I call my own shots, largely based on an accumulation of data, and everyone knows it. Some FAKE NEWS media, in order to marginalize, lies!”
Not long after that controversy, Bannon was out of the White House. While still a Trump loyalist (he went to prison for essentially defending Trump), Bannon has not recovered his lost power.
Bannon is out of jail, and he is making all kinds of noise. He may yet recover his lost power.
In my opinion, Trump may be too diminished to effectively win a power struggle with Elon Musk. We’ll see. As of now the two doofuses still need each other.
In 2076, the USofA will celebrate its 250th birthday (starting from the events of 1776). Look for Donald Trump to make it all about him.
birgerjohanssonsays
Due to various issues (where the US election certainly plays a role) I cannot easily sleep, and must rest on the few occasions I manage to relax. I realise now there is a term for it!. I am no longer diurnal, nocturnal or crepuscular, I have become cathemeral.
The Trump transition team is considering a draft executive order that establishes a “warrior board” of retired senior military personnel with the power to review three- and four-star officers and to recommend removals of any deemed unfit for leadership. […]
[…] The tasks are real, super-important and Democrats need to get down to work on them right away.
But for many people, the dire consequences of Trump’s election are distorting our understanding of just how he was elected. […] I see repeated headlines about how the Democratic party and its political coalition have been “shattered” or are now in “shambles.” I’m having an, I hope, friendly email exchange with one reader who told me this morning that he felt no one, including TPM, prepared him for Trump’s “overwhelming victory.” Analysis pieces in the big papers state as a given that it will take years or possibly decades of rebuilding for the party to recover.
I really have no choice but to say that all of this is immense and innumerate bullshit. This isn’t even a subjective point. What we have is a bout of escalating competitive hyperbole in which the wild overstatement keeps getting ramped up because no one is willing to step up and state the obvious for fear of being shouted down as being in denial or naive or not recognizing the gravity of the crisis or whatever. Without anyone willing to push back, the chorus just keeps moving to more and more over-the-top claims. […]
A few facts.
Trump will likely end up winning the popular vote by between one and two percentage points. [snipped details pertaining to “battleground states.”]
This is not an overwhelming victory by any estimation. It’s basically a mirror image of the one Joe Biden won four years ago. Slightly larger margins in all but one of the swing states and a significantly smaller margin in the national vote.
Now, close only counts in horse-shoes and hand grenades, as they say. Presidential power is a purely binary equation. But when we’re talking about scale and whether a party or coalition is shattered, margins matter a great deal. […] Sure by the math it was a close election. The numbers speak for themselves. But why is this such an important point when the real issue is the vast threat of four years of Donald Trump’s presidency?
It matters because the two points are deeply, inextricably conjoined. Democrats are not well-served by a meltdown, a spiral of demoralization that zaps their energy to counter the Trump administration and bounce back in two and four years.
Understanding what happened is important because it impacts the future. Distorting reality is just as damaging to our ability to formulate next steps when it’s done on the downside, as it is when it’s done on the upside. It tells you what to focus on improving and when you decide to toss what you have and start from scratch.
A political coalition that loses an election by one and a half points is by definition not smashed, moribund and in irremediable decline. All of these points can be summarized simply: You make the best decisions when you start from an accurate understanding of what happened. You don’t gain any psychic points or merit by exaggeration or falsehood. It may feel like that but it’s not the case.
The corruption of Donald Trump’s first administration was so constant that it’s easy to forget every scandal. Thankfully, on Monday night, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow is here to remind us as Trump begins to stock his incoming White House with bigots, sycophants, and even a puppy killer.
“The first Donald Trump presidential term had so many cabinet officials forced out of office in disgrace and referred to the Justice Department to face criminal charges,” Maddow recalled. “It’s actually hard to remember them all.”
Maddow ran down some of Trump’s original Cabinet secretaries:
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke left his position after more than a dozen investigations into dubious dealings and potential ethical violations. (Zinke is now the representative for Montana’s 1st Congressional District.)
Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao’s tenure as the ineffective mouthpiece for Trump’s nonexistent infrastructure bill was filled with reports that she used her position to enrich her family.
Energy Secretary Rick Perry was one of the Trump officials who resigned after Trump’s Ukraine scandal, which led to Trump’s first impeachment.
Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta resigned after having given sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein a sweetheart deal. (Trump then dragged his heels in replacing Acosta.)
Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price joined Trump’s administration as an ethically challenged secretary, then left office after multiple federal inquiries into his use of taxpayer money to fund extravagant travel.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, whose ethical integrity matched that of a wet piece of rice paper, left his position because he couldn’t manage the multiple ethics investigations into his activities.
And these were simply Trump’s first round of picks. One of Trump’s last scandal-laden cabinet members, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert Wilkie, is leading Trump’s Defense Department transition team. Wilkie’s time in the first Trump administration was marred by claims he orchestrated a smear campaign against a female veteran who alleged she was sexually assaulted at a V.A. facility.
[…] “One other thing I’ll be doing very early in the administration is closing the Department of Education in Washington, D.C., and sending all education and education working needs back to the states,” Trump said in a video message on Truth Social.
[…] under a second Trump presidency, it’s unclear how much lasting damage will be done.
“We are going to close the Department of Education in Washington, D.C., and send it back to the States, where it belongs, and let the States run our educational system as it should be run,” the 2024 GOP platform detailed in its policy proposal guide. “Our Great Teachers, who are so important to the future well-being of our Country, will be cherished and protected by the Republican Party so that they can do the job of educating our students that they so dearly want to do.”
[…] There’s also been a recent effort to divest public school funding into private education with the help of billionaires. According to reporting by The 19th, state funding for public schools has stagnated over the past decade, rising just 1% annually on average, adjusting for inflation. However, state spending on tax breaks and subsidies for private schools rose by a staggering 408%. [Yikes! Quite the contrast.]
There’s also been a recent effort to divest public school funding into private education with the help of billionaires. According to reporting by The 19th, state funding for public schools has stagnated over the past decade, rising just 1% annually on average, adjusting for inflation. However, state spending on tax breaks and subsidies for private schools rose by a staggering 408%. [video at the link]
[…] Betsy DeVos, the secretary of education during Trump’s first administration, was truly awful. In fact, Sen. Elizabeth Warren called her “the worst Secretary of Education ever.” It remains to be seen how much damage Trump can do to education this time around.
Fixing LED strip lights to the bottom of surfboards could deter attacks by great white sharks, Australian scientists say.
A study conducted in Mossel Bay, South Africa involved towing seal-shaped boards fitted with different configurations of lights behind a boat to see which attracted the most attention.
The researchers from Macquarie University in New South Wales say the lights distorted the silhouette of their “decoys” on the ocean’s surface and limited the ability of the great whites to see against the sunlight…
Researchers say it is also important to see whether the LED lighting is effective in deterring other shark species known to attack humans, including bull sharks and tiger sharks…
“I didn’t run on my identity, but my identity was not a secret, and in a state where two-thirds of the voters are in the Philadelphia media market, with a trans candidate on the ballot statewide, that candidate not only performed on par with other Democrats, but had the highest percentage of any Democrat running for major statewide office in Delaware this cycle,” […] McBride defeated Republican James Whalen by a comfortable margin
birgerjohanssonsays
This week’s dissection of bad religious films has arrived. Sometimes I imagine the robots from Mystery Science Theater 3000 hanging out with Noah, Heath and Eli to mock awful movies.
One of the most irritating things for me about this entire election has been the confounding absurdity of the claims that Donald Trump is or has ever been “anti-war.” People repeat it as fact, his own supporters in particular, seeming to enjoy needling us with “Now Democrats are the party of war and we are the party of peace!”
He claims it, sure — because one thing he’s been obnoxiously good at has been taking enormously popular left-wing stances and talking points (that mainstream Democrats have often avoided) and warping them to fit his own purposes — but as with everything else, he’s only using it in order to get away with even more evil shit.
Case in point — whom did he just announce he plans to nominate as our ambassador to the United Nations? Why it’s Elise Stefanik, one of the biggest neocon warhawks in our entire government. No one loves war like Elise Stefanik!
As Daniel Larison at Truthout points out, “[b]efore being elected to Congress, she worked at the hardline Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, and she worked at the extremely hawkish Foreign Policy Initiative that was co-founded by Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan.”
Not only that, she has been one of the most vocal supporters of Israel’s war on Gaza and has repeatedly demanded that universities crack down on the free speech of student protestors. She’s also demanded that the United States block funding to the United Nations Relief Works Agency, the main provider of humanitarian aid to suffering Palestinians, and suggested that there needs to be a “complete reassessment of US funding of the United Nations” after the Palestinian Authority suggested that Israel should be kicked out of the organization for reasons of human rights abuses. […]
there’s a reason Netanyahu is delighted that Trump was elected again, and a reason why Israel’s finance minister Bezalel Smotrich has announced plans to immediately begin annexing the West Bank — a plan supported by settlement leaders and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. Trump supported Netanyahu and West Bank settlers throughout his first term, and they know they can count on his support again.
Gideon Sa’ar, Israel’s foreign minister, revealed on Monday that this had been discussed during Trump’s first term as president, well before the war even started. You know, like back when his administration declared that the West Bank settlements do not violate international law (which, you know, they do).
Stefanik and Ben Gvir will likely have a lot in common, given that they have both endorsed viewpoints famously shared by mass murderers. Stefanik, for her part, has been a real big fan of the notoriously antisemitic “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory espoused by multiple US mass murderers, including Payton Gendron, who used it to justify killing 10 Black people in a Buffalo supermarket not far from the New York district she represents, while Ben Gvir once decorated his living room with a portrait of Baruch Goldstein, perpetrator of the 1994 Hebron Cave of the Patriarchs Massacre, in which he brutally murdered 29 Muslims as they prayed. […]
And, of course, there’s Jared Kushner — the architect of Trump’s Middle East policies in his first term — who is real excited for all the valuable “waterfront property” that Israel could have if they just forced Palestinians out of Gaza for good. After all, what’s wrong with a little ethnic cleansing if it comes with a lovely view?
As far as Ukraine goes? Trump has repeatedly said that they should have just given Putin Crimea and whatever other areas of the country he wanted and agreed not to join NATO in order to appease him.
There is a difference between arming a country that is being invaded (as with Ukraine) and being or arming the country that is doing the invading. […]
Now, there are people who have pointed out that the US did not enter into any new wars during Trump’s first term. They did things that would later lead to wars being fought, but sure — technically that is true. However, allow me to note that his use of drones far exceeded Obama’s by the first two years he was in office.
From a 2019 Chicago-Sun Times article:
According to a 2018 report in The Daily Beast, Obama launched 186 drone strikes in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan during his first two years in office. In Trump’s first two years, he launched 238. [Yikes. I did not know, or did not remember that.]
The Trump administration has carried out 176 strikes in Yemen in just two years, compared with 154 there during all eight years of Obama’s tenure, according to a count by The Associated Press and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.
Experts also say drone strikes under President Trump have surged in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.
And, as was the case during Obama’s presidency, these strikes have resulted in untold numbers of civilian casualties. According to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, U.S. drone strikes in Afghanistan killed more than 150 civilians in the first nine months of 2018.
Amnesty International reports drones have killed at least 14 civilians in Somalia since 2017.
[…] Trump has also quite notably offered support and admiration for dictators who, for lack of a better term, have gone to war against their own people. He was a big fan of Filipino dictator Rodrigo Duterte, who killed 7,000 of his own people as part of his “war on drugs,” and even invited him to the White House. Trump also enjoyed palling around with Egypt’s Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who was appointed president in a military coup against the country’s first freely elected civilian president that led to police opening fire on and killing over 1150 people. And, of course, we all know of his bromances with Turkish dictator Recep Tayyip Erdogan (who leads the world in imprisonment of journalists … for now, anyway), Putin, Kim Jong Un, and, for a time, China’s Xi Jinping.
[…] Trump has repeatedly said he plans to use the military to go after left-wing protesters.
I oppose war because I don’t want to see people get hurt or killed or oppressed, regardless of the context. Trump only says he opposes war because he knows that most Americans oppose war and is willing to exploit their desire for peace (or the “desire for peace” they pretend to have in order to “own the libs”) in order to offer support to some of the cruelest regimes in existence. [Good points.]
[…] You can’t say “Oh, I’m such an incredible peacenik, I believe that when a country is invaded or occupied, or a people are oppressed, they should just immediately back down and let the aggressors do or have whatever they want,” which is largely what his position has been at every opportunity he has been given […].
[The] legal team intends to argue in the trial this week that Idaho’s abortion bans will lead to deaths if the exceptions aren’t clarified further. Such deaths are nearly impossible to track, however, because the state declined to renew its Maternal Mortality Review Committee, which investigated pregnancy-related deaths, so it expired in July 2023. [That figures. If you don’t look at it, it will go away.]
🙈 🙉 🙊
It matters because the two points are deeply, inextricably conjoined. Democrats are not well-served by a meltdown, a spiral of demoralization that zaps their energy to counter the Trump administration and bounce back in two and four years.
Bwahahahaha! What makes them think the Democrats will be any more able to “bounce back” in 2026 than the SPD was in 1936?
JMsays
Reporting from Ukraine: 13 Nov: New Record! Ukraine LAUNCHES BIGGEST STRIKE YET!
The Ukrainians continue to fight, launching the biggest drone strikes into Russia so far. Striking near Moscow, at military camps and at a Russian navel base at the same time. They seem to have done serious damage to some of the military training camps, which are poorly equipped. How much damage was done in the rest of the raid is unclear. Most of these military strikes are not intended to do a lot of damage, they are intended to force Russia to keep their forces further back and spread out. The raids around Moscow seem to be a mix of frightening the population, forcing the Russian military to keep a lot of air defense around Moscow and hitting the many manufacturing facilities around Moscow.
The Ukrainians have developed their own long ranged drone, obviously a light propeller plane design reworked a bit for remote control. By flying low to the ground they can dodge detection until close to their target and since there is no concern for return they can go far on one tank of gas.
StevoRsays
The 119th Congress will have several members whose elections made history. One of them is Representative-elect Sarah McBride, a state senator who won Delaware’s at-large seat in the House. She will become the first openly transgender member of the United States Congress. McBride joined Amna Nawaz to discuss more.
Trump has called climate change a scam and has argued that addressing it hurts American business and consumers. This, of course, comes as scientists say that 2024 will likely be the hottest year in recorded history.
To understand what this means for the country and for the climate, we are joined again by Coral Davenport of The New York Times.
Coral, so nice to see you again.
Zeldin was, I think, as your reporting showed, a somewhat unusual pick. He’s not someone that has shown a lot of interest or expertise in the climate, but one of the major initiatives we know he will likely undertake is what Donald Trump has said all along, that he wants to undo Biden’s signature environmental law, the Inflation Reduction Act, which plowed hundreds of billions of dollars into this green energy transition.
If Trump has the Senate and likely the House, how likely is it that Lee Zeldin and Trump will be able to undo that act?
Those of us born after 1977 have never seena cooler than average year. Si9cn ethen ther frequency of major hurricanes has doubled, and theincidence of wildfires in northern and central California has quintupled.
Page 78, “Climate Change is changing Astronomy’by Seven Ramussen, September Scientific American. magazine.
Richard Dawkins continues to make a fool of himself. On his Twitter account Tuesday he compared “transparently evil” and “stupid” Donald Trump to Elon Musk, who he describes as “highly intelligent and diametrically opposed to Trump, he has the welfare of the world at heart.” A statement even a cursory look at Musk’s personal Twitter account would show is nonsense.
birgerjohanssonsays
Jimmy Kimmel: “Celebrity Appresident”
Trump’s Insane Cabinet Taking Shape, Jimmy Interviews Marco Rubio & The Bigliest Election Moments
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=1yknkdjMzA0
Some dude from Fox & Friends becomes secretary of defence?
birgerjohanssonsays
Stephen Colbert
“Trump Taps Rubio, Noem For Cabinet | Rudy’s Tough Times | How To Move To Canada | A Round Of Sausage”
The news outlet says it will no longer post on any official Guardian accounts:
This is something we have been considering for a while given the often disturbing content promoted or found on the platform, including far-right conspiracy theories and racism. The US presidential election campaign served only to underline what we have considered for a long time: that X is a toxic media platform and that its owner, Elon Musk, has been able to use its influence to shape political discourse.
StevoRsays
@271. Correction make that page 75 NOT 78 and typos”from that “Climate Change is changing Astronomy’ there are mine obvs. Mea culpa.
Seven is Ramussen’s actual first name and not a typo tho’.
Ha ha! Get it? Department Of Government Efficiency – D-O-G-E. This is very on-brand for Musk, the man who named his car models S-3-X-Y and enabled them to make fart noises.
There are serious arguments to be made about conflict of interest, etc. but I can’t be bothered.
South Korean actor Song Jae-lim, a former model who rose to prominence in K-dramas, was found dead in Seoul on Tuesday. He was 39.
Song’s body was found in his apartment by a friend, who had planned to have lunch with him that day, according to the Seoul Seongdong police. A police official told CNN that no evidence of foul play was found at the scene, and a note was discovered in the apartment.
“Our initial investigation so far, has revealed no signs of criminal activity,” police told CNN. “Since the family did not want an autopsy, we will proceed with transferring the deceased to his family’s custody.” Police added that they will investigate the cause of the death following standard procedures…
StevoRsays
@ 277. Reginald Selkirk : So another unfunny Xmas Cracker / stereotypical Dad sleazy racist weird uncle joke to mock everyone as Musk indicates he’s ready to fuck up national governance in the same way he fucked up Twitter..
StevoRsays
Half heard whilst doing things with TV / radio on in background about Climate Change causing or contributing significantly to inflation.
Global Overheating – inaction on that = higher cost of living, higher prices for everything and everyone. (Mostly?)
I’m no economist, whole area seems like a pseudoscience and just doesn’t make sense to me so dunno. But inituitively FWIW sounds ’bout right? Seems to follow.
Is that right? If it is can economists and pundits who talk about that and politics kinda point that out more and give the clueless masses as a big cluebat that that is the case (if it is) please?
If you had any hope normal people would come into his administration to do normal things, that wishful thinking hasn’t survived one week after the election.
The last time Donald Trump was president, his Interior secretary was embroiled in a corruption scandal and ended up referred to the Department of Justice for a potential criminal investigation. His Transportation secretary was also embroiled in her own corruption scandal and also was referred to the Justice Department for a potential criminal investigation.
Trump’s Labor secretary resigned in scandal, following a ruling from a federal judge that he had broken the law when he signed a plea deal agreement with Jeffrey Epstein in 2008. Trump’s Energy secretary, head of the Environmental Protection Agency and Health and Human Services secretary all also resigned in corruption and ethics scandals.
It used to be if you had one Cabinet official involved in a big ethics and/or corruption scandal that forced them out of the job or led to them being referred for criminal investigations, that would be enough to brand your whole presidency a disgraced and scandal-ridden mistake.
Just consider Warren G. Harding — what’s remembered about his presidency? Maybe that he died in office? Or that he had an affair? No, it’s the Teapot Dome corruption scandal, which resulted in a Cabinet official being criminally charged. A century later, that one scandal involving one Cabinet official is basically all we remember about Harding’s presidency.
The first Trump term had so many Cabinet officials forced out of office in disgrace and referred to the Justice Department for criminal charges that it’s actually hard to remember them all. However, despite an unprecedented number of Cabinet officials being referred for criminal investigations, the supposedly independent DOJ decided to bring charges against precisely none of them.
One of the more memorable ethical disasters along these lines from the first Trump term was a situation involving his secretary of Veterans Affairs, Robert Wilkie. This might be the most memorable scandal because it happened right at the end of his administration, Dec. 10, 2020 — after Trump lost re-election to Joe Biden but before the Jan. 6 attack.
MaddowBlog’s headline at the time, by Steve Benen, read, “Yet another Trump Cabinet secretary caught up in scandal: As Donald Trump’s presidency comes to an ignominious end, it’s apparently not too late for one more Cabinet controversy.”
Wilkie was accused of having discredited a female veteran who said she had been sexually assaulted at a VA facility. The VA inspector general investigated those allegations against him, found evidence that he seemed to have broken the law and referred him to the Justice Department for investigation. (Wilkie has denied questioning the woman’s credibility.) [video at the link]
The Justice Department didn’t charge Wilkie, just like they didn’t charge any of these guys. But more than 20 different veterans groups rose up in outrage against him. Disparate veterans groups with very different takes on the world banded together — everyone from the American Legion to Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America to the Veterans of Foreign Wars – all demanding that Wilkie resign or be fired.
It was just a disaster, and it was a sign that even right up to the very bitter and ultimately violent end of Trump’s first term, things weren’t merely bad. It’s not normal to have a half-dozen members of the Cabinet referred for investigations into potential crimes committed while they were serving in the Cabinet.
Now, as the nation marked Veteran’s Day, a day to honor and celebrate our veterans, we learned Trump has decided to bring Wilkie back, tapping him to lead the transition efforts for the entire Defense Department. At a time when the country is looking to the U.S. military for assurances that they won’t deploy against American civilians the way Trump has threatened, the guy charged with staffing up the Defense Department leadership for the military is same guy who left office last time while his “possible criminal conduct” was under investigation by federal prosecutors.
Wilkie is not the only one who’s been tapped for the second Trump administration in recent days. NBC News has learned Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who once memorably cast aspersions on the size of Trump’s genitals in a presidential debate, is expected to be the president-elect’s choice for secretary of state.
Trump has also chosen Rep. Mike Waltz of Florida to be his national security adviser. Walz helped in the effort to try to overthrow the government and keep Trump in power after he lost re-election in 2020. Waltz has distinguished himself by claiming that Trump was not responsible for Jan. 6 and that Dulles Airport should be renamed the “Donald J. Trump International Airport.” So clearly, he’s checked all the boxes he needs to be national security adviser.
We learned Tom Homan, the former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during Trump’s first term, will be his administration’s “border czar.” Remember when Republicans used to maintain with a straight face that it was a huge scandal and evidence of communism to call anyone the czar of anything?
Well, Homan will now be Trump’s “border czar.” He’s one of the architects of the policy that had the U.S. government deliberately and systematically separating kids from their parents at the border. He’s also spent this interregnum period while Trump has been out of office barnstorming the country bragging about how he’s going to be the man mercilessly coming after immigrants if Trump gets back in power.
Trump has put the other architect of family separation, Stephen Miller, in charge of all policy planning for the transition. A source tells NBC News that Miller will also serve as deputy chief of staff for policy in the second Trump White House.
So anyone telling you that a second Trump administration is going to be at all moderate or normal in terms of what they’re going to do, that person is living on a nice planet that I’d like to visit sometime, but it’s not our planet.
Any expectation that the most extreme things Trump talked about were just talk and that normal people would come into his administration to do normal things, well, that wishful thinking hasn’t survived one week after the election.
I never, not for a moment, indulged in that “wishful thinking.” Thinking along those lines would amount to self-delusion.
Special Counsel Jack Smith is planning to wind down his two cases against Donald Trump and step down before Trump’s inauguration in January, the NYT reported.
The exact mechanism by which Smith winds down his cases remains unclear. It’s also not clear whether Smith will issue an exhaustive final report that provides new details on Trump’s alleged wrongdoing in the Jan. 6 case or the Mar-a-Lago documents fiasco.
This paragraph from the NYT report is almost unbelievable in it degree of naivete, though it’s hard to suss out whether that’s the newspaper’s, Attorney General Merrick Garland’s, or both:
The big question now, assuming Mr. Smith finishes the report on his current schedule, is whether Mr. Garland will release the findings before he leaves office, or defer the release to the Trump team, which might not make its contents public.
[WTF!?]
The thrust of the NYT piece suggests Smith is trying not to leave anything to chance by finishing what is left of his work before the new administration takes over. He also seems to be intentionally averting a situation in which Trump gets to follow through on his promise to fire Smith within “two seconds” of taking office.
Judge Pauses Hush Money Case
The only criminal case which managed to get to trial before the election is now stalled in light of the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision and Trump re-election. Prosecutors in Manhattan asked for and the judge granted a pause to assess next steps. They have until Nov. 19 to alert the court to their plans. Sentencing remains set for later in November.
Georgia RICO Case In Limbo
The Georgia RICO case is likely to proceed against Trump’s co-defendants without him. The Supreme Court rejected Tuesday Mark Meadows’ bid to remove the case to federal court.
Add Insult To Injury
As if the collapse of the Trump prosecutions wasn’t enough, the state judge overseeing the fake electors case in Arizona recused himself late Tuesday after it was reported that he had emailed fellow judges about defending Kamala Harris and equated the present moment with the failure to avert the Holocaust.
More Clown Show details:
The Trump II Clown Show
– Fox News host Pete Hegseth: secretary of defense
– Former Trump Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe: CIA director
– Former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-AR): U.S. ambassador to Israel
– Republican campaign lawyer William McGinley: White House counsel
– Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy: co-leaders of Trump’s new “Department of Government Efficiency”
– Trump wants to bring back his tariff-loving former U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer as White House “trade czar”
– Is Trump really going to nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for a Senate-confirmed position?
As news stories centering billionaire Elon Musk as the real power behind the new Donald Trump presidency have begun to circulate, Trump announced that Musk will head a new commission with no apparent power.
Trump announced on Tuesday night that Musk and perpetual Fox News guest (and host) Vivek Ramaswamy will co-lead the “Department of Government Efficiency.” There is no such department within the U.S. federal government.
To form an official federal agency requires an act of Congress, such as the 2002 Homeland Security Act, which created the Department of Homeland Security after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. While it remains to be seen whether the Republican-led Congress would create this department for Trump and his benefactor, that has not yet happened.
[…] at the moment, what Trump has announced for Musk and Ramaswamy is effectively a blue-ribbon commission.
A blue-ribbon commission is a time-honored Washington tradition that crosses party lines. An announcement is made of a panel of experts and the like to address some issue, garnering headlines and muting criticism on the topic. What effectively happens is the issue is tabled and some months or years later a report is issued when nobody is paying any attention and little changes.
There are already signs from within Trump world that Trump wants to get rid of his growing Musk problem. Politico is now reporting that insiders close to Trump believe Musk has “become almost a comical distraction,” citing his habit of “hanging around Mar-a-Lago” and sitting in on high level meetings and giving feedback nobody asked him for.
“Elon is getting a little big for his britches,” one Trump-affiliated source told the outlet.
Similarly, NBC News has reported that sources close to the Trump transition believe Musk’s presence has “begun to wear on people.”
“He’s behaving as if he’s a co-president and making sure everyone knows it,” the source told NBC.
By the same token, however, Musk put in hundreds of millions to elect Trump again and is likely aware of the access and power Trump has traditionally given his elite donors in the past. He is just the latest to step up to the trough.
Trump loves a good show, particularly when it can steer media coverage in the direction he prefers. He has staged events over and over making grand proclamations which turned out to be nonsense. The announcement of Musk’s new fake department fits flawlessly in that mold, and it appears perfectly worded to put Musk in his place.
But will the billionaire sugar daddy get the message?
Another deluded Republican questions election results:
Wealthy California banker Eric Hovde is whining about the Senate race he lost in Wisconsin to Democrat Tammy Baldwin, posting an embarrassing video to X on Tuesday in which he tried to sow doubt in the outcome of the race by lying about “inconsistencies” in the count.
“Like many of my supporters, I was shocked by what unfolded on election night,” Hovde said in the video. “At 1 AM, I was receiving calls of congratulations, and based on the models, it appeared I would win the Senate race. Then, at 4 AM, Milwaukee reported approximately 108,000 absentee ballots, with Sen. Baldwin receiving nearly 90% of those ballots.” [video at the link, in which privileged asshole reveals he is clueless]
“Hovde’s numbers in this statement are wrong,” said Craig Gilbert, a fellow at Marquette University Law School and former Washington bureau chief for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “He says Baldwin got ‘nearly 90%’ of the absentee ballots in city of [Milwaukee]. She actually got just over 80%, which is hardly shocking, since she got 74% of the election day vote in the city. Nothing strange about the [Milwaukee] vote!”
Around 1 AM CT on Nov. 6—i.e., late on election night—Republicans were already posting on X that it looked unlikely Hovde would win.
“It’s going to be close. With Hovde up ~63k, that may not be enough to withstand the Milwaukee/Racine/Green Bay/Oshkosh vote yet to come in,” Joe Handrick, a Republican former member of the Wisconsin state Assembly, wrote in a post on X. “My numbers suggest a [Democrat] will net more than 63k from those.”
[…] Sowing doubt about the election results, Hovde also said that some precincts reported greater than 100% turnout. However, that turnout estimate is based on voters registered before Election Day, and doesn’t include those who registered on Nov. 5, as multiple news outlets have noted.
Hovde’s claims are all the more absurd given that Donald Trump won Wisconsin. He’s insinuating that Democrats would rig the race against him but also let Trump win the state. Give us a break.
After he posted the video raising doubts about the fairness of the election, he said on a local radio program that he knows he lost. “It’s the most painful loss I’ve ever experienced,” Hovde said, adding that he will “pick myself up and move on.”
[…] his decision to sow doubt in the results by making baseless claims of “inconsistencies” is antithetical to the comments he was making ahead of the election.
On Nov. 4, Hovde said, “Look, I plan to accept the results of what happens tomorrow.”
And in early October, Hovde said, “We have to stop every time one side loses an election saying the election was stolen.”
“We have to get confidence in our election process,” he added that same day. “And if I lose, I lose.”
Baldwin slammed Hovde’s response to his loss.
“Eric Hovde is spreading lies from the darkest corners of the internet to undercut our free and fair elections. Wisconsin voters made their voices heard. It’s time for Hovde to stop this disgusting attack on our democracy and concede,” Baldwin wrote […]
“In his final, disgraceful act, Hovde embarrasses [Wisconsin] with his own election Big Lie,” Wisconsin Democratic Rep. Gwen Moore wrote on X. “Go back to Malibu, CA, and enjoy the beach and your $26 MILLION in cartel-linked cash.”
I actually think Harris ran a good campaign. I give her credit for choosing a solid progressive in Tim Walz. This was a largely pro-labor, pro-union administration, not that most people know it.
This election was utter madness. If you want to point fingers, point them at democracy’s most powerful saboteurs: the oligarchs who destroyed reality through deranged media, and those who carried water for them. Also, misogyny didn’t help.
Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) has been elected Senate majority leader, setting the stage for him to replace retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has held the top Senate GOP leadership job for the past 18 years.
Thune has served as Senate Republican whip, the No. 2-ranking position in the Senate GOP leadership, since 2019, and largely managed operation of the Senate floor since McConnell suffered a concussion from a fall in 2023.
Thune beat Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) by a vote of 25 to 24, according to two sources familiar.
Thune led after the first ballot. He won 25 votes while Cornyn won 15 votes and Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) collected 13 votes.
“I am extremely honored to have earned the support of my colleagues to lead the Senate in the 119th Congress, and I am beyond proud of the work we have done to secure our majority and the White House,” he said in a statement after the vote. “This Republican team is united behind President Trump’s agenda, and our work starts today.”
Thune is well-liked among his Senate Republican colleagues and his affable, humble approach to managing the conference has earned the trust and confidence of fellow GOP senators. […]
When Donald Trump made his announcement that he HEREBY DEMANDS a Senate majority leader who will allow him to make recess appointments — thereby skipping the confirmation process entirely, and basically letting Trump choose Russian spies for his Cabinet if he wants, without any oversight, not that the incoming Republican Senate wouldn’t have allowed that — people correctly noted this was an attempt at a dictator move, Trump trying to consolidate power for himself. L’État, c’est moi, etc.
But we should not discount the possibility that part of the reason Trump doesn’t want confirmation hearings is because he’s nominating such barkfucking dumbasses for his Cabinet that he doesn’t want America or the Senate to see and laugh at them.
Hello, Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth, AKA Fox News weekend host Pete Hegseth […]
In response to the nomination, a lot of Republican senators said “Who?” (Bill Cassidy) […]
Elizabeth Warren said meanwhile that “A Fox & Friends weekend co-host is not qualified to be the Secretary of Defense,” […] Other Democrats are similarly horrified.
And as it happens, “woke” is Hegseth’s obsessive fuck-chicken. Hegseth is a veteran who came back to America to promptly get brainwashed into the right-wing fever fantasy that everything MANLY is being ruined by “woke.” The military, the artist formerly known as the Boy Scouts, everything.
Hegseth is a really weird conservative Christian type, the kind whose identity is very wrapped up in feeling threatened by the spiritual warfare the Devil is waging on Good Christian Patriarchal Families like his own. (Obviously his own personal story involves a lot of adultery, because he’s That Guy.)
Comically, Hegseth wrote an entire book on the “betrayal” of our men in uniform, and how they were tricked into “going woke.” He was in the Army himself (he’d be upset if we didn’t mention) and he’s very, very, very triggered by things like this.
Know who really loves Hegseth? Those gross, performatively bearded “TheoBros,” the fascist white Christian man movement that also happens to idolize JD Vance. You know, in case you want to understand exactly who’s getting their anus tickled with this nomination.
Got an extra two hours? Here’s Hegseth with one of the TheoBros circle-jerking on the “Reformation Red Pill” podcast about “the desperate need for Christians to ensure that their children receive a Christian education.” […] Here he is saying he doesn’t believe women should be in combat. [Lots of embedded links to additional sources of information are available at the main link.]
Here’s Hegseth just yesterday on Fox Business, reacting to Trump’s plan to pull out of the Paris Climate deal (again), saying that the “adults are back, and our enemies are taking notice.” Hahahahahahahahaha, OK, bud. [video at the link]
We guarantee this selection is eliciting uncontrollable laughing in militaries and governments around the globe right now.
But then again, Donald Trump despises the military and thinks people who give their lives for this country or are grievously injured in war are suckers and losers. Nominating Pete Hegseth as secretary of Defense is just a demonstration of that belief.
Kind of funny in a “narrowly avoided another fascist stamp of approval” way:
The House of Representatives last night failed to pass a bill that would have given presidents the power to revoke nonprofits’ tax exempt status by invoking the magic words “terrorist supporting organization.” The bill looked to be on the way to passage until Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) led opposition to it, citing the potential for Donald Trump to use the power arbitrarily. It’s already a crime for Americans and American organizations to support terrorism […].
The “Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act,” which doesn’t even work out to be a snappy acronym, would give the Treasury Department unilateral power to remove tax exempt nonprofit status from any organization it might slap with the “terrorist supporting” label. Obviously, not a good tool to hand to a guy who regularly says anyone who opposes him is an enemy of America — and honestly, probably not a good idea even in non-crazy administrations.
The bill did get a majority of votes — 256 yeas to 145 nays, mostly from Democrats and one Republican — but that didn’t meet the two-thirds majority needed to “suspend the rules” in the House and put it quickly to a full vote. If you’re represented by any of the 52 Democrats who did support the bill, please contact their office to say HELL NO WHAT ARE YOU THINKING? only in much more polite terms [Really!]
A previous version of the bill actually passed the House with bipartisan support in May, although even then critics were pointing out it could be applied unfairly to quiet nonprofit journalism outfits critical of Middle East policy. That version has been stuck in committee in the Senate, so the new version, HR 9495, was introduced in September, adding a new provision that would provide tax exemptions for Americans held hostage or unjustly imprisoned in other countries.
Doggett said in a floor speech before the vote Tuesday, “All of us support stopping terrorism. [… But] if he is on a march to make America fascist, we do not need to supply Donald Trump with any additional weapons to accomplish his ill purpose.” [So true.]
Here’s how the bill would have worked, as explained by The Intercept:
Under the provisions of the bill, the Treasury secretary would have been authorized to unilaterally designate any nonprofit group deemed to be a supporter of terrorism, giving the group just 90 days to respond to a notice. After those 90 days, if appeals were unsuccessful, the group would be stripped of its tax-exempt 501(c)(3) status. Such a measure would likely cripple any nonprofit, and even if an appeal was successful, critics said, it would leave a mark that could scare away donors.
Not surprisingly, both versions of the bill have been opposed by civil liberties groups, which all pointed out that protesting a war isn’t the same as rooting for terrorists. […] The ACLU, which led some 130 groups opposing the legislation, celebrated yesterday’s vote, warning that it also could have stripped nonprofit status from news outlets and universities too, although plenty of Republicans no doubt nodded and said that was the point.
[…] several Democrats who had previously supported the bill changed sides, including Rep. Don Beyer (D-Virginia), who noted in a House speech before the vote that supporting terrorism is already a crime, but mostly emphasized that the potential for abuse by Trump was the main reason for his new thinking:
“[…] under the leadership of an unscrupulous or an authoritarian president, it’s not hard to imagine how that administration could use the powers in this bill to hinder or dismantle organizations they don’t like.”
[…] The bill could conceivably return during the lame duck session, but with Democrats still running the Senate, it’s not likely to be a threat for now. Republicans are likely to bring it back in the next session, especially if they keep control of the House (just 12 seats have yet to be decided as of right now, and the GOP is very close to the 218 seats they’ll need for a majority).
Hell, the prospect of allowing Donald Trump the power to use the tax code to shut down nonprofits he doesn’t like might even be enough to overcome the usual Republican chaos.
[…] According to reporting by CNN, women’s telehealth company Wisp saw a 1,000% surge in morning-after pill sales like Plan B emergency contraception. This led the company to have the largest revenue they’ve ever seen. Most purchases, according to Wisp, were of “value packs” with three or six-packs of Plan B.
“They’re really stocking up to have on hand in the event that the landscape changes,” Wisp CEO Monica Cepak told Fierce Healthcare. “There’s no judgment. We’re providing the necessary healthcare to women.”
During that same period, Cepak said the company saw new patient sales rise 1,650%, with birth control sales doubling.
According to reporting by Fierce Healthcare, in the 60 hours after Tuesday’s election results, sexual health provider Winx said it sold seven times more doses of its morning-after pill compared to the same period the previous week—a 966% jump. […]
Aid Access is the No. 1 supplier of abortion pills by mail in the U.S. Founder Rebecca Gomperts told The Guardian that the company received more than 5,000 requests for abortion pills in 12 hours post-election—an even higher number than when Roe v. Wade was overturned.
[…] Telehealth companies like Aid Access and Wisp, which include virtual appointments with physicians, are cash-pay only with a variety of monthly subscription fees. They do not accept health insurance. This could create a possible barrier to access for some low-income women, especially if the U.S. economy trends downward as expected with Trump in office.
It’s uncertain how women’s health care and OB-GYNs will operate should a nationwide abortion ban pass into law. It’s also uncertain if conservative states will continue to wage a war on women’s health by limiting access to reproductive health care in the name of religion. But one thing is very clear: Women want to protect themselves from an administration that has shown it is hell-bent on harming them.
Republicans have clinched the White House and Congress, though with a House majority so slim that it might hamper parts of President-Elect Donald Trump’s agenda. [I hope so.]
Democratic losses in the House would have been much greater had these down-ballot candidates not often outpaced Vice President Kamala Harris, some holding their own in Trump districts.
Republicans will control the chamber with at least 218 seats — several more seats remain too close to call. By dint of the closely contested seats and the Trump administration plucking out some House members to serve in his cabinet, Republicans may be facing a historically slim majority. In the Senate, they’ll either have a 53-47 seat majority or a 52-48 one based on the outcome of the Pennsylvania Senate race, which the cable news networks have not yet called.
The last time Republicans won a trifecta, in 2017 when Trump won his first term, Republicans controlled the House by 47 seats. They also had a six-seat Senate majority.
In the second half of President Joe Biden’s administration, Republicans struggled mightily with small House margins, much more so than Democrats, who were working with a similar number of seats in his first two years but managed to pass wide swaths of legislation.
When Republicans flipped the House in 2022 with a margin of nine seats, the dysfunction began immediately, with Kevin McCarthy infamously requiring 15 rounds of voting to secure the speakership. By the fall he was ousted amid a far-right mutiny. It took 22 days for the conference to settle on Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA), the current speaker.
The source of the consternation was often the party’s right flank, which has become accustomed to obstruction and didn’t shy away from internecine squabbling. This put them at odds with members in vulnerable districts, particularly the New York Republicans from Biden-voting districts, most of whom were ousted this election.
Still, the comparison isn’t a perfect one. In 2017, when Republicans faced the incentive of actually legislating and supporting Trump’s administration, the party was less thoroughly infected with MAGA devotion. In the years since, many Trump resisters have been primaried or self-selected out of the party. For example, only two of the House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump remain in Congress; both faced tough reelection fights this year, but survived.
Freedom caucus-type Republicans may be less inclined to constantly needle leadership and gum up the chamber now that they’ll be serving under a President Trump, and not a President Biden.
The degree to which House Republicans will be called on to unify depends on whether Senate Republicans blow up the filibuster.
Outgoing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has for years defended the filibuster, knowing, if not saying, that it serves Republican interests. They can pass tax cuts and nominate judges with it in place in its current form, and it blocks Democrats, who often have more ambitious legislative agendas, from passing much of what they want to do. It can also bail Republicans out from having to actually pass and stand by some of their more unpopular campaign promises, historically ranging from banning abortion nationwide to privatizing Social Security.
[…] If they do keep the filibuster in place, Trump may try to do much of his agenda unilaterally — imposing huge tariffs on foreign goods, deporting unprecedented numbers of immigrants, pulling the United States out of NATO, unwinding regulations, perhaps forcing and negotiating Ukraine’s surrender to Russia.
Senate Republicans will still likely pass tax cuts for the rich through the budget reconciliation process (which only requires a simple majority), depending upon House support. Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Tom Cotton (R-AR) have also discussed using the budgetary process to weaken or roll back the Affordable Care Act and pass immigration-related legislation, though some Republicans reportedly fret that off-topic legislation will get flagged by the Senate parliamentarian and derail the tax cuts. […]
President-elect Trump announced Wednesday that Tulsi Gabbard would serve as his director of national intelligence […]
“For over two decades, Tulsi has fought for our Country and the Freedoms of all Americans. As a former Candidate for the Democrat Presidential Nomination, she has broad support in both Parties – She is now a proud Republican! I know Tulsi will bring the fearless spirit that has defined her illustrious career to our Intelligence Community, championing our Constitutional Rights, and securing Peace through Strength. Tulsi will make us all proud!” Trump wrote in a statement.
A four-term Democratic congresswoman who ran against President Biden in the 2020 primaries, Gabbard left the party in 2022, but did not officially become a Republican until earlier this year.
Already a presidential candidate in 2019, she voted “present” for Trump’s first impeachment, calling it the “culmination of a partisan process.”
But her political shift has accompanied numerous other statements and actions that have promoted numerous accusations that she is peddling disinformation or could even be a Russian asset.
If he is confirmed by the Senate, Gaetz will succeed Attorney General Merrick Garland, who led the Justice Department as it carried out a sex-trafficking investigation into the congressman. The DOJ ultimately declined to charge Gaetz. Gaetz remains the subject of an ongoing House Ethics Committee investigation into whether he engaged in sexual misconduct or illicit drug use.
[…]
Asked […] for his reaction […] Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, replied,
“Are you s——- me?”
Could there be a worse pick? Ken Paxton of Texas maybe, an indicted man, just like Trump.
Proposing Matt Gaetz for attorney general is so effing awful that I wonder if Trump is not just doing it for laughs, or to own the libs, or to begin a negotiation over the person he really wants the Senate to confirm.
As an aside, this is the first time I find myself in tune with Mike Simpson.
[…] As for Matt Gaetz – comically inappropriate, totally unqualified but completely unsurprising. There may be no apparatus Trump wants to control more than the Department of Justice. Gaetz throws in the additional benefit of being a total chaos agent. […] In many ways, this is provocation as much as anything. A big F You to everyone who believes in the rule of law.
[…] There’s a method to this madness. […] Concentration of power in the White House is a feature of most recent administrations. But here we see a particularly acute version of it. People who are generally non-entities in many key positions and the decision-making housed in the White House, free or whatever minimal Senate oversight might go to the Departments.
[…] Trump announced on Wednesday that he would nominate Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) to serve as attorney general, one of the most powerful positions in the Cabinet of an incoming president who promised to use federal law enforcement to harass and prosecute his political opponents.
Gaetz said on X immediately after the announcement that he would accept.
Trump’s pick of Gaetz as the country’s top law enforcement official contains nested layers of lawlessness. After spending the past year under four indictments, Trump has chosen to nominate a man who currently faces a House Ethics Committee probe for alleged sexual misconduct and drug use, among other things. That followed a very high-profile DOJ investigation into sex trafficking; federal prosecutors told Gaetz in February 2023 that he would not be charged.
The Gaetz pick marks Trump’s commitment to using law enforcement to crack down on his political opponents, and to soothe his own grievances. In the statement announcing his intent to appoint Gaetz, Trump lauded him for his role in fighting Trump’s enemies, and promised that the Florida congressman would continue to do so at DOJ […]
Trump announced Gaetz’s nomination minutes after saying that he would nominate former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard to lead the intelligence community as Director of National Intelligence. Gabbard secretly traveled to Syria in 2017 to meet with Bashar al-Assad, and maintained for years after that the well-documented mass murderer was being falsely accused. She’s trafficked in pro-Russia conspiracy theories, and the former Democrat is now a leading member of the MAGA Republican Party. [Gabbard backed Assad. She backed Putin and Russian conspiracy theories. Now she back Trump.]
It all looks — and is intended to look — like an absurdist attack on the institutions that the nominees are being asked to lead. The two picks move the ball firmly into the court of Senate Republicans, who selected Sen. John Thune (R-SD) as majority leader on Wednesday morning.
Thune will start off with a choice: allow votes on the two nominees, among others, that may fail in the Senate, or go along with a demand that Trump issued before Thune’s election as majority leader for recess appointments. That would allow Trump to appoint these officials for two-year terms absent the typical Senate confirmation process. [So that’s why Trump demanded the right to appoint officials during recess.]
After Trump demanded that the Senate allow extensive recess appointments, Thune stopped short of fully committing to the idea, saying in a statement over the weekend that “all options are on the table,” including recess appointments.
Multiple GOP Senators expressed varying levels of consternation at the appointments, though most avoided the central issue at hand: Trump’s demand that the Senate abdicate its constitutional authority and allow the appointments to go forward. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) told one reporter that the Gaetz nomination shows “why the Senate’s advice and consent process is so important.”
The iconic Arecibo Observatory telescope collapsed due to the decay of the zinc-filled sockets supporting the steel cables holding up the telescope’s 900-ton receiver platform.
Photo at the link.
Four years after the radio telescope at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico collapsed, a report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine is shining a light on the unprecedented failures that caused its destruction.
The steel cables holding up the telescope’s 900-ton receiver platform became loose because the zinc-filled sockets built to support them failed, according to the report published Oct. 25.
The failure was due to excessive “zinc creep,” a process in which the metal used to prevent corrosion or rusting on the sockets deforms and loses it grip over time, the report said.
The zinc gradually lost its hold on the cables suspending the telescope’s main platform over the reflector dish. This allowed several cables to pull out of the sockets, ultimately causing the platform to plummet into the reflector more than 400 feet below, according to the report.
This kind of failure “had never been reported previously in over a century of widespread zinc spelter socket successful use,” Roger L. McCarthy, chair of the committee on the analysis of causes of failure and collapse of the 305-meter telescope at the Arecibo Observatory, wrote in the report.
The committee, which wrote the report said there was not enough data available to conclusively prove what exactly caused the accelerated “zinc creep.” The only hypothesis the committee was able to develop based on the data it had put the blame on the effects of low-current electroplasticity. In other words, the constant flow of electric current through the sockets may have enhanced the metal zinc’s plastic behavior, therefore weakening its grip.
The committee reviewed an array of documents — including forensic investigations commissioned by the University of Central Florida and the National Science Foundation, the federal agency that owns the observatory, as well as structural analyses, engineering plans, inspection reports, photographs and repair proposals — to reach its conclusions. It also gathered information from employees at Arecibo Observatory and other “relevant research,” the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine said in a media advisory last month.
In the report, the committee also issued a series of recommendations. These include offering the radio telescope’s remaining socket and cable sections for further study as well as increasing the careful monitoring of aging research facilities to detect deterioration and potential novel failure modes, among others.
The telescope was built in the 1960s with money from the Defense Department amid a push to develop anti-ballistic missile defenses. It had endured hurricanes, tropical humidity and a recent string of earthquakes in its 57 years of operation.
The telescope had been used to track asteroids on a path to Earth, conduct research that led to a Nobel Prize and determine if a planet was potentially habitable. It also served as a training ground for graduate students and drew about 90,000 visitors a year.
In August 2020, the observatory started crumbling after an auxiliary cable snapped, causing damage to the telescope’s dish and the receiver platform that hung above it, according to the National Science Foundation. Following a few other cable failures, the federal agency decided to begin a plan to decommission the telescope in November 2020.
The transition did little to stop the telescope’s complete collapse on Dec. 1, 2020.
In 2022, the National Science Foundation said it would not rebuild Puerto Rico’s renowned radio telescope. Instead, it issued a solicitation for the creation of a $5 million education center at the site that would promote programs and partnerships related to science, technology, engineering and math.
Reginald Selkirksays
@292 CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain Asked […] for his reaction […] Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, replied,
“Are you s——- me?”
Prepare yourself for a four-year-long shit storm.
And remember the rule: when a Trump appointee gets fired/denied, they get replaced with someone even worse.
[…] It did not go unnoticed by some in Trump’s circles that Gaetz traveled with Trump on his trip to Washington, D.C. on Wednesday. Just the night before, some in Trump’s orbit believed that Andrew Bailey, Missouri’s attorney general, and Robert Giuffra, the head of Sullivan and Cromwell, were among the top contenders for attorney general, according to one person familiar with deliberations.
Not everyone in Trump’s inner circle was thrilled with his choice […]
Another telling detail:
[…] Trump ally and his former political strategist Roger Stone […] had just days ago claimed that “they won’t be able to get the clown car into the White House” with Wiles [Susie Wiles, chief of staff] leading its operations.
A Graettinger man who authorities say is not a U.S. citizen but who legally resides in the country has been charged with voter fraud, Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird’s office announced Tuesday.
Irving Omar Ahumada Geronimo, 35, of Graettinger, was arrested on two counts of election misconduct. He was charged on Oct. 31 with illegally registering to vote and voting on Nov. 2, 2021, in a Graettinger City Council and school board election…
This is the second recent prosecution announced by Bird’s office of a legal resident who is not a U.S. citizen accused of illegally casting a vote.
Jorge Oscar Sanchez-Vasquez of Marshalltown was arrested in September and charged with illegally registering to vote and voting in a July 16 special election for the Marshalltown City Council. The Register has reached out to his attorney for comment…
Wow, two whole votes. And neither person voted in a state or federal election, this was local stuff.
Members of President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team are drawing up a list of military officers to be fired, potentially to include the Joint Chiefs of Staff, two sources said, in what would be an unprecedented shakeup at the Pentagon.
The planning for the firings is at an early stage after Trump’s Nov. 5 election victory and could change as Trump’s administration takes shape, said the sources, who are familiar with the Trump transition and requested anonymity to speak candidly about the plans…
whheydtsays
The precedent for Gaetz as AG is probably Koko in Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Mikado being appointed Lord High Executioner. For those unfamiliar with that operetta, Koko is number one on the list to be executed, so he can’t cut off anyone else’s head until he cuts his own off. Suitably enough to Gaetz’s history, Koko’s crime was flirting.
A new palletized ground-based launcher concept that can be loaded with up to two dozen 227mm guided artillery rockets at a time – four times what an M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) can pack at once – recently broke cover. The launch system is designed to be carried on a 10-wheeled cargo truck and can also fire other weapons, including short-range ballistic missiles and surface-to-air interceptors…
tomhsays
Gaetz as Attorney General cements the upcoming administration as a disaster of monumental proportions. Electing Trump is the worst thing to happen to the country since Pearl Harbor.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
As before, the US again lowers the bar, Israel strides right into it, and the US keeps sending weapons anyway.
A [30-day] US deadline for Israel […] has expired, with the Biden administration assessing that Israel is not blocking aid and so is not violating US law governing foreign military assistance. The State Department said […] progress had been made—so there would be no disruption to US arms supplies.
But the US view is a stark contrast with the bleak picture on the ground, where much of the aid that reaches Gaza is not being distributed. […] the area is on the brink of famine. […] eight humanitarian organizations said the Israeli government “not only failed to meet the U.S. criteria [but] dramatically worsened the situation on the ground, particularly in northern Gaza.”
* Did Israel meet US Gaza aid requirements?
^ An itemized list of requirements the US had given, each of which is accompanied by statements from Israel, the UN, and aid groups as to whether it was met.
Elon Musk’s social media toilet X is facing a new exodus by journalists and organizations fed up with both the tanking quality of the site and the upcoming changes to its terms of service set to take effect Nov. 15.
X’s new service terms require users who wish to sue the company to file in specifically the “U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas or state courts located in Tarrant County, Texas.” These courts are a favorite of conservative activists as they are stocked with Republican appointees.
On Wednesday, The Guardian announced it would no longer post on the site, though it would not block X users from sharing its articles. “Social media can be an important tool for news organisations and help us to reach new audiences,” the media outlet writes, “but, at this point, X now plays a diminished role in promoting our work.”
Journalist Don Lemon, who is in the midst of a lawsuit with Musk for alleged breach of contract, also posted a statement on Wednesday about leaving the site. “I once believed it was a place for honest debate and discussion, transparency, and free speech, but I now feel it does not serve that purpose,” he wrote.
The Washington Post reports that the location of the courts X specifies—which are not in the district of the company’s headquarters—are a red flag to many experts who say the move is a clear gambit to force litigation into Musk and conservative-friendly courts.
Georgetown University law professor Steve Vladeck accused Musk of “quintessential forum shopping”—the practice of identifying a court or district where one believes they will receive a favorable ruling. He noted that 10 of the 11 active judges in the Northern District were appointed by a Republican president, compared with six of 11 judges in the Western District of Texas [where the company is located].
Musk’s preferred courts include such judges as Reed O’Connor, who owns between $15,000 and $50,000 worth of stock in electric vehicle maker Tesla (also owned by Musk) but who has refused to recuse from Musk’s lawsuit against watchdog group Media Matters.
[…] A recent computational analysis by researchers at Queensland University of Technology and Monash University found that after Musk endorsed Trump in July, X changed its algorithm to disproportionately pump his and other Republicans’ posts into people’s feeds.
People have been moving over to platforms like Bluesky or Threads, but the energy needed to build up followings (hey, here’s me on Bluesky!) is daunting. Writer Cory Doctorow has said he does not believe he can invest his time and energy into investing in any privately owned social media site that can “enshittify” its site based on a CEO’s whims.
[…] Gizmodo has a great article making the case for leaving Twitter/X and going to Bluesky (spoiler, that’s what we’re doing and gonna tell you to do), and gave a few more reasons for why now is the time:
In October X changed its terms of service and those new terms take effect on November 15. After the middle of the month, anything you post on the site will be gobbled up by Grok—X’s AI system—and used for training data. There’s no way to opt out of it. It may also allow third-party apps to use your posts for training data. Again, there’s no way to opt-out.
“You agree that this license includes the right for us to (i) analyze text and other information you provide and to otherwise provide, promote, and improve the Services, including, for example, for use with and training of our machine learning and artificial intelligence models, whether generative or another type; and (ii) to make Content submitted to or through the Services available to other companies, organizations or individuals, including, for example, for improving the Services and the syndication, broadcast, distribution, repost, promotion or publication of such Content on other media and services, subject to our terms and conditions for such Content use,” the updated terms of service read.
November 15 is also the day Texas takes over legal disputes around the social media site. “The laws of the State of Texas, excluding its choice of law provisions, will govern these Terms and any dispute that arises between you and us, notwithstanding any other agreement between you and us to the contrary,” the site says.
Which court, specifically, will hear out the X disputes? According to the Terms, it’ll be the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas in Tarrant County. Home of Fort Worth, Tarrant County is pretty far away from Musk’s adopted Austin. It’s also overseen by Judge Reed O’Connor, who happens to own around $50,000 in Tesla stock.
Hard fucking no.
The exodus has been happening ever since Elon bought it, but it’s really happening now. Guardian announced it’s quitting today. Bluesky is the number one app in the app store right now. Chris Hayes talked about leaving and going to Bluesky on his show last night (he’s already been there a long time): [video at the link]
So What Do You Do Now?
If you’re already there, follow all of us!
If you’re not there yet, go back up to that Gizmodo article, because it’s got all your instructions for getting on Bluesky, and helps you figure out whether you want to fully delete your Twitter or just lock it down or what.
Then you fuckin’ FOLLOW US.
I, writing you right now, I am @evanhurst.
The site with the Wonkette stories, it is @wonkettemedia. (That’s the one we just started today finally.) Now, this is confusing, it is a mystery and a wonder, but if you follow @wonkette, that is Rebecca, because of how she owns Wonkette. The best way to not be confused is to follow all of these.
Dok is @doktorzoom.
Robyn is @robynelyse.
Marcie is @marciej.
[…] OK go forth and do the things, you are dismissed.
With Gaetz as AG, Trump’s wasting no time in making sure high level Republicans will continue to have access to a steady supply of underage girls and an umbrella of protection from being investigated or prosecuted for this.
Meanwhile there’s the whole “your body, my choice” harassment campaign targeting women online.
Now will mainstream people believe us feminists when we talk about rape culture? <smh>
Pierce R. Butlersays
Waltz, Gaetz – curious pattern there.
The former & future guy has so far raptured two Florida congressmen and one Senator, so three consolation prizes to DeSantis for (potentially) himself and two or three cronies. Rep. Luna seems weird enough likely to join the roster, making four.
Florida may also end up giving up Joseph Ladapo for national service [sob!] – the perfect counterbalance to Health Co-Czar RFKJr.
Who else would you like? How about Rufo? Have no doubt he & Dr. L can scrub those DeSantis cooties to Presidential satisfaction. (Don’t worry, we’ve got more just like ’em!)
Howsomever, these musical chairs don’t alter the partisan/ideological balance in Congress at all, which may count as a gain when we’re losing on so many other fronts. (Thank you to the anonymous majority of Repub Senators who rejected Fla’s soon-to-be senior senator for their Mighty Leader! Do not turn your backs to him…)
Speaking of losing, are we down to Thune to defend the Constitution?!? Any bets on how long until DJT informs us Thune is a RINO®?
How long until Musk buys a prison-for-profit chain and invents the Ultimate Panopticon? Where is Foucault when we need him?
It may look like Hulk-Trump wil smash everything, but just wait till we’re allowed to see the Trump/Vance Efficiency Xonstitution™! TVEX will MAGA!
Tim Gallaudet, retired rear admiral, U.S. Navy; CEO of Ocean STL Consulting, LLC
…
“Confirmation that UAPs are interacting with humanity came for me in January 2015,” Gallaudet said in his written testimony (PDF). He describes being part of a pre-deployment naval exercise off the U.S. East Coast that culminated in the famous “Go Fast” video, in which a Navy F/A-18 jet’s sensors recorded “an unidentified object exhibiting flight and structural characteristics unlike anything in our arsenal.” …
In which the same tired “evidence” is dredged up yet again without mention that it has been thoroughly debunked. We might see more of this stuff under Trump, since he will not be putting highly competent people in positions of authority.
a “hijab removal treatment clinic” was announced by […] the Tehran Headquarters for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. […] the clinic will offer “scientific and psychological treatment for hijab removal”.
[…]
Sima Sabet, a UK-based Iranian journalist who was a target of an Iranian assassination attempt last year, said […] “The idea of establishing clinics to ‘cure’ unveiled women is chilling, where people are separated from society simply for not conforming to the ruling ideology.”
[…]
[Recently] a university student who was arrested after stripping down to her underwear […] in protest at being assaulted by campus security guards for breaches of the hijab law, had been transferred to a psychiatric hospital.
[…]
there is evidence of torture, violence and forced medication being used on protesters and political dissidents deemed mentally unstable by the authorities and placed in state-run psychiatric services.
[The] automaker has a troubling history of owners getting locked in their cars without power. Some of these cases may be down to user error, since most Teslas come with manual release levers. […] poorly designed and unintuitively placed for certain models, often requiring intimate knowledge of the car […] Moreover, with the Model Y in particular, not all vehicles come with manual releases for the rear doors, as Tesla warns in the car’s manual.
[…]
Considering that EV battery fires are some of the most formidable out there and often take tens of thousands of gallons of water and hours of work to extinguish, a reliable way of getting out of one of these vehicles in a pinch is the least you could ask for.
Followup to comments 292, 293, 294, 295, 298, 302, 304, 306, 309, and 310.
More details, reactions and prognostications regarding Trump’s pick of Matt Gaetz for attorney general:
[…] The unfortunately named Matt Gertz, a media watchdog who is frequently confused online with Matt Gaetz, captured the whirlwind of the previous 24 hours:”Matt Gaetz pick is so crazy people have forgotten the Tulsi Gabbard pick which was so crazy people had forgotten about the Pete Hegseth pick. Who knows what tomorrow will bring.”
The selection of Gaetz, who is nearly universally loathed, including among Republicans, caused even the toadyish WSJ editorial board to blanch: “He’s a performer and provocateur, and his view is that the more explosions he can cause, the more attention he can get. … He’s a nominee for those who want the law used for political revenge, and it won’t end well.”
Trump’s pick of Gaetz presents the Senate GOP with a stark choice: either defy Trump or be humiliated into confirming the most atrocious pick for attorney general in the nation’s history. [Hmmm. Humiliating Republican senators might be the best trumpian explanation.]
Will Senate Republicans Roll Over? […] Other GOP senators were much more circumspect about Gaetz. In the declaration by Sen. Susan Collin’s that she was “shocked” lay the seeds of so many previous capitulations. […]
The Reaction To Gaetz At DOJ
NBC News has an excellent rundown of some of the reaction:
– “OMG”
– “truly stunning”
– “insane”
– “What the f— is happening?!” asked a senior Justice Department official.
– “How many other prospective attorneys general had previous experience as the subject of a criminal investigation?”
– “absolutely unbelievable”
A quick civics reminder: The attorney general doesn’t just oversee Main Justice and the 94 U.S. attorneys but also the FBI, DEA, ATF, U.S. Marshalls, Bureau of Prisons, and host of other units and programs. Gaetz would be helming the bulk of federal law enforcement.
Gaetz Abruptly Resigns From Congress
Adding to the tumult of the afternoon, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) immediately resigned his seat, apparently to try to short circuit a House Ethics Committee report on his alleged misconduct that was expected to be released within days. The committee, which is evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, doesn’t have jurisdiction over non-members, but the consensus appears to be that it could still vote to release its completed report on Gaetz. That would take at least one Republican joining with committee Democrats. […]
Sleazeball Matt Gaetz resigned from his seat in Congress on Wednesday. He did this just hours after Donald Trump shocked and appalled Democrats and Republicans alike when he nominated the accused child sex trafficker to be the country’s top law enforcement officer as attorney general.
Gaetz’s resignation came two days before the House Ethics Committee was set to release a “highly critical” report on his personal conduct, including allegations that he had drug-fueled sex parties with minors and showed off images of his sexual exploits to fellow members on the House floor.
His resignation means the Ethics Committee no longer has jurisdiction over Gaetz, and thus the probe into his behavior is now closed.
[…] Legal experts said, however, that the committee could still release its report.
“Just because he isn’t subject to their jurisdiction doesn’t mean the House cannot release the report,” Democratic lawyer Marc Elias wrote in a post on X. “Don’t let the GOP play the helpless victim here. Tell Johnson to release the report!”
“While the Committee lost their jurisdiction to sanction Gaetz for misconduct due to his resignation, they do have the authority to vote their investigative report out of Committee and make it public,” Donald Sherman, the executive director and chief counsel of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, wrote in a post on X. “They should use this power and release the Gaetz report, exhibits & findings.”
[…] But in a sign that Republicans are unlikely to grow a pair and release the report, Mullin told CNN on Wednesday that he’s inclined to vote to confirm Gaetz as attorney general because he doesn’t want to disobey Trump.
“I completely trust President Trump’s decision-making on this one,” Mullin told CNN on Wednesday.
How easily they cave when Dear Leader tells them to.
Conspiracy mega-site Infowars, whose founder and main host Alex Jones has become the face of monetized suspicion in America, has been acquired at a bankruptcy auction by the satirical news company The Onion. They plan to relaunch Infowars as a parody of itself, with backing from Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit that advocates for gun law reform. The news was first reported by The New York Times.
On Thursday morning, Jones broadcast a flabbergasted and defiant monologue, calling the news “insane” saying he wouldn’t go off air until someone came in and forced him out with a court order. “They’re in the control room,” Jones said on air. “Imperial Troops are through the glass.”
“It is a distinct honor to be here in defiance of the tyrants,” Jones declared at one point.
[…] The bankruptcy court-ordered auction process for Infowars concluded yesterday; the bids were secret and considered behind closed doors by a court-appointed bankruptcy trustee, Christopher Murray. […]
During Thursday morning’s broadcast, a producer came in as Jones continued to broadcast and announced off-camera that “they” were working on “shutting it down momentarily,” meaning both Infowars and Banned.video, another site that’s used to broadcast Infowars content. Jones then called Steve Bannon on speakerphone, who released a string of audible profanity before Jones cut him off. Bannon implored Jones’ crew to film the supposed raid.
In an interview with the Times, Collins didn’t disclose how much The Onion paid for Infowars but said it would re-launch in January making fun of “weird internet personalities” like Alex Jones. He also said the Sandy Hook families were “supportive,” as the Times put it, of the bid.
Jones had signaled that he was “working with” a group of what he called “good guy” buyers, including former Trump advisor and longtime Infowars personality Roger Stone, who apparently did not, in the eyes of the trustee, mount the best bid. Jones, unsurprisingly, declared the process to be rigged.
As Jones continued to frantically broadcast, he also, rather unconvincingly, declared himself to be at peace with the decision and encouraged people to visit a new, eponymous news site he had already set up. “All you’re doing is shutting down the building and taking away AlexJones.com and the Infowars store,” he said, listing virtually everything of value in his company. “We got funds coming in. We got high-powered lawyers. We’re moving forward. The tide has turned.”
[…] Jones also said he would “spend time with my family,” “fight corruption” and “remove the Deep State from power.” In the meantime, Infowars could be shut down at any moment, though Jones said later in the broadcast that even if it went down temporarily he would seek an emergency court order to get back on air.
“They’re here,” Jones said, glancing off-screen, “saying the building is theirs.”
Wonkette’s take on the many-layered farce cake that is the Gaetz pick:
The Ethics Committee report on Gaetz is about to come out, and it’s like “Whoa hey whoa hey! Sexual abuse! Sleeping with 17-year-old! Drugs! So forth!”
So Gaetz says to Trump, “I’d like you to do me a favor though,” and it’s to nominate him as AG (or for something else, literally anything). Then yesterday afternoon he offers to resign, like all (none) Cabinet appointees do four seconds after their names are announced.
Now, the report will not come out (at least not officially) because the House Ethics Committee doesn’t have jurisdiction over people who are not even in Congress. […]
[Maybe] Gaetz is not even Trump’s actual pick to be the AG. He could be the AG, but it’s not necessary. Also, Trump is not the one doing Gaetz a favor, because he’s getting something out of this quid pro quo too. It’s a test. Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse called it “the crawl test.” He said, “Autocrats like to make minions crawl. Gaetz and Gabbard nominations will test Republican senators’ willingness to crawl for Trump. Should be interesting.” [LOL. A very apt description from Sheldon Whitehouse.]
In other words, Trump’s testing the Republican Senate to see if he can defang them entirely, if he can — again — make them roll over, […] and voluntarily give up their constitutional advice and consent role to the new dictator. Can he force them to render themselves as pointless as the Russian Duma, to demonstrate that he and only he is the government? If so, then Gaetz becomes AG […] Is he a kindred spirit to adjudicated rapist Donald Trump or what?
So if Gaetz gets through, the Senate has ceded its power and Trump now knows he can get away with appointing Hitler, or anything else he wants to do.
If not, well then, Trump has figured out where some kind of guardrail to his potential for absolute power exists, and he needs that information too. (The fact that Senate Republicans defied Trump’s and Elon Musk’s wishes and elected John Thune majority leader instead of Rick Scott is interesting. Scott was the only one who immediately started wagging his tail […])
So that’s our extremely educated guess as to what’s happening here. Autocrats, authoritarians and dictators always are looking to consolidate their power early and often. Prove us wrong.
Also, that Matt Gaetz ethics report needs to leak […]
@321 Lynna, OM: Gaetz also may be a sacrificial lamb. Throw out Gaetz’s name and after he goes down whoever Trump nominates next will sound good.
I am relatively happy to see Rick Scott go down. It indicates the Senate will fight for their power and privileges. Trump wants such absolute power that this will put him in conflict with the Congress. His failure to understand that the government doesn’t work like a private business and he can’t just throw out directives held him up a lot in his first term. As long as Congress fights to keep their power this will get in his way in his second also.
The satirical news site The Onion has purchased conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Infowars website following his bankruptcy proceedings. The development is a massive humiliation for one of Donald Trump’s most prominent and deranged supporters, who has spent his time in the public eye promoting outlandish, nonsensical, and harmful conspiracy theories.
The left-leaning comedy site will now own the Infowars website, its mailing list, and inventory, including the completely useless dietary supplements (Brain Force!) that Jones has made a fortune selling to his devoted listeners.
“Does anybody need millions of dollars worth of supplements?” Onion CEO Ben Collins mockingly asked on social media following the announcement.
The company said that going forward the Infowars site will mock the conspiracy culture it once led […]
The Onion’s action has the backing of families whose children were killed in the Sandy Hook school shooting, after those families pushed Infowars into its financial downfall by successfully suing Jones for defaming them and their murdered children.
The gun-safety group Everytown for Gun Safety said it would support the new Infowars with advertising.
“It’s fitting that a platform once used to profit off of tragedy will be a tool of education, hence our multi-year advertising commitment to this new venture,” Everytown president John Feinblatt said in a statement.
“We’re proud to be a part of what comes next, not only in terms of staunching the flow of hurtful misinformation, but also for the potential this new venture has to help Everytown reach new audiences ready to hold the gun industry accountable.” […]
In a satirical letter from Bryce P. Tetraeder, the fictional CEO of Onion owner Global Tetrahedron, Infowars was praised for its “unswerving commitment to manufacturing anger and radicalizing the most vulnerable members of society—values that resonate deeply with all of us at Global Tetrahedron.” [LOL]
For years, Jones has been the most prominent conspiracy theorist in America. He has promoted completely made-up narratives about issues like President Barack Obama’s birth certificate, the supposed “controlled demolition” of the World Trade Center on 9/11, fascist “FEMA camps” operated by former President Bill Clinton, the supposedly ever-approaching threat of a “New World Order,” and a government “weather weapon” that can control hurricanes and tornadoes (but only when Democrats hold the presidency).
While these beliefs have put Jones on the fringe, he has a home in the modern Republican Party and the MAGA movement. Trump once praised him as a “valuable asset,” and Jones has consistently backed the conspiracy-minded Republican leader.
Just a little over a week after Jones saw one of his dreams come true with Trump’s win, now everything he has built up for decades is owned by liberals who will mock all he stood for.
There is no shortage of post-election analyses. Pundits, politicians, and armchair tacticians continue to trot out their hot takes on how Democrats can come in out of the marginal wilderness and recapture the hearts and minds of working-class Americans.
Many of those people whose job it is to know these things have come to the same conclusion: If only Democrats had not run on a platform of putting trans girls on every soccer team, erecting welcome booths at the border, and burning down every police station in America, they might have stood a chance. [Nice example of dry humor.]
I mean, look at the policy statements from Kamala Harris. She intended to … help Americans with money for buying their first homes. Yeah, okay, but she also wanted to restore the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit so working and middle-class Americans could keep more of their money and … Hang on. She wanted to bring down the cost of child care and long-term care for the elderly. She wanted the government to invest in small businesses and help entrepreneurs. She wanted to help with the soaring cost of rent. She wanted to protect consumers from corporations that took advantage of emergencies to engage in price gouging. She wanted to make getting healthcare simpler and cheaper.
[…] all these pundits aren’t diagnosing the problems with Democrats at all.
They’re engaging in convenient strawman arguments that attack non-existent Democratic campaigns. Those arguments are defined by accepting nothing but Republican talking points. [True]
[…] Nothing may define the Beltway prescriptions to fix all the things straw Democrats did wrong better than the list provided by Semafor founder and eternal fount of conventional wisdom, Matthew Yglesias. [Post and list available at the link]
Each of Yglesias’ points requires a bit of translation. So let’s break it down.
The first one may sound like “You should tell working-class people that all those economic numbers in the news are good for them.” However, this is the one thing Democrats did extensively in this cycle. Both President Biden and Vice President Harris explained that inflation was down, jobs were plentiful, the stock markets were hitting records, and national economic growth was strong. Maybe the biggest bafflement in this entire campaign is that none of these things was able to move the needle against social media posts showing that the price of free-range organic eggs from hand-groomed vegetarian chickens was higher than a carton of Walmart’s best had been four years ago.
But that’s not what Yglesias means. He means that Democrats should do what Republicans have done: Explain to voters that it’s better for them if billionaires have more billions.
For his next act, Yglesias has a clear solution for the climate crisis: Ignore it. Stop having goals. Stop trying to slow the damage. Just accept that the floods that wiped out Asheville, North Carolina and the fires that burned down Paradise, California represent the fate of Everytown, USA.
Don’t you worry folks. The new wall we’re building will keep out the millions of climate refugees, and cities won’t start to sink until sometime after the next election cycle. So it’s all good. Stop talking about new energy jobs. Stop hoping to make things better. Get your Mad Max on and “manage” the existential consequences. A ton of cure is better than an ounce of prevention. Or something like that.
It’s really in the third point where Yglesias gets down to his central theme: “normal people.” The government has to protect normal people.
How does Yglesias define normal people? He makes that clear in upcoming points. But here, it seems to be in contrast to anyone who engages in “antisocial behavior” Might that be women speaking out against men who routinely subject them to sexual abuse and degradation? Or is it workers who protest against unfair labor practices? Or anyone who stands up against hate?
Yes to all of the above. Normal people only speak up when they agree with those in power. That’s how you know they are normal. [Good point!]
Yglesias’ fourth point is simply that people should stop complaining about racism. […] they’d do so much better with that coveted working-class vote if they’d just accept that maybe Black people deserve to be pulled over more often, jailed more often, and shot more often.
What Yglesias is saying is simply what Tucker Carlson has been selling for ages—white people are the real victims of racism.
Yglesias’s fifth point is a doozy. Race is not a thing, and neither are trans people. Because science.
If you’re reading that as a call to join in with trans hate, you’re only partly right. It also underscores the previous point by doubling down on the idea that anyone who is the victim of racism did something to deserve it.
Six is an easy one: don’t trust the experts. Guys like Anthony Fauci don’t know more about disease than you do just because they’ve spent their whole lives studying and working to learn everything they can. Democrats should stop listening to scientists, doctors, and people with direct experience in dealing with issues. None of those people are smarter than your gut. Or the other half of your brainworm. [smile]
Next up, Yglesias talks about his distaste for “politeness.” What he means is “political correctness.” And what he really means is that he’s angry that people get upset when he tells racist or misogynistic jokes. [Correct]
Loosen up. Democrats. Use more racist language. Sneer at the idea of women being equal to men. That’s the way to win in America. [Unfortunately true.]
Number eight continues the [insert hatred here] trend. This time it’s immigrants. Not Cuban immigrants who came to America at some time in the past to escape oppressive government or seek economic opportunity. But Venezuelan, Nicaraguan, and every other form of immigrant who is trying to come to America now to escape oppressive governments, seek economic opportunity, and find relief from the effects of that Climate Crisis that we’re not talking about.
These immigrants have no rights, and God will look the other way while we abuse them as we please.
Number nine is just that the FAA, FEC, FCC, OSHA, EEOC, and labor board should stop getting in Elon’s way when he wants to force his employees to work in unsafe conditions, promote racism, suppress unions, and bribe voters. Who does the government think it’s working for anyway? [Dystopian, but correct.]
To bring Yglesias’ list into plain English, here’s his plan for Democrats
– Cut taxes for billionaires
– Drill, baby, drill
– Protesters are perverts
– All lives matter
– Trans people are perverts
– Experts don’t know more than you.
– Racist, sexist, and abusive language is cool
– Build the wall. build the camps, deport them all
– The government exists to help corporations and billionaires
This platform may be slightly familiar to you. It’s the Republican platform. It also happens to be the platform that Yglesias and others in the why-can’t-Democrats-be-more-like-Republicans? faction have been pushing for eternity.
What’s most astounding is that some people seem to be taking this seriously. […] Similar arguments have come from former George W. Bush speechwriter turned “journalist” Mark Thiessen–a man who once wrote an entire book defending the use of torture. […]
In this post-election disaster zone, media outlets are holding up their missives as if they are Jerimiads that explain the sorrowful outcome of the election and point the way to how Democrats “fix things” for the future.
Let me give you my entire campaign for President of National Punditry: Matthew Yglesias, Dave Weigel, and Mark Thessien suck ass. They have been wrong about everything for years before the election (decades in the case of Thiessen), and there is absolutely no reason to believe they’re one neuron smarter today than they were before November 5.
Their arguments are worse than surrender; they’re collaboration. These are people who have hankered for nothing so much as the downfall of the Democratic Party and progressive values. They see this moment as an opportunity to sell disheartened Democrats on the benefits of hate, disdain, and ignorance.
Anyone who buys their arguments might as well pop on that MAGA hat and unfurl a Confederate flag. […]
On the eve of screaming racist Rudy Giuliani and his lawyers facing contempt, sanctions, and ANGRYFACE EMOJIS >:( >:( from US District Judge Lewis Liman for hiding assets that were supposed to have been turned over to the Georgia election workers Rudy defamed, lied about, and defamed some more, a shakeup!
His lawyers David Labkowski and Kenneth A. Caruso are now trying to quit, for reasons they would rather not disclose.
Lawyers can ask a judge to let them withdraw when they have a “fundamental disagreement” with their client, or when a client “insists upon presenting a claim or defense that is not warranted under existing law and cannot be supported by good faith argument,” or “the client fails to cooperate in the representation or otherwise renders the representation unreasonably difficult for the lawyer to carry out employment effectively.” Which all sure smells like “we don’t want to get sanctioned or disbarred because that guy refuses to quit dodging court orders and is trying to get us to help him.” [yep]
[…] Watch his lawyer last week body-blocking the microphone after a reporter asked Rudy if he had any regrets, and he squealed “NO!!” [video at the link]
As you surely recall, on October 22, as in more than three weeks ago, Rudy was ordered to hand over to a receiver basically everything he owns worth more than $1,000, other than his Florida condo and those World Series rings that his son Andrew is claiming he was given as a gift.
And of course he didn’t do that. While his lawyers were in court all like, “Where does Rudy live, he doesn’t know, it’s complicated, like the meaning of life itself! What does he own, he doesn’t know, how could anybody figure out such a thing?” And “Gee, your honor, your order was so unclear, we need more time to try to parse it!” Rudy was commandeering a moving and storage company to empty out his New York condo and schlep its contents to “The America First Warehouse” of Ronkonkoma. Also losing his condo paperwork, emptying the contents of his cash accounts into an LLC he neglected to disclose, and making a big show of riding around Palm Beach in Lauren Bacall’s sweet Mercedes […]
[…] Also as it happens, right before Roodles’ lawyers tried to quit, lawyers for Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss finally got information about his property and that storage facility, along with invoices and documentation that show […] efforts to hide his cigar-scented furniture and old-man collectables. Such as moving 24 pallets of stuff and multiple boxes just last month, at the very same time his lawyers were saying “we understand that Defendant, at this time, cannot provide, from memory or records, an inventory of what is stored,” well, that is highly sus, as the kids say.
And to be extra superspy, the contact information for the storage unit was “Dr. Mari Ryan” with the address of the “New Hampshire Health System,” so what kind of Sherlock could ever guess it was his? (Maria Ryan is, of course, Rudy’s podcasting partner, and Many People Say his sexytimes partner, whose credit card bills he’d previously been found to have been paying.) And, in spite of Rudy still getting $43,000 a month from his pensions, naturally he and “Dr. Ryan” stiffed the storage facility, and still owe it $100,000.
Roodles has, of course, been using all of this to cry victim and claim he’s being starved to death, and made a plea for cash with a link to his GiveSendGo in now-deleted Tweets: [available at the link]
“Wilkie Farr Law Firm and Judge Liman are trying to inhibit me from making a living. They seized my measly checking account so I can’t buy food. Help me fight.”
Joe Biden’s economy is so bad, with $43,000 you can only buy one egg a month! And of course his old pal Donald Trump and the Republicans won’t even invite him to the Mar-a-Lago omelet bar. Because that’s how it goes when you hang out with self-serving grifters. [post at the link]
Why aren’t the R helping Rudy with this issue? “I have sacrificed so much to bring truth and justice to America and American citizens.”
That’s how it goes! One day you’re America’s Mayor(TM), and the next you’re just no longer useful, and Donald Trump can’t even spare an extra gold watch. It’s enough to make a guy cry into his MyPillow.
I, for one, doubt that the carapace of Rudi Giuliani’s self-delusion will crack before he dies.
Looks to me like Wall Street is afraid of Elizabeth Warren:
When the new Republican-majority Senate convenes in January, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) will become the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, on which she has served since she was first elected in 2012. The committee will be chaired by Tim “The less-awful Sen. Scott” Scott (R-South Carolina), and while the ranking member on a committee doesn’t really have any power to control the calendar or advance legislation, it’s generally understood that ranking members have first dibs to take over the chair when control of the Senate flips to their party.
And that explains a weird bit of attempted ratfucking by Wall Street lobbyists in the week since the election, as the American Prospect explains. The finance lobbyists, reportedly joined by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, attempted to keep Warren out of the ranking member job.
Good news spoiler alert: The ratfuck attempt failed. But it’s an illustration of just how rotten the financial industry is, and an even better illustration of how much Warren scares big-money financial interests, who wanted to prevent her from having any leadership authority over them in some future Senate.
The election took out the two senior Democrats ahead of Warren on the Banking Committee who might have advanced to become ranking member. Senators Sherrod Brown (Ohio) and Jon Tester (Montana) both lost to incompetent GOP nobodies because their states have gone deeply, pathologically Trumpy. In addition, two other Democrats with more seniority than Warren, Jack Reed of Rhode Island and John Warner of Virginia, currently chair other powerful committees (Armed Services and Intelligence, respectively) and they want to retain the ranking positions there when Dems become the minority. That opened up the ranking spot for Warren, because any senator can only be chair or ranking member of one committee at a time.
So here’s where the financial lobbyists tried to orchestrate a power play: With seniority, a senator can choose to take the ranking spot on any committee they serve on if they wanna. The Wall Street crowd tried to persuade Warner to jump over from Intelligence to Banking, and according to sources who requested anonymity, they were joined by Powell […]
Following the pandemic, Warren took Powell to task in public comments and in oversight hearings, arguing that the Fed pushed interest rates up too sharply, threatening the economic recovery. She also criticized Powell and the Fed for keeping rates high longer than it had to, even with the eventual “soft landing” from the inflation spikes of 2022.
As we already spoilered, the attempt to persuade Warner to take the ranking spot on Banking failed, because as Warner confirmed Tuesday, he would prefer not to. As for Powell’s part in the power play, American Prospect’s David Dayen says
It’s not clear whether Powell’s actions took the form of direct or indirect communications, just that there was some level of involvement. The role of Powell in the lobbying effort has not been previously reported.
After the article went to press, the Prospect received a statement from a Fed spokesperson denying the report, saying that “Chair Powell has never been directly or indirectly involved in congressional committee assignments.” [Might be true.]
Dayen notes that the effort to derail Warren from even being next in line to chair the Banking Committee
faced long odds. Seniority is not something easily messed with; in a legislative body where a single senator can stop action and bring the chamber to a halt, everyone zealously guards the process by which they rise to power, and resists giving colleagues a reason to hold grudges that they can take out on their legislation.
Even before the scheme fell apart with Warner staying right where he wants, on Intelligence, Politico reported last week that the lobbyists had “resigned themselves” to Warren becoming the top Democrat on Banking.
For all we know they’ve also resigned themselves to helping Donald Trump impose fascism. A bit of iron-fisted one-man rule would be better for business than any potential curbs on financial speculation, like Warren’s proposed Stop Wall Street Looting Act aimed at reducing the damage the private equity industry does by taking over companies and gutting them for parts. [Correct!!]
[…] Then again, typically, it is frowned upon when presidents ask the Senate to recess and give up its role of confirming appointees, so we’re in fairly uncharted territory already. Who knows if there’ll even be a Senate Banking Committee come 2026?
During the count of votes for and against the bill, Te Pāti Māori MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke stood up from her seat starting a haka […] Greens and Labour joined. When people in the public gallery above joined in loudly, Speaker Gerry Brownlee suspended Parliament for an hour until the gallery was cleared.
Video at the link has the best footage I’ve seen, which includes the gallery. I recommend watching! =)
The article, however, needs supplemental background…
signed in 1840 between the British Crown and more than 500 Māori chiefs, the Treaty of Waitangi lays down how the two parties agreed to govern. The interpretation of clauses in the document still guides legislation and policy today.
[…]
The ACT New Zealand party, a junior partner in the ruling centre-right coalition government, last week unveiled a bill to enshrine a narrower interpretation of the Waitangi treaty in law.
[…]
Indigenous people […] make up around 20 per cent of the population of 5.3 million. Hundreds have set out on a nine-day march, or hikoi, from New Zealand’s north to the national capital of Wellington in protest over the legislation. They will arrive in Wellington next Tuesday where tens of thousands are expected to gather for a big rally.
Video here has a nice close-up of Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke ripping the bill.
The parliamentary camera cut away from the haka and awkwardly stayed fixed on the Speaker, an old White man glowering.
Misinformation about the Treaty of Waitangi, its language and its intent is at the centre of the Treaty Principles Bill introduced to Parliament this week.
[…]
The Waitangi Tribunal describes the bill as the “worst, most comprehensive breach of the Treaty/te Tiriti in modern times”. [Māori were not consulted in the drafting, and even the duty to consult was explicitly rejected.] Dressed in the language of non-discrimination, national unity, equal rights and “one law for all”, the bill seeks to nullify the Crown’s formal relationship with Māori.
[…]
egalitarian political theory typically ends up justifying explicitly inegalitarian institutions and practices.
The challenge, then, is formulating a political structure that is built on a just relationship with indigenous peoples. No easy matter, when […] “most states owe their existence to some combination of force and fraud”.
[…]
Settler states are reluctant to accept that Indigenous people have a legitimate role in determining the constitutional order. […] A device populist governments use to deal with the “problem” of indigenous sovereignty is to eliminate the category of indigenous people altogether, by declaring that “we are all indigenous”.
More detail at the link.
* The Waitangi Tribunal statement https://e-tangata.co.nz/comment-and-analysis/tearing-the-crown-maori-relationship-apart/
a fundamental threat to New Zealand’s fragile constitutional framework. With no upper house, nor a written constitution, important laws can be fast-tracked or repealed by a simple majority of parliament.
[…]
Central to this ever-shifting and contested political ground is te Tiriti o Waitangi/Treaty of Waitangi. For decades it has been woven into the laws of the land in an effort to redress colonial wrongs and guarantee a degree of fairness and equity for Māori.
[…]
But while the bill is almost guaranteed to fail because of the other coalition parties’ refusal to support it beyond the select committee, there is another danger. […] the option of putting it to the wider population—either as a condition of a future coalition agreement or orchestrated via a citizens-initiated referendum […] One recent poll showed roughly equal support for and against a referendum on the subject, with around 30% undecided.
[…]
This would effectively begin to unpick decades of careful legislative work, threaded together from the deliberations of the Waitangi Tribunal, the Treaty settlements process, the courts and parliament.
[…]
citizens-initiated referendums are not binding on a government, but they carry much politically persuasive power nonetheless.
@330 Reginald Selkirk: In retrospect Garland turned out to be a huge disaster. I knew he wasn’t going to be as aggressive as I would have liked but his trying to slow prosecution of Trump and senior Trump administration officials has turned out to be a huge mistake. Yes, being more aggressive probably would have resulted in some cases being lost in court. It looks like his very slow and careful tactics is going to result in the most important cases being abandoned without any resolution at all.
This will turn out the same as the Russian meddling investigation, which was stopped before investigating Trump. The Republicans and Maga will claim that it proves Trump was innocent while Democrats won’t push hard because there isn’t a conclusion.
During his 2022 gubernatorial campaign, he faced accusations from eight women, including State Sen. Julie Slama, who alleged that Herbster groped them. Herbster was never charged with any crime, and he and Slama both filed lawsuits against each other, later agreeing to drop the suits.
This will be a test of judicial consistency. Recently, federal courts have been nitpicking government agencies, saying in effect, “there is no legislative basis which allows you to regulate N” (where N is some random thing). And here we have a federal agency fabricated out of thin air, with no legislative basis at all. Will the courts continue their strict legalese interpretation? Or will they give Trump whatever he wants?
The Center for Countering Digital Hate, which X sued for allegedly driving away advertisers, says it’s leaving the platform ahead of its terms of service changes. While that lawsuit was dismissed, CCDH says X’s new terms will “ensure that future legal assaults are presided over by judges [Elon Musk] feels will be on his side,” by bringing disputes to his preferred court.
Everybody should be leaving X.
lumipunasays
Re 317:
Trump’s pick of Gaetz presents the Senate GOP with a stark choice: either defy Trump or be humiliated into confirming the most atrocious pick for attorney general in the nation’s history. [Hmmm. Humiliating Republican senators might be the best trumpian explanation.]
There’s a story alleging that a corrupt Roman emperor once made his horse into a senator. Soon, I expect, we’ll see if US senators make a horse into the czar of something or other.
… If we look at the oldest of them all, the limestone “Kish tablet” unearthed from the site of the eponymous ancient Sumerian city in modern-day Iraq, we can in some sense “read” several of the symbols in its text, even five and a half millennia after it was written. “The writing on its surface is purely pictographic,” says the narrator of the brief IFLScience video below, “and represents a midpoint between proto-writing and the more sophisticated writing of the cuneiform.” …
A serial adulterer who says he has not washed his hands in ten years will be the new secretary of defence…
He reached a rank of major but the skill set of a major and the secretary for the most complex national defence in the world do not overlap.
Professional Trump flatterer to control office in charge of recruiting and vetting admin staff
It takes all kinds to make the incoming Trump administration. You have now former Rep. Matt Gaetz, investigated but never charged on allegations of sex trafficking, the anti-China and Iran hardliner Rep. Mike Waltz, the easy-on-the-eyes TV personality Pete Hegseth, and onetime Assad sympathizer Tulsi Gabbard.
The shared quality is loyalty, and the extreme demonstration of it: unending flattery of Trump.
In that respect, Sergio Gor fits right in.
Gor is on tap to lead the White House Personnel Office, which recruits and vets political appointees for the new administration.
After spending more than a decade as a staffer for hard-right congressional Republicans — Gor previously worked for former Reps. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Steve King (R-IA), then for Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) — Gor made a very MAGA move into Trumpworld, becoming a professional embosser and gilder of the Trump name.
In 2021, he founded a publishing company along with Donald Trump Jr. that sells a series of Trump-themed books that range in price from $74.99 to a “bundle pack” for $999.99.
Gor and Don Jr.’s company, Winning Team Publishing, sells three books authored by Trump. One features the famous image of Trump surrounded by Secret Service agents immediately after the July assassination attempt ($99, $499 for a signed copy); another, Letters for Trump ($99, $399 if signed), is advertised as “private correspondence, between President Donald J. Trump and some of the biggest names in history throughout the past 40 years!”
It’s an example of maximum MAGA adulation, a public demonstration of loyalty to and flattery of the new boss. There’s also access to the Trump bloodline: Don Jr. announced the news of Gor’s appointment on X after Semafor first reported it.
Other titles are from leading MAGA influencers. Kari Lake, the Arizona election denier and now-defeated gubernatorial and Senate candidate, is selling a book called “Unafraid” ($29.99, $49.99 signed). Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is selling “her personal account of the battles she fights in the halls of Congress” ($49.99 signed). Winning Team also sells MAGA merchandise like a miniature Trump bluetooth speaker ($29.99) and a standard MAGA baseball hat ($29.99).
[…] Gor has been seen alongside Trump during meetings with the Bolsonaro family, and both officiated and DJ-ed attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz’s 2021 wedding.
Gor’s new job will nominally grant him immense influence within the new administration, though it’s unclear what level of independent-decision making power Gor, or any other appointee, will retain.
In February 2020, Trump appointed staffer Johnny McEntee to head the White House personnel office. From there, McEntee went about purging those perceived as disloyal and replacing them with political appointees. […]
birgerjohanssonsays
Eva Longoria (‘Desperate Housewives’) is leaving USA because of the election.
On Monday, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore honored one of his state’s most beloved military veterans, Harriet Tubman, by promoting Tubman posthumously to the rank of brigadier general in the state National Guard. Why yes, that’s General Harriet Tubman, who in addition to being a famous abolitionist and “conductor” on the Underground Railroad was also the first woman to lead a US military operation during wartime.
Tubman’s history of military service doesn’t get the same attention as her activities as an abolitionist and helper of those who freed themselves from enslavement, which was already plenty enough to make her a hero. But after her final expedition to guide escapees from slavery North, she put her skills of disguise, concealment, and familiarity with Southern territory to use for the US Army when the Civil War broke out in 1861, serving as a spy, scout, and eventually, as the joint leader of an 1863 Army raid on plantations in South Carolina, which freed nearly 800 enslaved people and burned several of the plantations.
Here’s a cool thing: A 2022 CIA website article acknowledges that well before she formally became a military operative, her work for the Underground Railroad “applied sophisticated tradecraft including the use of disguises, clandestine communication, and assets and allies, who provided safe houses, transportation, and funding” — genuine praise for an intelligence operative.
[…] As the CIA explains, she was trained as a nurse, and worked as one, but that also gave her the documents and funding necessary for her secret work, recruiting a spy ring of Black volunteers in the area, who gathered intelligence on plantations, commerce, Confederate troop positions, and the locations of “torpedoes” — barrels of gunpowder in rivers that could blow up any Union boats. Tubman was unable to read or write, but had an outstanding memory, making her a valuable spy without leaving any notes behind, encrypted or otherwise.
In 1863, Tubman moved from spying and reconnaissance to actually commanding Union troops in a raid on plantations along the Combahee River in South Carolina’s “Lowcountry” region.</b? Although she was not a commissioned officer, she planned and shared leadership duties with Col. James Montgomery, an abolitionist in charge of a Black Army regiment, the Second Carolina Volunteers. The goal of the raid was to rescue enslaved people, recruit the freed men to join the Union Army if they were willing, and to wipe out the rice plantations in the area.
[see the article at the link for details I snipped]
Just before the raid got underway, the gunboats broke formation and headed to different parts of the river, with Montgomery commanding one, the Harriet A. Weed, and Tubman leading the 150 soldiers on the John Adams. Just want to underline this: Tubman wasn’t serving as an adjunct to Montgomery, she was in charge of half the attacking force. In the wee hours of June 2, they attacked their assigned plantations.
[…] After the raiding gunboats docked in Beaufort, South Carolina, the first press report of the raid didn’t name Tubman, but it did say that the raid was led by a “She-Moses” under the command of Montgomery, and that the raid came off without a single injury to the Union forces. A later report in a Boston newspaper named Tubman as the hero; the editor was a friend of hers. At least 100 men freed during the raid joined the US Army.
For all the news the story made at the time, Tubman didn’t get paid, and even after the war her petitions to receive a soldier’s pay for the raid were turned down, because women simply weren’t allowed in the Army, you silly goose. She later received a military pension on behalf of her late husband, a Union soldier, but not for herself. But when she died in 1913, she was buried with military honors; the US Army’s Military Intelligence Corps also inducted Tubman into its Hall of Fame in 2021.
Prior to the war, in 1858, abolitionist and eventual insurrectionist John Brown met Tubman and nicknamed her “General” for her courage. That was made official by Gov. Moore’s Veteran’s Day proclamation Monday, naming her a one-star general in the Maryland National Guard.
After Moore read the official order promoting Tubman, he presented the proclamation to Ernestine “Tina” Martin Wyatt, Tubman’s great-great-great-grandniece, as a representative of Tubman’s family.
Thank you again for your service, General Tubman. Now if we can just get you on the $20 bill to replace that racist fuck-knuckle Andrew Jackson.
[…] If there is one person in the world watching Donald Trump pick a Cabinet and other advisers and cheering, it is Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, AKA Trump’s sponsor.
If you were Putin, wouldn’t you love for Trump to have an American Defense secretary who referred to Putin’s war on Ukraine as his “get my shit back war”? [video at the link]
In that clip, which was from a podcast last week, Hegseth said so many pig-ignorant things, you’d think he had a Kremlin hose attached to his ass providing him with the talking points.
HEGSETH: I found overinflated from the beginning this idea that Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine was going to lead to nuclear war or war across the continent. I’ve always felt like it was, from the beginning, like a couple days in, like this feels like Putin’s “give me my shit back” war. It kinda feels like, I feel like you’ve been pushing pretty hard, and we used to have the former Soviet Union, and we were pretty proud of that, and Ukraine was a part of it, and all these other countries, and I want my shit back. And I think I’m at the right time where I’m powerful enough to do it, and you’re not quite on my border yet, and Biden’s AWOL, so I’m going for it!
And just I like I did under my minor incursion under Obama, I got what I could, I got Crimea, now I waited under Trump, now I’m gonna get my …
Hegseth continued by saying that he just doesn’t buy that Putin wants to move on to Poland or anything else. Ehhhhhh, he, who is an expert on less than nothing, just doesn’t think so. He says maybe in a “perfect world,” Putin might do that, if he “had unlimited capabilities and could crown himself the king of Europe.” […]
“If Ukraine can defend itself from that, GREAT,” said Hegseth, but he doesn’t want us having to expend resources on it. He’s also not a big fan of NATO, and believes a lot of the same babble Trump believes about member nations not paying their fair share.
You know whose talking points and alternate history those are? You get one guess. We’ll give you a hint, it’s the Russian dictator […]
Hegseth also told Fox News’s Harris Faulkner — his colleague, because he is a mere Fox News weekend host, a nobody — at CPAC in 2022 that Ukraine is important, but young people tell him it “pales in comparison” to “wokeness in my culture.”
When we saw that Trump had chosen Tulsi Gabbard as his director of national intelligence, our first question was to wonder whether she’d leak Five Eyes intelligence first to India’s Narendra Modi, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, or just go straight to Putin and hand it to him with a rose.
It’s not every day a president-elect picks an actual Russian stooge as DNI, but we guess she’s exactly what he wants, a person who grovels before dictators.
Gabbard is a braindead conspiracy theorist who spreads lies about Ukrainian biolabs. She spouts so many Russian talking points, it’s common for politicians with American viewpoints to use the words “treason” and “traitor” about her. She blames Ukraine and Joe Biden for Putin’s invasion, because again she is braindead and willing to spout any lie the Kremlin puts in its daily brief. She’s so stupid she actually believes it was about Ukraine joining NATO. Even Sean Hannity is like “YIKES that is a lot of Russian propaganda for one woman.”
The Russians have considered her their darling forever, and it’s easy to see why. Hillary Clinton said way back in the day that it was pretty obvious the Russians were grooming Gabbard for some kind of reason, or at least propping her up, and were boosting her whenever they could. […]
Anybody who ever thought Tulsi Gabbard was anti-war is a fucking moron. She’s just pro-dictator.
And then there’s Matt Gaetz, if he even ends up staying the AG nominee, which we think is questionable at this point.
Who ordered pizzas to a SCIF in the Capitol leading a rebellion trying to disrupt the first impeachment of Trump, which involved Trump extorting Ukraine to help him steal the 2020 election in exchange for protection from Russia? Matt Gaetz.
Who thinks we should add Russia to NATO, which exists to protect its member nations from Russia? Matt Gaetz. He suggested turning it into an “anti-China” alliance. (He’s very stupid and must not know Russia and China are BFFs.)
Who blames NATO for Russia’s war on Ukraine, and votes against NATO? Matt Gaetz.
[…] Of course, Trump’s picks make a lot of geopolitical sense if you understand that the goal is to defeat America so Putin doesn’t have to.
On Monday, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore honored one of his state’s most beloved military veterans, Harriet Tubman, by promoting Tubman posthumously to the rank of brigadier general in the state National Guard…
So she was a spy, and a military commander, and a hero; all great.
But – a Maryland resident? Hold on a crabcake-loving minute.
The Underground Railroad conductor’s father, Ben Ross, received the land where the cabin once stood in the early 1840s…
Tubman’s father, Ben Ross—a lumberjack who was freed from slavery five years after his enslaver’s death in 1836—owned the cabin. As outlined in his enslaver’s will, Ross received a ten-acre tract of land close to the Blackwater River upon his manumission. His wife and several of their children, including Tubman, remained enslaved but were able to reside in the cabin, notes Michael E. Ruane for the Washington Post…
According to the Post, Tubman lived in her father’s cabin between 1839 and 1844, when she was about 17 to 22 years old. She moved out after marrying a free Black man named John Tubman.
In 1849, Tubman fled north to Philadelphia after hearing a rumor that she was going to be sold to slaveholders in the Deep South…
The U.S. Senate election in Pennsylvania between Democratic incumbent Sen. Bob Casey and Republican David McCormick is headed for a statewide recount, as counties continued Wednesday to sort through outstanding ballots and the campaigns jousted over which ones should count.
The Associated Press called the race for McCormick last week, concluding that not enough ballots remained to be counted in areas Casey was winning for him to take the lead.
A noon deadline passed Wednesday for Casey to waive his right to a statewide recount and Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s top election official, Secretary of State Al Schmidt, a Republican, announced that preliminary results had triggered a legally required statewide recount.
As of Wednesday, McCormick led by about 28,000 votes out of more than 6.9 million ballots counted — inside the 0.5% margin threshold to trigger an automatic statewide recount under Pennsylvania law…
Elon Musk might be in charge of the business of Grok, but the artificial intelligence has seemingly gone into business for itself, labeling Musk as one of the worst offenders when it comes to spreading misinformation online.
User Gary Koepnick asked the AI which person spreads the most information on Twitter/X—and the service did not hesitate in pointing a finger at its creator.
“Based on various analyses, social media sentiment, and reports, Elon Musk has been identified as one of the most significant spreaders of misinformation on X since he acquired the platform,” it wrote, later adding “Musk has made numerous posts that have been criticized for promoting or endorsing misinformation, especially related to political events, elections, health issues like COVID-19, and conspiracy theories. His endorsements or interactions with content from controversial figures or accounts with a history of spreading misinformation have also contributed to this perception.”
The AI also pointed out that because of Musk’s large number of followers and high visibility, any misinformation he posts is immediately amplified and gains legitimacy among his followers…
China is making advancements in its multiple military-related technologies that will give it an edge over its adversaries during a possible conflict in the future. During a recent giant air show in Zhuhai, Beijing unveiled multiple game-changer military technologies, including a mobile air defense weapons system.
Called FK-4000, the mobile air defense weapons system is reportedly capable of intercepting the smallest, lightest drones using its high-power microwaves (HPM).
Debuted by China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, the weapon can deliver microwave blasts in less than a second from a distance of almost 2 miles…
All secretaries of defense have had either higher military rank (Hegseth is a major), experience in government (Hegseth has none), relevant experience in the defense industry (Hegseth has none), or some combination of the above. […] Reactions from the military and the national security apparatus so far have ranged from shock to outrage.
[…]
one of his tattoos—a Jerusalem Cross on his chest […] has made its way into a variety of contemporary far-right Templar myths. […] Hegseth’s right arm is covered from top to bottom, and most of the images draw from Revolution-era propaganda primarily associated nowadays with the “Patriot” rhetoric of militia movements and QAnon.
[…]
his tattoos are like a collage of aggressive bumper stickers such as you might see on the back of a truck with steer horns over the windshield. Importantly, “Deus Vult” has never been interpreted as a call for spiritual combat—for reflection and prayer. It has always been understood as a call for violent action, for blood. This interpretation remains consistent in its widespread adoption by the Christian far right around the world
[…]
The story that emerges from Hegseth’s sleeve is a familiar one; it provides a veritable checklist of today’s Christian nationalist folklore.
Mark Hamill Carrie Fisher
Harrison Ford James Earl Jones
COMING SOON
StevoRsays
Signal boost for this by Daylight Atheismby Adam Lee. I believe these things too and well put :
The years ahead are going to be a time of trials for us. We’re all going to face pressure to compromise our values: to keep our heads down, to avert our gazes, to play along, to profess loyalty, to collaborate.
For when that temptation is strongest, I’m writing this now, to remind myself (and you, if it benefits you) of the moral principles we should hold on to, whether the world encourages it or not. When the future looks clouded and uncertain, these values are like a lighthouse on a rocky headland. They’ll see us safely through the darkness of the night and the lash of the storm, and they’ll light the way to better days when the clouds finally clear.
First of all, I believe in kindness. In a world where cruelty is the motivation and the rule, kindness is the essential virtue. It’s a reassertion of the inherent worth and dignity of all human beings. Despite the superficial differences cited to divide us, we’re all alike in the ways that count. Everyone’s life matters. Everyone’s well-being should be protected. Everyone deserves to be safe, happy and free. When life falls short of this goal, we should do what we can to make up for it, helping people in the ways they need.
In a world where laws and institutions are slanted toward the rich and powerful, kindness is a leveling impulse.
Sweden, home of ABBA, meatballs, comfy sofas, and the midnight sun, has decided it needs to defend its brand. The nordic nation has announced that it will seek trademark protections for its own name (“Sweden”) from European Union Intellectual Property Office. If its request is granted, it will become the first country in the world with a trademarked name…
Todd Blanche, Trump’s personal attorney, as deputy attorney general, the second in command who runs the Justice Department on a day-to-day basis.
Emil Bove, another of Trump’s personal lawyers, installed as No. 3.
It is a crippling mix of incompetence, disregard for the rule of law, conflicts of interest, and divided loyalties that would send the Justice Department down a flawed and uncertain course seen perhaps only once before, in the darkest days of Watergate.
KGsays
As before, the US again lowers the bar, Israel strides right into it, and the US keeps sending weapons anyway. – CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain@304
.
It’s worth noting that Biden has been consistently lying, and breaking the law, in order to keep enabling Israel’s genocide.
KGsays
Sorry, @305 not @304 above.
Gaetz as Attorney General cements the upcoming administration as a disaster of monumental proportions. Electing Trump is the worst thing to happen to the country since Pearl Harbor. – tomh@304
Oh, I’d say its much worse than Pearl Harbor. There was, after all, no real possibility of Japan – even in alliance with Nazi Germany – defeating the USA. There does seem a very real chance that Trump 2 – The Revenge could bring about the end of the USA.
UK-based mobile operator Virgin Media O2 has created an AI-generated “scambaiter” tool to stall scammers. The AI tool, called Daisy, mimics the voice of an elderly woman and performs one simple task: talk to fraudsters and “waste as much of their time as possible.”
Somebody has had a really good idea for an LLM. For this it just needs to churn out plausible garbage and keep the other end on the line as long as possible. Wasting the scammers time is one thing that will really stop them because they are paying something to make the calls. Even if this results in an AI vs AI scammer war it will take money from the scammers.
The House Oversight Committee met on Thursday to discuss “Preparing for the Next Pandemic: Lessons Learned and The Path Forward.” […]
“I’ll stand here and represent all the Americans that do not ever want to be forced to take another vaccine that the government is telling us to take after they created a deadly virus,” Greene said, adding she had never taken a COVID vaccine.
“Preparing for the next pandemic is actually recognizing that the last pandemic resulted in crimes against humanity,” Greene said. “People that perpetuated, and continue to perpetuate these crimes need to be prosecuted, and that needs to be starting in the next administration,” she threatened.
“And I’m pretty sure our next attorney general will do that. And I look forward to seeing that happen.” Terrifying. [video at the link]
[…] with the potential for anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. having influence on our country’s public health care policies, and the clear lack of ethics being considered by Donald Trump, Greene’s rage-fueled ignorance contains much more ominous overtones. […]
She also called, again, for Dr. Anthony Fauci to be prosecuted.
KGsays
The proposed appointment of Gabbard highlights a problem for the governments of the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand/Aotearoa, countries which, together with the USA, constitute the “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing consortium. (It’s interesting, BTW, that this exclusive grouping of primarily WASP nations exists at all.) Anything passed to Trump would of course be at some risk of finding its way to Putin, or whichever other dictator Trump favours; but Trump, being so ignorant and lazy, is unlikely to actually read – let alone understand – such materials. Gabbard is a different matter, and is a long-time admirer of India’s would-be dictator Narendra Modi, as well as a shameless apologist for Putin and Bashir al-Assad.
Followup to CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain @355.
On Wednesday, […] Trump announced former Fox News host Pete Hegseth was his pick for secretary of defense. […]
connections to the TheoBros, a group of mostly millennial, ultra-conservative men, many of whom proudly call themselves Christian nationalists. Among the tenets of their branch of Protestant Christianity—known as Reformed or Reconstructionist—is the idea that the United States should be subject to Biblical law.
Last year, the magazine Nashville Christian Family ran a profile of Hegseth, in which he mentioned being a member of a “Bible and book study” that focused on the book My Life for Yours by Doug Wilson, the 71-year-old unofficial patriarch of the TheoBros. […]When I interviewed Wilson a few months ago he said that he, like many other TheoBros, believes women never should have been given the right to vote.
Wilson presides over a small fiefdom in Moscow, Idaho, where he is the head pastor of the flagship church of the denomination he helped found, the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC). In Moscow, Wilson has also helped to establish a college, a printing press, and a classical Christian school. In addition to his Moscow ventures, Wilson is also extremely online—he blogs, he posts on social media, and he makes slickly produced YouTube videos. Once a fringe figure, famous mostly among reformed Christians, last year Wilson’s star power brightened considerably in an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and a speaking slot at the National Conservatism conference alongside then Ohio senator, now vice president-elect, JD Vance.
Wilson is also the founder of the Association of Classical Christian Schools, a national network of private K-12 schools that focus on religious education and the Western canon. […] Hegseth, who did not respond to requests for comment from Mother Jones, has strong connections to the Association of Classical Christian Schools. He told Nashville Christian Family that his family decided to move to Tennessee so that his children could attend the Jonathan Edwards Classical Academy, a school in that network he describes as “a small, country, blue-collar classical Christian school.” During a recent appearance on insurance executive Patrick Bet-David’s podcast, Hegseth said he’d never send his kids to Harvard, but he would send them to New Saint Andrews, the college that Wilson helped found in Idaho.
Hegseth’s involvement with Wilson’s schools goes beyond his own children’s education. In 2022, he co-authored Battle for the American Mind, with the group’s president, David Goodwin. In the book, they argue that Americans have “ceded our kids’ minds to the left for far too long” and promise to give “patriotic parents the ammunition to join an insurgency that gives America a fighting chance.”
In a thread on X this week, Matthew Taylor, a religion scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies, noted that Hegseth has been a guest on “Reformation Red Pill,” a podcast hosted by pastors at the Doug Wilson-affiliated Tennessee church that Hegseth attends. Hegseth has also appeared on Veritas Vox, a podcast produced by a Pennsylvania-based publisher called Veritas, which is also connected to Wilson’s network of churches. Veritas was the publisher of Hegseth and Goodwin’s book on education.
Then there are his tattoos. [see comment 355]
[…] In 2020, Hegseth turned his obsession with the Christian Crusades into a book, American Crusade. In a piece this week, Media Matters noted that one of its central themes is the destruction of Muslim holy sites in order to reclaim them for Christianity. Hegseth also rails against Muslims’ “well-documented aversion to assimilation.” Julie Ingersoll, a University of North Florida religious studies professor who has studied the Reconstructionist tradition that the TheoBros are part of, told me she finds Hegseth’s fixation on the Crusades “really troubling—but also it’s completely consistent with the Christian Reconstructionists. That’s particularly troubling for someone who might have the biggest military in the world under his control.”
Taylor, too, said he was concerned about the idea of Hegseth controlling the military. He pointed to Hegseth’s urging Trump to pardon Edward Gallagher, the US Navy SEAL who was accused of killing an Iraqi prisoner and posing for pictures with his dead body. […] Hegseth’s appointment “will only allow this far-right radicalization in the military to fester and grow unregulated, if not even encouraged.”
Hegseth’s latest book, The War on the Warriors, decries what he sees as the infiltration of the military by the “radical left.” Troops, he complains, are “being harassed by obligatory training…grounded in Critical Race Theory, radical sex theories, gender policy, and ‘domestic extremism’ that are designed to neuter our fighting forces.” As my colleague Stephanie Mencimer has noted, that focus on culture war issues is likely part of what prompted Trump and his advisers to choose him—he’s well-suited to advance the anti-woke agenda laid out in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. When Trump announced Hegseth as his pick for defense secretary, the X account of the podcast CrossPolitics, cohosted by a lead pastor at Wilson’s Moscow, Idaho, church, posted, “HUGE WIN! @PeteHegseth is a godly Christian man. He is a member at a CREC church and classically educates his kids. He’ll get the wokeness out of the military […]
[…] Trump praised Hegseth’s book about the military at a rally in June. He promised the crowd that if he was reelected, “The woke stuff will be gone within a period of 24 hours. I can tell you.”
Hegseth is not just one man with bad ideas. He is representative of a network of reactionary Christian Nationalists with bad ideas.
[…] Discussing the whole Matt Gaetz situation — already a fucking scandal and Trump was barely elected over a week go — Tubble-Bubbles [Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville] told Fox Business his understanding of “Senate” in the age of Trump:
“President Trump and JD Vance are going to be running the Senate,” Tuberville declared.
[video at the link]
No, John Thune is. […]
The anchor asked if Gaetz would get the votes he needs in the Senate.
“I don’t know,” Tuberville replied. “[…] at the end of the day, President Trump was elected by an enormous vote, and he deserves a team around him that he wants. It’s not us to determine that. We’ve got 53 votes in the Senate. We can confirm with 51.”
Two things: The votes are still not all counted, and Donald Trump leads Kamala Harris by fewer than three million in the popular vote. That margin very likely will get tighter. […] this whole “enormous vote” thing.
[He] says, “It’s not to us to determine that.” It literally is, actually. It’s literally what the Senate is supposed to do. It’s part of that whole checks-and-balances thing, to prevent tyrant dementia-brained presidents from picking Cabinets full of clownfuckers, conspiracy theorists, and morons. (Tuberville seemed to understand he was allowed to say no when it was Joe Biden’s nominees, of course.)
Tuberville’s two brain cells continued furiously ramming up against each other to form thoughts:
“I’ve already seen where a couple says, ‘I’m not voting for him,’” Tuberville continued. “Wait a minute. You are not the United States of America. You have one vote in the U.S. Senate. You did not get elected the president. Vote with President Trump. This is the last chance we’re gonna have of saving this country. And if you wanna get in the way, fine. But we’re gonna try to get you out of the Senate, too if you try to do that.”
[…] So Tuberville is threatening senators who don’t fall in line with his white supremacist Dear Leader Stupid Hitler. What’s sad is that Republican senators are such chickenshit wimps these days it might matter to them.
Of course, you’d think with this being Trump’s last term that any senator who isn’t up for re-election in 2026 should feel comfortable starting to break free from Trump’s chains. You’d think.
[…] Last chance of reinstituting the old confederacy for white supremacist old men, more like.
[…] It must be unbearable for every smart person who ever has to deal with him.
I actually think Harris ran a good campaign. I give her credit for choosing a solid progressive in Tim Walz. This was a largely pro-labor, pro-union administration, not that most people know it. – Jen Sorensen, quoted by Lynna, OM@285
The “not that most people know it” is itself a condemnation of both Harris’s campaign, and Biden’s inability to get the worthwhile things he has done in domestic policy into the public consciousness. Picking Walz was about the last good move Harris made. She clearly made a strategic decision to go for the votes of anti-Trump Republicans and right-wing independents, rather than use to the full the surge of enthusiasm that clearly followed her replacement of Biden on the ticket. She insultingly ignored the majority of Democrats who are disturbed by Israeli genocide in Gaza and Biden’s enabling of it, she shut up about taxing the rich and big corporations, she schmoozed with billionaires and right-wing Republicans such as Liz Cheney, she promised to appoint a Republican to cabinet, she said she couldn’t think of any Biden policies she would change even though Biden was very unpopular. As a result, while Trump’s vote was about 2 milllion up on 2020, Harris got around 8 million less than Biden: she lost because voters stayed home.
KGsays
BTW, my #373 is not intended to excuse voters who stayed home. If you can’t be arsed to vote against fascism (however unappealing he alternative), then FUCK YOU.
RFK Jr. to head newly formed Department of Disease Efficiency Washington Post Link
[…] Trump has picked Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the new head of the Department of Health and Human Services. “He wants to do some things and we’re going to let him go to it,” Trump said. “Go have a good time, Bobby.”
Everyone who is an HHS employee and is not the measles virus: You are on notice! We’re taking this department in a new direction! Measles, stand back and stand by. It’s about to be your time.
We’re doing our best to give the people what they want. For many years we thought what they wanted was clean drinking water, safe and tested vaccines to drive down deaths from childhood diseases, and food that is produced in sanitary conditions so the people who eat it don’t get sick. But we were wrong, and the change starts now.
[…] In light of this, and of the nomination of RFK Jr. as our leader, we at the Department of Health and Human Services are announcing a rebrand as the Department of Disease Efficiency. Given our new mandate to root out expertise wherever it might lurk and replace it with Something That Came To RFK Jr. In A Dream Once, we felt it was proper to release “Health” and “Human Services” back into the wild, where maybe RFK Jr. can hunt them down with his falcon and eat them before they have undergone an FDA inspection.
Look, most Americans are not equipped to test food safety or vaccine safety on their own. And that’s because, unwisely, we have delegated these tasks to the FDA. It’s time we gave them back to the people. Every citizen should learn to inspect his own meat, like the Founders did. George Washington (who apparently only had one real tooth left at the end of his life) did not drink fluoridated water. Abraham Lincoln (one of whose children actually made it to adulthood!) never gave his children safe, routine childhood vaccinations. Franklin D. Roosevelt (who had polio) had polio. It’s time we went back to that.
[…] Maybe disease is an ally, not an enemy! Maybe we can attract a new consumer, someone who is as excited as RFK Jr. is to wonder if water is turning children gay.
Gone are the days when we saw tainted food as something to be eradicated and roadkill as something to be driven past and not consumed. No longer! We are EATING roadkill. If anyone gets a brain parasite, we are CELEBRATING them, not shaming them. Who is to say it is better or worse to have more functional brain and less disease? The point is, there are no bad ideas in this new department. We can’t wait to hit the ground running, like that cockroach in your pasta sauce.
[…] Safe, accessible vaccines that mean nobody gets measles. What better way to drive up birth rates (don’t interrupt me, JD Vance) than to increase the rates of childhood deaths? Also, maybe we can stop approving birth control! None of it seems safe. We’re going to get to the bottom of this, using science — or something that is just as good as science: nothing.
Every time you get to do something as simple as sit down with your healthy family and eat food from a grocery store, it is the result of a cavalcade of miracles. Each health and safety regulation that made your food safe to eat, each childhood vaccine that means you are at the table […] centuries! — of painstaking effort. And these efforts came from all kinds of people: brilliant, dedicated medical minds […] Well, we’re going to take those decades of painstaking, breathtaking achievement and treat them as RFK Jr. treats a bear carcass: dump it somewhere, for no reason, after it has been struck by a car.
Finally, we can declare victory in the long, bitter war against lifesaving human innovations like pasteurization and the polio vaccine! I don’t know why we want to declare victory in this war, but I guess it’s what we’re doing.
a rock set into the eastern corner of the Kaaba, the ancient building in the center of the Grand Mosque in Mecca […] The Black Stone was held in reverence well before Islam. […] The Semitic cultures of the Middle East had a tradition of using unusual stones to mark places of worship
[…]
In January 930, it was stolen […] the Qarmatian leader Abu Tahir al-Jannabi set the Black Stone up in his own mosque, the Masjid al-Dirar, with the intention of redirecting the hajj away from Mecca. This failed, as pilgrims continued to venerate the spot where the Black Stone had been. […] the Stone was returned twenty-three years later, in 952.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
* Not my math. I saw another conflicting claim of the return year. *shrug*
President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team is bypassing traditional FBI background checks for at least some of his Cabinet picks while using private companies to conduct vetting of potential candidates for administration jobs, people close to the transition planning say.
[…] The discussions come as Trump has floated several controversial choices for high-level positions in the US government – including Matt Gaetz for attorney general and Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence.
Ultimately, the president has the final authority on who he nominates and decides to share intelligence with, regardless of the established protocol set in the wake of World War II to make sure those selections don’t have unknown foreign ties or other issues that could raise national security concerns.
[…] Sources say Trump has privately questioned the need for law enforcement background checks.
Dan Meyer, a national security attorney in Washington, DC, said the incoming Trump administration “doesn’t want harmony.” They “don’t want the FBI to coordinate a norm; they want to hammer the norm,” he said.
Some of Trump’s advisers began circulating a memo before the election, urging him to bypass the traditional background check process for some of his appointees, a source briefed on the memo told CNN.
[…] As president, Trump could bypass the process and order Gaetz to be granted a security clearance, as he did in his first term to grant a clearance to his son-in-law Jared Kushner after the approval languished amid questions about potential conflicts of interest.
Trump ordered clearances to be granted to about 25 people whose applications were initially denied for possible national security concerns, CNN previously reported. […]
I don’t know who Cathie Wood is, but someone should tell her that running a government is not the same as running a business. Also, they should point her to Musk’s track record of running Twitter (into the ground).
Reginald Selkirksays
Almighty G-d once again occupies himself with interfering in sportsball outcomes.
Chiefs linebacker Leo Chenal’s epic effort Sunday resulted in a blocked field-goal attempt on a 35-yard try by the Broncos’ Wil Lutz on the final play of the game.
“It’s complete shock,” Chenal told reporters after the game. “Not much I can say about it. Glory to Jesus Christ and everything because I was really praying for something to happen. That moment is so heavy, there’s a second on the clock and they’re going to kick the field goal. You feel the weight of the moment.” …
Yesterday, Donald Trump officially announced that his choice to run our nation’s Department of Health and Human Services is none other than Robert “Bloody Whale Head” Kennedy Jr.
It’s an especially terrifying prospect for Pennsylvania, now that I think of it. What with the state currently leading the nation in whooping cough diagnoses, and all. Good job on voting for more sick infants, Pennsylvania!
While Kennedy, who has had his heart set on this for a while, has promised that he won’t “take anybody’s vaccines away,” he’s also told people within the Trump camp that his actual plan is to have the vaccines studied so he can “prove” they are dangerous so that pharmaceutical companies will take them off the market. [Oh yeah, I figured he had a plan to get vaccines off the market.]
“He says, ‘If you give me the data, all I want is the data, and I’ll take on the data and show that it’s not safe.’ And then if you pull the product liability (protections), the companies will yank these vaccines right off, off of the market,” Trump transition team co-chair Howard Lutnick told CNN in October.
This will be quite difficult, as there are decades upon decades of data showing that vaccines are safe and that they save lives. Though I guess if he’s interpreting that data himself, he could come to any conclusion. [True. And he has misinterpreted data before. He does not know how to think like a research scientist, nor like a statistician.]
Anyway, in honor of RFK Jr.’s tentative appointment to run HHS, let’s take a look back at some of his greatest hits, old school listicle style. (The ones that don’t involve animal mutilation, anyway.)
1. Claiming that COVID was bioengineered to spare Jewish and Chinese people … [video at the link]
“Covid-19. There is an argument that it is ethnically targeted. Covid-19 attacks certain races disproportionately,” Kennedy said at a private event, footage of which was obtained by The New York Post. “Covid-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.” […]
2. Remember when all of the wackos thought Bill Gates was putting microchips in the vaccine? RFK Jr. was one of them!
“I urge you to contact Bill Gates on his social media,” RFK Jr. posted on Instagram. “Gently explain that tagging and tracking humans may appeal to his government cronies in totalitarian China, but those activities are inconsistent with American values and traditions.”
What I really love about that nonsense is that it turns out that fellow Trump appointee-in-waiting Elon Musk actually does have plans for brain chips. Those will be fine though, of course. Well, except for the fact that the monkeys they tested them on had to be euthanized after the chips caused “bloody diarrhea, partial paralysis, and cerebral edema.”
3. Telling Joe Rogan That Wifi Causes Cancer, “Leaky Brain”
In an 2003 interview with Joe Rogan, RFK Jr. said he was representing “hundreds” of people with glioblastomas (the most common form of brain cancer) behind their ears as a result of cell phones, because of the wifi. Repeated studies, however, have found that there is no link between glioblastomas and cell phones and that cases of brain cancer have not increased with the use of cellphones as one would expect if they were a cause.
But wait, it gets dumber!
“The cancer’s not the worst thing. They also — WiFi radiation opens up your blood brain barrier,” he told Rogan. “And so all these toxins that are in your body can now go into your brain.” He later explained that this is a condition called “leaky brain.” […]
“4. Promoting the very wacky “Great Reset” conspiracy theory [Social media post available at the link]
Kennedy promoted a movie featuring Catherine Austin Fitts, a major proponent of the Great Reset conspiracy theory that basically held that COVID was all a ruse to take over the world and turn us all into bug-eating slaves or whatever. It was very stupid!
5. They’re using 5G to control our braaaaains! [Social media post available at the link]
In the aforementioned rant about how vaccine mandates are the Holocaust, RFK Jr. explained that “[t]hey’re putting in 5G to harvest our data and control our behavior. Digital currency that will allow them to punish us from a distance and cut off our food supply.” […]
6. Hey! Here’s a picture of RFK Jr with convicted sex offender Scott Ritter!
Aw, aren’t they just adorbs! This isn’t a conspiracy, but it does seem worthwhile to point out that Scott Ritter, the guy sitting next to “Bobby,” went to prison after getting To Catch A Predator-ed twice by law enforcement. In one case he tried to lure a cop posing as a 16-year-old girl to a Burger King — and was not charged. In the second, he masturbated in front of a webcam being sent to what he thought was a 15-year-old girl but was, in fact, another undercover cop, and did end up being convicted.
There is no question that Ritter was, at one point, helpful as an early critic of the Iraq War and as one of the former UN Weapons Inspectors who were repeatedly saying there was no way Iraq had any WMDs. But that good really, really does not cancel out the evil of trying to sex up teenage girls online, certainly not enough to warrant taking a photo with the guy.
7. Saying AIDS is not caused by HIV, but by poppers and “the gay lifestyle”
“There were people that were part of a gay lifestyle, they were burning the candle at both ends, there were poppers on sale everywhere at the gay bars,” he said, giving a speech in which he explained that AIDS was actually caused by poppers and not HIV, which should probably come as a surprise to all of the people out there who have managed to get it while never having taken a popper (amyl nitrate) in their lives.
He notably promoted HIV/AIDS denialist Christine Maggiori, a woman who contracted HIV and later died of AIDS. She denied it so hard that she insisted on breastfeeding her baby, who died of AIDS-related pneumonia at the age of three
8. The water is transing the kids! [video at the link]
Hey! So remember when Alex Jones screamed, “I don’t like them putting chemicals in the water that turn the frickin’ frogs gay!” Well, RFK Jr. jumped from that to claiming that atrazine, an herbicide, in the water is actually, maybe, turning the kids gay and trans.
Via CNN:
A study Kennedy discussed on multiple podcast episodes exposed male African clawed frogs to atrazine in a lab, castrating 75% of the male frogs and turning one in 10 males into females.
On an episode of Jordan Peterson’s podcast, a video of which was removed from YouTube, Kennedy said children are “swimming through a soup of toxic chemicals.” He further discussed how atrazine can “chemically castrate and forcibly feminize” frogs, saying “if it’s doing that to frogs, there’s a lot of other evidence that it’s doing it to human beings as well.” Kennedy did not offer any proof of similar changes happening in human beings.
Actual scientists have explained that there is no evidence that this has or would have a similar effect on humans, because of how humans are not frogs and that for humans “atrazine is metabolized and excreted from the body within 12 hours.”
9. Do antidepressants cause school shootings? RFK Jr. thinks so!
“Kids always had access to guns, and there was no time in American history or human history where kids were going to schools and shooting their classmates,” RFK Jr. told Bill Maher on his “Club Random With Bill Maher” podcast. “It really started happening conterminous with the introduction of these drugs, with Prozac and the other drugs.”
Apparently, RFK Jr. did not actually check to see how many school shooters were on antidepressants, because the answer is “not too many!” And, in the few cases in which the shooters were actually on antidepressants, a causal relationship was not found.
The particularly insidious thing about this kind of nonsense is that it discourages parents and kids from getting psychological treatment, which would likely do a hell of a lot more to prevent a school shooting than cause it. […] it would be great if more troubled kids could see therapists and psychiatrists to find the best course of treatment for them, whether or not that involves SSRIs. But I guess that’s just too nuanced!
10. The time he was largely responsible for a deadly measles outbreak in Samoa
In 2018, in Samoa, two infants died after getting their measles vaccine. Immediately, groups like Kennedy Jr.’s Children’s Health Defense jumped on the opportunity to start shit-talking vaccines, and soon enough the measles vaccination rate dropped down to 31 percent.
By 2019, there was a deadly outbreak of the virus, killing 83 people, most of whom were children.
Via Mother Jones:
During the stretch in which the vaccination coverage was dropping in Samoa, Kennedy visited the nation in June 2019 and gave a boost to anti-vaxxers there who had used the death of those two infants to help cause the drop in vaccination rates.[…]
Public health experts complained Kennedy’s visit to Samoa helped amplifly anti-vax voices.
Kennedy later claimed his encounter with Winterstein was a chance occurrence. But he acknowledged his trip to Samoa had been arranged by coconut farmer Edwin Tamasese, another prominent Samoan anti-vaxxer, and paid for by Children’s Health Defense. The point of the trip, he insisted, was to discuss with government officials “the introduction of a medical informatics system that would allow Samoa’s health officials to assess, in real time, the efficacy and safety of every medical intervention or drug on overall health.” This would include questioning the value of vaccinations.
The most fucked up part of all of this is that the infants who died weren’t even actually given the vaccine, they were given a muscle relaxant by mistake, and that is what killed them — not the vaccine.
RFK Jr. denies responsibility for this outbreak, which he claimed may have been caused by the vaccine itself. But the fact is, even if he hadn’t gone rushing over there the second he thought he could blame some deaths on a vaccine, he’d still be partly responsible — simply by virtue of being one of the loudest anti-vaccine voices around.
There are people in the United States who are not vaccinating their kids because of him, and in some places, they’re allowed to send those kids to schools with other kids who may be unable to take vaccines because they are immunocompromised or other kids for whom the vaccine didn’t work, and they can compromise herd immunity and cause an outbreak of a deadly virus or disease that no one ever needs to have again, because “there’s a vaccine for that.” […]
The beaver moon will reach its peak on Friday and the Leonid meteor shower will be on full display on Saturday.
Stargazers are in for quite the double feature this weekend: The Beaver Moon, the last supermoon of the year, will share the celestial stage with the dazzling Leonid meteor shower.
The Beaver Moon will reach the crest of its full phase at 4:29 p.m. ET on Friday. This is the final supermoon of this year’s four supermoons, when the moon appears bigger and brighter than normal, according to The Old Farmer’s Almanac.
[…] The Beaver Moon was named after the time of year when beavers begin hibernation. During the fur trade in North America, this was also the season to trap beavers for their thick, winter-ready pelts […]
A supermoon occurs when a full moon coincides with the moon’s closest approach to Earth in its elliptical orbit, a point known as perigee. According to NASA, “supermoon” isn’t an official astronomical term, but typically it’s used to describe a full moon that comes within at least 90 percent of perigee.
Those hoping to catch a glimpse might be in for a bonus scene in the sky as the Leonid meteor shower reaches its peak on Saturday night into early Sunday, according to the American Meteor Society. While the best viewing period will be over the weekend, the Leonids will be visible until the meteor shower ends on Dec. 2.
Upcoming celestial events include the last full moon of 2024 on Dec. 15, the Geminid meteor shower which will peak from Dec. 12 to 13 and the Ursid meteor shower which will peak from Dec. 21 to 22.
The new communication between Scholz and Putin — their first since December 2022 — comes at a time of widespread speculation about what the new administration of President-elect Donald Trump will mean for Ukraine.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin leader’s first publicly announced conversation with the sitting head of a major Western power in nearly two years. Scholz urged Putin to be open to negotiations with Ukraine, his office said.
The Kremlin leader responded that any peace deal should acknowledge Russia’s territorial gains and security demands, including that Kyiv renounce joining NATO.
Government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said Scholz urged Putin in the hour-long call to withdraw his troops and end the full-scale invasion launched in February 2022. The conflict will reach its 1,000th day on Tuesday, and exiled Russian opposition leaders, including Alexei Navalny’s widow, Yulia, have set an antiwar rally for Sunday in Berlin.
[…] Washington has been Ukraine’s biggest military backer, but Trump has repeatedly questioned the amount of aid being given to Ukraine. While Trump has suggested he could settle the war quickly, Ukraine has ruled out giving up any territory to Moscow in return for peace.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy criticized Scholz’s call to Putin, calling it “a Pandora’s box” and would only serve to make Russia less isolated.
“Now there may be other conversations, other calls. Just a lot of words. And this is exactly what Putin has wanted for a long time,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly address. “It is crucial for him to weaken his isolation. … And to engage in negotiations, ordinary negotiations, that will lead to nothing.” [I think Zelenskyy is correct.]
Scholz condemned Russian air raids on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure and warned that the deployment of North Korean troops to Russia to fight in the war would mark a serious escalation. The U.S., South Korea and Ukraine say North Korea has sent thousands of troops to Russia to support its war against Ukraine.
The Kremlin said Germany initiated the call, during which the leaders had a “detailed and frank exchange of opinions on the situation in Ukraine.”
Putin blamed “the current crisis” on what he called NATO’s “long-standing aggressive policy aimed at creating an anti-Russian stronghold on Ukrainian territory while ignoring our country’s security interests and trampling on the rights of Russian-speaking residents,” a Kremlin readout said.
[…] “Possible agreements should take into account the interests of the Russian Federation in the security sphere, proceed from new territorial realities, and most importantly, eliminate the root causes of the conflict,” the readout said.
[…] Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the leaders had a “detailed” and “frank” exchange of opinions but added that ”there is no talk about convergence of opinions.”
The two sides agreed to remain in contact after the call.
The surge in the preventable disease was driven by “inadequate immunization coverage,” the agencies said.
The number of measles cases around the world rose by 20% in 2023 compared with 2022, leading to an estimated 10.3 million cases, according to estimates released Thursday by the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The surge in the preventable disease was driven by “inadequate immunization coverage,” the agencies said in a joint statement.
More than 22 million children did not receive a first dose of the two-dose measles vaccine in 2023, the WHO and CDC said. Globally approximately 83% of children received a first dose of the vaccine last year, and 74% received a second dose, the agencies said.
Health officials recommend vaccination coverage of at least 95% in communities to prevent outbreaks. An infected person can spread the highly contagious disease to up to 90% of people close to them if they are not immune, according to the CDC.
“The number of measles infections are rising around the globe, endangering lives and health,” CDC Director Mandy Cohen said in the statement. “The measles vaccine is our best protection against the virus, and we must continue to invest in efforts to increase access.”
An estimated 107,500 people, who were mostly children younger than 5 years old, died from measles in 2023, the agencies said, adding that while that total represented was an 8% decrease from the year before, “far too many children are still dying from this preventable disease.” The agencies said the “slight reduction in deaths” was mainly because the surges took place in countries and regions of the world where children with the disease were less likely to die, due to their ability to access nutrition and health services.
Measles symptoms commonly include a high fever, cough, conjunctivitis (pink eye), runny nose, white spots in the mouth and a rash that spreads from head to toe. Infants and young children are most at risk of serious complications from the disease such as pneumonia or swelling of the brain.
Vaccination coverage for measles fell globally during the pandemic to the lowest levels since 2008. […]
“Measles vaccine has saved more lives than any other vaccine in the past 50 years,” WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement. “To save even more lives and stop this deadly virus from harming the most vulnerable, we must invest in immunization for every person, no matter where they live.”
Pete Hegseth, the Army National Guard veteran and Fox News host nominated by Donald Trump to lead the Department of Defense, was flagged as a possible “Insider Threat” by a fellow service member due to a tattoo he has that’s associated with white supremacist groups.
Hegseth, who has downplayed the role of military members and veterans in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack and railed against the Pentagon’s subsequent efforts to address extremism in the ranks, has said he was pulled by his District of Columbia National Guard unit from guarding Joe Biden’s January 2021 inauguration. He’s said he was unfairly identified as an extremist due to a cross tattoo on his chest.
This week, however, a fellow Guard member who was the unit’s security manager and on an anti-terrorism team at the time, shared with The Associated Press an email he sent to the unit’s leadership flagging a different tattoo that’s been used by white supremacists, concerned it was an indication of an “Insider Threat.” …
Russia told Austria on Friday it will suspend gas deliveries via Ukraine on Saturday, in a development that signals a fast-approaching end of Moscow’s last gas flows to Europe.
Russia’s oldest gas-export route to Europe, a pipeline dating back to Soviet days via Ukraine, is set to shut at the end of this year.
Ukraine has said it will not extend the transit agreement with Russian state-owned Gazprom in order to deprive Russia of profits that Kyiv says help to finance the war against it.
Moscow’s suspension of gas for Austria, the main receiver of gas via Ukraine, means Russia will now only supply significant gas volumes to Hungary and Slovakia, in Hungary’s case via a pipeline running mostly through Turkey. In contrast, Russia met 40% of the European Union’s gas needs before Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said Gazprom’s notice of ending supplies was long expected and Austria has made preparations…
Attorney Ben Crump announced the filing of a $100 million lawsuit against the FBI, CIA and the New York Police Department for the assassination of Malcolm X. Crump said the suit, filed by family members and the estate of Malcolm X, alleges that the agencies conspired in the 1965 killing of the civil rights leader.
A Pennsylvania man has stepped down from his position on a university advisory board after being caught on camera hurling racial slurs during a confrontation.
Penn State York announced Tuesday that Jonathan Spanos was “no longer a member of the Penn State York Advisory Board” after his bigoted roadside rant went viral.
Footage of Spanos spewing hateful rhetoric at two unidentified people was posted on X (formerly Twitter) over the weekend. He can be heard loudlyshouting the N-word multiple times during his tirade.
The person recording can then be heard saying, “You said the N-word on camera, that’s gonna be great for you.”
A woman is now receiving treatment after she damaged power equipment and climbed a substation transformer in Salt Lake City Wednesday morning during what police say was a mental health episode.
The incident, which took place near Gladiola Street and Decade Drive, led to authorities cutting power to more than 800 homes to prevent the woman from being electrocuted. According to the Salt Lake City Police Department, the alleged trespasser was taken into custody and transported to the hospital…
tomhsays
@ #366
You don’t seem to realize what Pearl Harbor led to. Like Trump, it wasn’t the act itself but what the consequences were.
A light source in space originally believed to be a galaxy bending light from a distant active galactic core is actually an extremely rare and first-of-its-kind gravitational lens, according to a team of researchers that studied the system.
The system is called J1721+8842, and it was first discovered in 2017. At the time, the system was thought to be a galaxy bending the light of a faraway quasar—an energetic galactic nucleus. But after two years of observation with the Nordic Optical Telescope—as well as data from the James Webb Space Telescope—the recent team posits that the object is actually a compound lens, made up of two aligned galaxies. Furthermore, the team posits that light traveled through the lens in a zig-zag pattern. The team’s research is currently hosted on the preprint server arXiv, and it suggests that the rare structure could help answer some fundamental questions about the cosmos…
Bekenstein Boundsays
All this talk of Trump’s ego and incompetence seems to leave aside the elephant in the room: that Trump likely won’t survive four more years and at some point Vance will take over.
When the Fair Labor Standards Act was signed into law in 1938, first establishing a national minimum wage, it came with an exemption: employers could pay some disabled workers less than minimum wage […] as little as 25 cents an hour. […] Defenders […] often argue that the disabled workers […] wouldn’t get a job elsewhere.
[…]
[However] in two states—New Hampshire and Maryland—that banned the practice, employment rates […] either increased or didn’t change […] these people are able to work in equal-paying, fully integrated jobs [with] their peers who do not have a disability, given the right resources.
[…]
While the Biden Department of Labor was expected to introduce a rule to either make the program more equitable or get rid of it entirely, it has yet to take action.
KGsays
You don’t seem to realize what Pearl Harbor led to. – tomh@393
Of course I do. But it is only too likely that the return of Trump will lead to destruction, suffering and premature death on a scale far greater than WW2.
KGsays
BTW, tomh@393, Pearl Harbor probably shortened WW2 even though it expanded it geographically, because it brought the full power of the USA in on the side of the Allies – something Roosevelt might not have been able to bring about otherwise. Hence the (completely unevidenced) conspiracy narrative that he knew it was coming and deliberately let it happen. Certainly, Churchill was delighted – he had been trying to get the USA into the war ever since he came into office.
New research by engineers at MIT could lead to rapid improvements in a variety of electrochemical systems that are under development to convert carbon dioxide into a valuable commodity. The team developed a new design for the electrodes used in these systems, which increases the efficiency of the conversion process.
The findings are reported today in the journal Nature Communications, in a paper by MIT doctoral student Simon Rufer, professor of mechanical engineering Kripa Varanasi, and three others…
In the new study, the team focused on the electrochemical conversion of CO2 to ethylene, a widely used chemical that can be made into a variety of plastics as well as fuels, and which today is made from petroleum…
The solution, devised by Rufer and Varanasi, is elegant in its simplicity. They used a plastic material, PTFE (essentially Teflon), that has been known to have good hydrophobic properties. However, PTFE’s lack of conductivity means that electrons must travel through a very thin catalyst layer, leading to significant voltage drop with distance. To overcome this limitation, the researchers wove a series of conductive copper wires through the very thin sheet of the PTFE.
“This work really addressed this challenge, as we can now get both conductivity and hydrophobicity,” Varanasi says…
the nation’s largest government agency still unable to fully account for its more than $824 billion budget, though officials stress they are making good progress
[…]
The Pentagon has never passed an audit since the agency became legally obligated to carry them out in 2018. A major challenge in auditing remains a full accounting of the sheer number of systems the Defense Department employs.
[…]
the Pentagon has improved from less than 7 percent to more than 82 percent of its funding being free of material weaknesses since 2021. “This now means that the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Air Force have gotten their house in order on all of their funding, or cash,” […] This year, the audit cost the Defense Department $178 million and involved some 1,700 auditors.
When news a rare American songbird had been spotted in a sleepy West Yorkshire cul-de-sac eager ornithologists converged on the quiet street faster than a falcon in free fall.
But for the long term residents of Shelf – previously only known as the home of Blue Peter presenter John Noakes and interior designer Linda Barker – the arrival of a scarlet tanager brought a spotlight on the village and a “crazy” influx of visitors.
While some complained about the parking and disruption to the bin round, others said they were excited to see the village put on the map…
Tesla has the deadliest cars on the road today. According to a new study from iSeeCars, Tesla vehicles have the highest fatal crash rate among all vehicle brands in the United States. The organization analyzed data from the U.S. Fatality Analysis Reporting System.
The study, conducted on 2018-2022 model year vehicles, looked at crashes between 2017 and 2022 that resulted in at least one of the occupants’ death. It found that Teslas have a fatal crash rate of 5.6 per billion miles driven. Kia came in second with a rate of 5.5, followed by Buick at 4.8, Dodge at 4.4 and Hyundai at 3.9. For reference, iSeeCars says the overall average was 2.8, meaning the average Tesla crash is twice as deadly as average…
Harris lost all seven swing states, but in five of them – Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Wisconsin – she’s ending up with more raw votes than Biden got in 2020.
Anyone you see on your timeline right now praising RFK Jr. is a person you never need to take seriously on anything ever again.
It is difficult to overstate just how extreme, conspiratorial, and insane RFK’s views are, on vaccines, microchips & beyond. He’s Alex Jones in a suit.
A Florida city voted this week to remove fluoride from its drinking water, with one city commissioner citing Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s past comments on the matter as one of the reasons.
The city commission in Winter Haven, Fla. voted 3-2 Tuesday to remove fluoride from the city’s water by January 1 next year or “as soon as reasonably practical thereafter,” NBC News’s affiliate WFLA reported. […]
Hundreds of women have proven their competence and were awarded for their heroism during the nation’s longest war in Iraq and Afghanistan, advocates said.
They lost limbs in battle, led security convoys and survived several combat tours.
Now, some female veterans and service members are railing against remarks Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary, has made about women’s ability to fight on the front lines.
“I don’t even know how to express the disgust,” said a current U.S. Army colonel, who spoke to NBC News on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation.
In a podcast released last week, Hegseth, a former Fox News host, said the military “should not have women in combat roles” and that “men in those positions are more capable.”
“It hasn’t made us more effective, hasn’t made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated,” Hegseth said on “The Shawn Ryan Show.”
He doubled down on another podcast in June, saying women are “life-givers, not life-takers.”
“They could be medics or helicopter pilots or whatever,” Hegseth said on “The Ben Shapiro Show.” “But they create all sorts of variables and complications that have nothing to do with being anti-women and everything to do with having the most effective military.”
During more than 20 years of service and three deployments, the Army colonel who spoke with anonymity said her gender would not stop her from taking a life if she had to.
“I’m trained the same way. I take the same oath. I execute the same orders that are given to me as my male counterparts,” she said.
[…] The Pentagon first opened all combat roles to women in 2016 to reflect the changing attitudes of gender-based barriers within the military.
“Our force of the future must continue to benefit from the best America has to offer,” then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter said. “This includes women.”
The historic policy shift opened up some of the 220,000 roles that were only available to men, including some special operations units and infantry positions.
It allowed women who qualify and meet standards to drive tanks, give orders, lead infantry soldiers into combat and serve as Army Rangers, Green Berets, Navy SEALs, Marine Corps infantry and Air Force parajumpers.
It’s unclear what changes Hegseth would make. He pointedly told Shapiro that female soldiers “shouldn’t be in my infantry battalion.”
Today, women make up more than 17% of the military’s active duty force, according to the Defense Department. In 2022, while the number of service members dropped 2.7% over the previous year, the percentage of women in the military inched upward, agency data shows.
[…] More than 9,000 women received Army Combat Action Badges for “actively engaging or being engaged by the enemy,” according to a 2015 report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. Two were given a Silver Star, the third-highest military combat decoration, for “gallantry in action,” the report said.
Manning said another 383 women were awarded a Purple Heart — the nation’s oldest military award, which recognizes sacrifice and heroism.
[…] n a statement, Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., a Purple Heart recipient, said the pick was “dangerous, plain and simple.”
Duckworth, a former Army National Guard member, was one of the first women in the Army to fly combat missions during Operation Iraqi Freedom. She lost both of her legs and partial use of her right arm in 2004 after a rocket-propelled grenade struck her helicopter.
“Where do you think I lost my legs? In a bar fight? I’m pretty sure I was in combat when that happened,” she told CNN. “It just shows how out of touch he is with the nature of modern warfare if he thinks that we can keep women behind some sort of imaginary line, which is not the way warfare is today.”
Retired Army Lt. Col. Raquel Durden, a former Army paratrooper, condemned a blanket ban on women having combat jobs and said the military should instead have and enforce a high standard for any man and woman in those roles.
“To cast this wide net and say women shouldn’t serve in combat — well, guess what? We’re already there,” she said.
Crazy Idea: Boost EV Adoption With Cheap Slow Public EV Chargers Everywhere
Fast charging is mostly needed on road trips. Make most public charging low-tech, cheap, and ubiquitous.
When people are surveyed about why they might or might not get an electric vehicle, uncertainty about charging is always at or near the top of the list, which makes sense because our transportation infrastructure is almost entirely oriented toward fossil-fuel powered cars. Most EV owners so far charge their cars at home overnight using an AC “Level 2” charger that can recharge the battery with roughly 30 miles of range per hour on average, which is why charging overnight, or while you’re at work, is routine.
So far, people without a dedicated place to park and charge have had to rely on public charging stations, which mostly provide fast, DC “Level 3” chargers. Those can get an EV’s battery to about 80 percent capacity in around a half hour on average, and are the standard for the Tesla Supercharger network and for the public charging station program funded by Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. They’re ideal for people who need to quickly add 200 miles of range on a road trip or while having lunch somewhere, but they use a lot of energy and cost tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars each to install.
So here’s a neato idea from the indispensable climate and clean energy outlet Heatmap News: Since most people already charge their EVs slowly, using chargers that cost a few hundred dollars (for home use at least), why not keep deploying fast DC chargers near freeways and in high traffic areas, but also push for much wider availability of Level 2 public charging that’s low-tech, far less expensive, and dang near everywhere? As the article argues,
Expanding our focus to low-tech EV charging, then, is one way to make Americans more confident about ditching gas, even during the coming Trump era redux.
It’s enough to make a nerd reach for a theme song: [video at the link]
A shift in emphasis toward high-speed chargers that would mostly be for long-distance drivers and far wider availability of slow chargers would help solve one of the chicken-egg problems for EV adoption. Without widely available charging options, people will be reluctant to get an EV, but without a lot of customers willing to pay for fast charging, there’s little economic incentive for commercial companies to put out the capital needed for fast-chargers networks.
But if EV chargers are as common as, say, streetlights, the challenge of charging is reduced, and you won’t have people fighting for the few available fast-charge spots in the Walmart parking lot.
Appropriate electrical infrastructure already exists in many places — street lights, for example, use a 277-volt standard that could be repurposed for slow EV charging. All you need to do is run wires down to street level so cars can plug in. [Good idea.]
You probably won’t fill up your car’s battery on streetside slow chargers. […] Yet a world of ubiquitous Level 2 plugs would add peace of mind. Think of it like plugging in your phone at a bar or at the airport. Sometimes, a little extra juice is just what you need to get by.
Instead of frantically worrying about finding an open slot at a fast charger 20 miles away, slow chargers would just be there, reducing range anxiety and making EVs more common sights on the road. […] more manufacturers adopt lower-cost battery chemistry that makes EVs more affordable, at the cost of some range. Wider availability of “good enough” chargers for everyday use will only increase the appeal of such “good enough” EVs — just as shoppers for internal-combustion cars may drool over the sporty models but drive home in a sensible car with plenty of room for kids and groceries. […]
[I]nfrastructure left out on the street is susceptible to vandalism as well as normal wear and tear. That’s why some places in Europe have embraced the “bring your own cable” approach to such chargers so cords are not left on the sidewalk, sitting in the rain and getting in the way.
Clever nerds with startups are already working on those problems, too.
The coming Trump II regime will set back a lot of neat ideas simply by slashing funding for Biden’s climate programs, but the EV transition will continue, more slowly than it oughta, because that’s simply where the rest of the world is headed. Trump may very well make it far harder for US companies to compete in that global market, and he’ll call it a great thing because he’s an idiot.
In one more troubling indication of what’s on the way, Reuters reported this week that Trump will seek to eliminate the $7,500 EV tax credit from the Inflation Reduction Act, in the name of cost cutting, and with likely encouragement from Elon Musk, who’d love nothing more than to remove one of the tools keeping Tesla’s competitors in the market. But as we’ve noted previously, it’s just possible that red state members of Congress will resist such cuts, since the IRA has created so many good manufacturing jobs in their states.
We can only hope that Musk continues to be such an annoying, attention-grabbing prick that he manages to truly piss off the Great Man enough that Trump decides it would be more fun not to help Elon corner the domestic EV market.
JMsays
China Observer: Russia – North Korea cooperation
A nice summary of the deal between Russia and North Korea and what the countries get out of the deal.
The North Korean soldiers sent to Ukraine are experienced but are totally unfamiliar with modern combat and know little of modern electronics. This is compounded by the Russians using them as cannon fodder.
North Korea and Russia have signed a large deal. The public part of the deal includes a mutual defense agreement. North Korea can churn out a lot of basic gear, letting Russia concentrate on more advanced gear. North Korea also has a lot of basic infantry to spare. In exchange North Korea gets food, money and luxuries.
Kim is making a gamble here. China has never treated North Korea well. Mostly considering it nothing but a buffer between China and western troops. So looking for another ally makes sense. But if Russia doesn’t come out of this war in a good situation North Korea may find itself more cut off then ever.
The Telegram channel Archangel Spetsnaz Z wrote that advances are “difficult and slow” and that, with bad weather, “reconnaissance becomes more difficult on both sides.” The channel Two Majors wrote that Ukraine’s forces are “pulling reserves and trying to hold its positions at any cost.”
Russia is throwing everything they have at the Ukrainians in the hopes of making some significant advance this year, both in Kursk and in Ukraine. They are not making much progress, if any. The weather is starting to turn bad and there has not been much but small back and forth shifts over the past couple of weeks. In total since the mid point of the year the Russians have slowly made progress but at huge expense in manpower and gear. North Korean manpower and gear has let the Russians keep their offense going into the fall it isn’t helping real progress. The North Korean gear has poor manufacturing standards, even compared to the Russian supplies. The North Korean soldiers are experienced soldiers but totally unfamiliar with modern combat and electronics.
…
For Stoyle, it’s likely that the myth of Arthur has at least its roots in fact.
“Nobody knows for sure,” he says. “Historians are so divided on it.”
He says that an increasing number of archaeologists and historians believe that Arthur is an amalgamation of various historical characters, rather than an actual figure himself —although plenty still believe that Arthur himself existed…
Hey, “experts” are allowed to have opinions, just like anyone else…
Rudy Giuliani has turned over his 1980 Mercedes-Benz convertible, his luxury watch collection and a diamond ring, marking a partial end to a saga where the former mayor of New York City has tried to outrun the court system as two Georgia election workers try to collect on a $150 million debt he has owed them for a year.
An attorney representing Giuliani told a federal judge in New York that the ring and watches were delivered by FedEx and the car “was delivered as requested” in Florida. Giuliani also told his bank to turn over at least $30,000 in a bank account, according to a Friday court filing…
I assume the South Koreans are carefully watching what happens with the North Korean troops deployed by Russia. Everyone will notice that: “The North Korean soldiers are experienced soldiers but totally unfamiliar with modern combat and electronics.”
JMsays
@ 421 Reginald Selkirk: Typical of his kind that they are very evasive right up until actually threatened with jail time. As long as stalling is just a game played in court they will stall everything. When they judge makes it clear that further stalling will be done from the inside of a prison cell they start turning things over. I wish judges were quicker to throw people in jail when they are clearly just delaying the case. They can make bogus appeals or evade penalties if they want but it’s going to seem like a much worse option from inside a prison cell.
The gun industry uses deceptive tactics for political purposes:
A U.S. senator this week criticized the gun industry for secretly harvesting personal information from firearm owners for political purposes, calling it an “invasive and dangerous intrusion” of privacy and safety.
In a letter sent to the National Shooting Sports Foundation on Tuesday, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., questioned the legality of the “covert program” in which firearms manufacturers for years shared sensitive customer information with political operatives.
Blumenthal cited a ProPublica investigation that found some of America’s most iconic gunmakers secretly participated, even while the gun industry presented itself as a privacy protector and fought against government and corporate efforts to track firearms ownership. [hypocrites]
At least 10 gun industry businesses, including Glock, Smith & Wesson and Remington, handed over hundreds of thousands of names, addresses and other private data — without customer knowledge or consent — to the NSSF, which then entered the details into what would become a massive database. The database was used to rally gun owners’ electoral support for the industry’s candidates running for the White House and Congress.
[…] The senator, who served as Connecticut’s attorney general for two decades and has consistently supported legislation to reduce gun violence, said he was also “disturbed” by “glaring discrepancies” between what ProPublica uncovered and the NSSF’s previous responses to his office.
In 2022, Blumenthal sent the NSSF a list of questions after reading leaked documents that made a passing reference to the database. In its response, the NSSF would not acknowledge the database’s existence. […]
The customer information initially came from decades of warranty cards filled out and returned to gun manufacturers for rebates and repair or replacement programs. A ProPublica review of dozens of warranty cards from the 1970s through today found that some promised customers their information would be kept strictly confidential. Others said some information could be shared with third parties for marketing and sales. None of the cards informed buyers their details would be used by lobbyists and consultants to win elections.
Violating a promise of strict confidentiality on warranty cards or failing to mention that consumer information could be given to the NSSF may qualify as a deceptive practice under the Federal Trade Commission Act, privacy and legal experts said. […]
Founded in 1961 and currently based in Shelton, Connecticut, the NSSF represents thousands of firearms and ammunition manufacturers, distributors, retailers, publishers and shooting ranges. While not as well known as the chief lobbyist for gun owners, the National Rifle Association, the NSSF is respected and influential in business, political and gun-rights communities.
For two decades, the organization has raged against government and corporate attempts to amass information on gun buyers. As recently as this year, the NSSF pushed for laws that would prohibit credit card companies from creating special codes for firearms dealers, claiming the codes could be used to create a registry of gun purchasers.
As a group, gun owners are fiercely protective about their personal information. Many have good reasons. Their ranks include police officers, judges, domestic violence victims and others who have faced serious threats of harm.
The gun industry launched the data harvesting approximately 17 months before the 2000 election […]
Within three years, the NSSF’s database — filled with warranty card information and supplemented with names from voter rolls and hunting licenses — contained at least 5.5 million people. The information was central to what NSSF called its voter education program, which involved sending letters, postcards and later emails to persuade gun buyers to vote for the firearms industry’s preferred political candidates.
Because privacy laws shield the names of firearm purchasers from public view, the data NSSF obtained gave it a unique ability to identify and contact large numbers of gun owners or shooting sports enthusiasts. The NSSF has credited its program for helping elect both George W. Bush and Donald Trump to the White House.
In April 2016, a contractor on NSSF’s voter education project delivered a large cache of data to Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm credited with playing a key role in Trump’s narrow victory that year, according to internal Cambridge emails and documents. The company later went out of business amid a global scandal over its handling of confidential consumer data.
The data given to Cambridge included 20 years of gun owners’ warranty card information as well as a separate database of customers from Cabela’s, a sporting goods retailer with approximately 70 stores in the U.S. and Canada.
Cambridge combined the NSSF data with a wide array of sensitive particulars obtained from commercial data brokers. It included people’s income, their debts, their religion, where they filled prescriptions, their children’s ages and purchases they made for their kids. For women, it revealed intimate elements such as whether the underwear and other clothes they purchased were plus size or petite.
The information was used to create psychological profiles of gun owners […] With the NSSF supporting Trump and pro-gun congressional candidates, the profiles helped Cambridge tailor the NSSF’s political messages to voters based on their personalities.
The word ‘orc’ has been widely used as a synonym for a Russian soldier since Russia launched the full-scale war against Ukraine. Such associations had existed long before
[…]
The USSR banned Tolkien’s books because they saw the orcs as an analogy for the Soviet people. The Orcs were creatures without high intelligence. They saw the strength of their army not in quality but in quantity. They were at odds with the rest of the world, living in isolation. And the ring that Sauron used to conquer the free peoples of Middle-earth has been interpreted by some […] as an allegory for the nuclear weapons that the U.S. and the USSR were manufacturing during the Cold War.
[…]
For several decades, The Lord of the Rings was not translated in the USSR. The books could only be read in self-published form, where every effort was made to evade censorship. […] Russification of names and allusions to fairy tales, were added to the original text.
However, Tolkien himself was very unhappy […] he considered his literature to be ‘apolitical.’ As early as 1966, the author’s foreword to the second edition of The Lord of the Ring stated that the war for the ring was not a reference to WWII and that Mordor was not the Soviet Union.
[…]
On the contrary, Russians themselves increasingly identified with Mordor […] In the late 1990s, for example, Russian writer Kirill Yesskov published ‘The Last Ringbearer,’ which reinterprets The Lord of the Rings as a Cold War allegory, but from an orc perspective […] transforming the orcs from barbaric idiots into a technologically advanced nation fighting the ‘decaying West’
[…]
Russian publicists Maxim Kalashnikov and Yuri Krupkov published a book called ‘Orc Wrath,’ in which they urged Russians to identify themselves as orcs. And in the 2010s, Russians created memes […] jokingly comparing their country’s capital and Russia itself to Mordor.
[…]
So Ukrainians weren’t the first to draw parallels […] But they did heartily embrace it. […] such comparisons were facilitated by the description of […] creatures who “had a great hatred for all things free, and they tortured and slew the prisoners with cruel sport.” […] In addition, the ‘rings of power’ have come to be seen as an allegory for the [oil and gas] pipelines […] And the Eye of Sauron […] the gas flame itself.
JMsays
@422 Lynna, OM: North Korea has no illusions they can win a war with South Korea. They depend on much of the population of South Korea being within artillery range of North Korea and having nuclear weapons to make the idea of war too messy.
The government of North Korea is so unpopular that if South Korea actually invaded the population of North Korea would hide or turn against the government en mass. However, between artillery and nukes a significant portion of the population of South Korea would die within the first 24 hours. This is also why North Korea makes such a point about the small possibility of them hitting the west coast of the US. They are afraid that the US might push South Korea to go to war despite the losses because that is what they would be considering.
JMsays
@425 CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain: I can see why the Russians draw a connection with Mordor but the idea that the one ring has any connection to nuclear weapons is just wrong. Tolkien wrote most of the story and background material while serving in the trenches in WWI. It was only finished and published later but the outline was written long before nuclear weapons existed.
A better analogy with the orcs might be draw with the idea that the orcs hated the war, hated their own leaders and knew they were being used as cannon fodder. But still never thought that stopping or protesting might be a viable idea. Against Sauron this made sense, any leader among the orcs that suggested stopping would be killed or mind controlled, rebellion wasn’t an option. It is against Putin, even if just hiding within the population and not supporting the government.
Agricultural experts in Kansas say a new hybrid of wheat is growing in some farm fields across the state.
Kansas State University recently reported in a publication on Nov. 14 that an official with the Kansas Crop Improvement Association (KCIA) has found a wild hybrid of triticale wheat in three different locations. Marion Spiering with the KCIA said the new hybrid was not created intentionally…
The KCIA tested the hybrid, discovering it was a cross between wheat and triticale, marking a first for Spiering who said she “didn’t know that a hybrid could hybridize again with wheat.” …
“I think anybody familiar with what a wheat head, rye head and triticale head looks like would be able to pick it out in their field, and know that it doesn’t neatly fit into any of those categories,” Spiering said.
Spiering said the hybrid only has about three seeds per plant. KCIA testing shows the plants pose a chance of disrupting wheat production in the state. Farmers who want to get rid of the plant are encouraged to simply walk into their fields, find the hybrid plants and pull them out…
A viral email from a North Carolina lawmaker’s office is raising eyebrows, after allegedly telling a North Carolina woman to leave the country for raising concerns about our state’s abortion laws.
Video of the email has been circulating all over social media, seen over 200 thousand times on TikTok. It all started from a North Carolina TikTok user Lindsay Talley, who shared an email from her friend who she says has a genetic condition creating life-threatening abnormalities. Her friend wrote to her Republican State Senator Danny Britt concerned about the state’s abortion laws and her ability to expand her family.
And in response, his official email back told her to leave the country. The email says “Thank you so much for the email, I am not quite certain how we are preventing you from expanding your family. I suggest you move to China immediately and see how that works for you. If for some reason that fails Russia is nice in the winter and Venezuela in the summer.” …
[p4] [Tolkien’s] foreword was […] in large part a response to the belief that The Lord of the Rings was a direct allegory for World War II and that the One Ring represented the atom bomb. […] stating in the foreword: “I cordially dislike allegory […] It was written long before the foreshadow of 1939[“]
[p131] As [Janet Croft author of War and the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien] points out, early Tolkien critics interpreted the Ring as an explicit symbol or even an allegory for the atom bomb, since the trilogy was released in the early 1950s shortly after the end of World War II.
However, I argue that the Ring only symbolizes the bomb insofar as it functions like any other excessively powerful weapon used in war. Tolkien conceived of Middle-earth as early as the 1910s and did the vast majority of the planning and outlining of the story in the 1930s, long before the atom bomb’s existence was public knowledge […] As [Tolkien] writes, “I think that many confuse ‘applicability’ with ‘allegory’; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author”
[…]
Croft also discusses […] its applicability […] [p153] the ethical dilemma raised by the existence of such devastating weapons: the ability to annihilate the enemy but becoming morally despicable in doing so.
Akira MacKenziesays
@429
Odd. I thought the Republicans loved Russia now.
Bekenstein Boundsays
North Korea goes out of its way to avoid dependence on modern electronics and electricity. Which makes me suspect their “final war plan” involves the heavy use of EMPs …
It has been an exceptionally bad year for dengue fever: Nearly 12 million cases were recorded in the Americas through October, close to triple last year’s total of 4.6 million.
Research being presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene on Saturday quantifies the role that climate change has played in the trend, attributing nearly a fifth of the existing dengue burden to rising temperatures.
By 2050, the research predicts, climate change could be responsible for a 60% increase in the incidence of dengue if emissions continue at pace, with some places — like parts of Peru, Mexico, Bolivia and Brazil — seeing spikes of up to 200%.
Public health experts have long warned that global warming enables mosquito-borne diseases to spread to new places because it expands the geographic range where the insects that serve as vectors live and thrive. Mallory Harris, a co-author of the new research and a postdoctoral associate in the University of Maryland’s biology department, said her team’s findings build evidence for the significant role climate change has played in dengue’s spread. More broadly, she said, the research highlights the connection between greenhouse gas emissions and specific health consequences.
[…] In the United States and its territories, more than 7,200 dengue cases have been tallied so far this year — more than double last year’s total and the highest since 2013.
In June, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a health advisory warning of an increased risk of dengue infections. After two locally acquired cases were detected in the Florida Keys, the Monroe County Department of Health issued an alert of its own the next month. To date, 53 locally acquired cases — meaning they were not associated with travel to a country where dengue is prevalent — have been recorded in Florida, according to the CDC. California has recorded 15 such cases.
But the vast majority of U.S. cases this year have been in Puerto Rico, which declared a public health emergency in March amid an alarming rise in dengue infections. More than 4,500 locally acquired dengue cases have been reported in Puerto Rico, compared to less than 1,300 last year and even fewer the year before. [map at the link]
[…] The resulting estimates are likely at the low end of the spectrum, according to a news release about the findings, because of a lack of dengue data from some areas, such as sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Plus, predictions for the southern U.S. are difficult to make, given that the virus has only recently emerged as a local threat.
The researchers found that the mosquitoes that carry dengue — called Aedes aegypti — transmit the virus most efficiently when temperatures are between 68 and 82 degrees Fahrenheit. They concluded that even if global greenhouse gas emissions are significantly reduced, the majority of the countries analyzed would still see climate-driven increases in dengue. […]
The USS New Jersey made waves when it was commissioned — the first submarine in the U.S. Navy’s fleet designed specifically with women in mind…
The Navy lifted the ban on women on submarines back in 2010, retrofitting bathrooms and sleeping quarters to accommodate them. The New Jersey’s crew, however, is historic.
“I have about 40 women on board, which, there’s no other fast attack submarine with that volume of women part of the crew,” said Steven Halle, the commanding officer of the ship’s 135 crew members.
He said it feels “great” to be heading up a historic crew, noting, “Studies have shown that a fully integrated diverse crew, they just perform better. Up to 15 or 20% better.”
Asked what he thinks accounts for that increased performance, Halle said, “If we have everyone thinking the exact same way, we end up with one school of thought. Having all genders, all races, really brings an additional level of perspective.” …
his plan to overhaul addiction treatment programs. Speaking during a live recording of the Latino Capitalist podcast, Kennedy described opioid, antidepressant, and ADHD “addicts” receiving treatment on tech-free “wellness farms,” where they would spend as much as three or four years growing organic produce.
[…]
On the farms, he said, residents would grow their own organic food—which would help them recover from addiction […] The idea that addiction is connected to consuming non-organic food is not backed by robust science—but it’s in line with many other unfounded claims that Kennedy has made in the past about pesticides and non-organic food causing chronic disease, behavioral problems, and autism. […] Kennedy has suggested in the past that 5G cell phone technology could cause health problems.
[…]
could potentially include wide swaths of the population, since the wellness farms wouldn’t just be for people addicted to illegal drugs, but also for people who are taking antidepressants and ADHD medications. […] approximately 11 percent of Americans ages 12 and older take antidepressants, and about 4 percent of Americans between the ages of five and 64 take medication for ADHD.
[…]
Last year, Kennedy posited […] that antidepressants could be to blame for school shootings.
When [Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke] initiated the haka, which many other MPs joined, it was a chance for parliament to show maturity and bicultural understanding. What we got instead was a petulant suspension of parliament. Gerry Brownlee, the Speaker of the House, banned Hana from parliament for 24 hours. We might wonder why only Hana was banned, but the important point here is what suspension and banning mean. […] “tone policing”.
[…]
In Māori terms, haka is a legitimate way to express ideas. […] Gerry’s exclamation of “Oh don’t do that!”, and his intolerance […] was obvious.
The haka should have continued until finished, and been understood for what it was […] business could have proceeded as usual. Instead, the haka was described as a disruption, and an attempt to disrupt the vote on the bill. The irony of this during a session on the disruptive and divisive Treaty Principles Bill is palpable.
[…]
What is also ironic […] Our MPs shout at others, are rude and disrupt others while they’re talking all the time. The haka is a far more elegant, respectful and eloquent device […] It is highly hypocritical to say that one Māori form of expression is disruptive, while carrying out bullying, disrespectful and disruptive behaviours that have been inherited from a foreign country.
[…]
parliament itself is embedded in a homogenising, colonial culture that goes hand-in-hand with the cultural forces motivating the Treaty Principles Bill. […] it raises the question of whether we have any legitimate forum at all in which to debate constitutional level issues to do with Te Tiriti.
An anonymous reader shared this report from the Kyiv Independent:
The United States will partner with Ukraine to transition Ukraine’s coal-fired plants to small modular nuclear reactors, and to use them to help decarbonize its steel industry, the countries announced on November 16 at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Baku, Azerbaijan…
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain @437, and people who run these “wellness farms” could make a lot of government-subsidized money, all while offering a care regimen that is not supported by science.
Maybe Elon Musk could spot the waste of government money?
Democratic governors are spearheading a new pro-democracy organization, “Governors Safeguarding Democracy,” to fight President-elect Donald Trump’s second administration, according to The New York Times.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, and Julia Spiegel, a former top legal adviser to Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, will serve as the organization’s top staff members.
It’s unclear how many additional governors will join and what precisely the organization will do, as it’s still being fleshed out. But it is clear that although the GOP controls each branch of the federal government, Democratic governors are not ready to go quietly into the night. […]
David Goldman, Kayla Tausche, Elisabeth Buchwald, and Tami Luhby of CNN note that Elon Musk has put his thumb on the scale for his preferred pick for Treasury Secretary.
Musk, a Trump ally who has gained significant influence in the formation of Trump’s incoming administration, posted on X Saturday that he wants Howard Lutnick, a staunch Trump supporter who runs investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald, to serve as the next Treasury secretary.
Scott Bessent, the founder of capital management firm Key Square, has been widely viewed as the frontrunner for the job. […]
Treasury secretary contenders have spent the past week in behind-the-scenes maneuvering to secure the marquee economic role.
Late last week, Trump had reached a near-final decision to hand the role to Bessent, a relatively recent MAGA convert, a decision some officials involved in the transition began to message to outside allies. At that point, Lutnick waged an aggressive, eleventh-hour campaign to position himself for the job. Four people familiar with the dynamic tell CNN that Lutnick sought to convince Trump that only he would be in full support of the steep tariffs Trump had pledged — and which Lutnick had been promoting in cable television appearances.
That’s just great. Lutnick is even worse. And Musk prefers Lutnick.
Link. That link leads to a roundup of news items. The details about Lutnick are just one of many presentations of current news.
[…] Íñigo Dominguez of El País in English writes that Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has been silent in the face of of her friend Elon Musk’s criticism of Italian judges.
…Musk’s recent and abrupt criticism of Italian judges for halting the Italian government’s plan to deport migrants to Albania has placed Meloni in an awkward position. The prime minister has remained conspicuously silent, leaving it to President Sergio Mattarella to respond firmly to Musk’s remarks.
At midday on Wednesday, Mattarella issued a clear message: “Italy is a great democratic country, and I must reiterate, using the same words from October 7, 2022, that it knows how to take care of itself. Everyone, particularly those who, as has been announced, are about to take on an important role in government in a friendly and allied country, must respect sovereignty and cannot take upon themselves the task of giving it instructions.”
The reference to October 7, 2022, was deliberate. That was when Mattarella responded to French Minister for European Affairs, Laurence Boone, who said she would be monitoring how rights are respected in Italy following Meloni’s win at the election. It served as a pointed reminder to Meloni that Musk’s remarks were as intolerable as Boone’s, and to remind the prime minister that he had defended her once before.
So Musk is meddling in Italian immigration policy.
@440 Reginald Selkirk reported on: Small Modular Nuclear Reactor Partnership Announced between America and Ukraine
I reply: Oh, what a great idea, dangerous, polluting, nuclear plants in a war zone!
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
shermanj @447:
Reginald Selkirk @440:
“to transition Ukraine’s coal-fired plants to small modular nuclear reactors, and to use them to help decarbonize”
dangerous, polluting, nuclear plants in a war zone!
Some context: a line from Reginald’s article and a link therein.
“Small modular reactors (SMR) are an emerging technology that allow for reactors to be transported and assembled on site.”
Russian missile strikes that have crippled Ukraine’s grid have created an existential need to move energy production away from large facilities that have become targets for Russian attacks. With Ukraine facing up to 20 hours of daily blackouts this winter, the country is looking to replace coal-powered thermal plants destroyed by Russian forces with new gas-powered turbines, solar panels, and “mini thermal plants,” among other efforts to decentralize as quickly as possible.
[…]
Although the war has generated the willpower for a radical overhaul, it has also created serious obstacles to decentralization, including worker shortages, supply chain difficulties, struggles to find financing—and a fast-ticking clock before energy demand jumps in the winter. This hasn’t stopped Ukraine from deploying new energy projects, but many are emergency solutions rather than part of a broader green strategy.
[…]
“The difference is between two extremes: You have power, or you don’t.”
birgerjohanssonsays
Now that Wossname has beaten a 56-year-old boxer it is time for him to challenge Master Roshi of Dragon Ball Z (300 yers old).
KGsays
Lynna, OM@444,
Musk wanted Rick Scott as Republican leader in the Senate, but Republican Senators chose John Thune – and it doesn’t seem likely they would have done so if Trump had made lear he wanted Scott. And Trump has shown some irritation at Musk’s presumption, so he may not get who he wants as Treasury Sec. (It’s difficult to believe two such massive egos can long exist in such close proximity without an explosion. Obviously Trump wants money from Musk, but I can’t see him being prepared to share the monarchy.)
Biden Allows Ukraine to Strike Russia With Long-Range U.S. Missiles
With two months left in office, the president for the first time authorized the Ukrainian military to use the system known as ATACMS to help defend its forces in the Kursk region of Russia.
President Biden has authorized the first use of U.S.-supplied long-range missiles by Ukraine for strikes inside Russia, U.S. officials said.
The weapons are likely to be initially employed against Russian and North Korean troops in defense of Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region of western Russia, the officials said.
Mr. Biden’s decision is a major change in U.S. policy. […] his shift comes two months before President-elect Donald J. Trump takes office, having vowed to limit further support for Ukraine.
Allowing the Ukrainians to use the long-range missiles, known as the Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS, came in response to Russia’s surprise decision to bring North Korean troops into the fight, officials said.
[…] To help the Ukrainians defend Kharkiv, Mr. Biden allowed them to use the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, which have a range of about 50 miles, against Russian forces directly across the border. But Mr. Biden did not allow the Ukrainians to use longer-range ATACMS, which have a range of about 190 miles, in defense of Kharkiv.
While the officials said they do not expect the shift to fundamentally alter the course of the war, one of the goals of the policy change, they said, is to send a message to the North Koreans that their forces are vulnerable and that they should not send more of them. [I don’t think North Korean leaders care that their forces are vulnerable.]
[Snipped some details of the usual sources naively believing all of Putin’s threats.] The Russian military is launching a major assault by an estimated 50,000 soldiers, including North Korean troops, on dug-in Ukrainian positions in Kursk with the goal of retaking all of the Russian territory that the Ukrainians seized in August.
[…] Whether to arm Ukraine with long-range ATACMS has been an especially sensitive subject since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Some Pentagon officials opposed giving them to the Ukrainians because they said the U.S. Army had limited supplies. Some White House officials feared that Mr. Putin would widen the war if they gave the missiles to the Ukrainians.
[…] Proponents of Mr. Biden’s approach say that it had largely been successful at averting a violent Russian response.
[…] In August, the Ukrainians launched their own cross-border assault into the Kursk region, where they seized a swath of Russian territory.
Since then, U.S. officials have become increasingly concerned about the state of the Ukrainian army, which has been stretched thin by simultaneous Russian assaults in the east, Kharkiv and now Kursk.
The introduction of more than 10,000 North Korean troops and Mr. Biden’s response come as Mr. Trump prepares to re-enter office with a stated goal of quickly ending the war.
Mr. Trump has said little about how he would settle the conflict. But Vice President-elect JD Vance has outlined a plan that would allow the Russians to keep the Ukrainian territory that their forces have seized. [bad news]
The Ukrainians hope that they would be able to trade any Russian territory they hold in Kursk for Ukrainian territory held by Russia in any future negotiations.
[…] President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has long sought permission from the United States and its coalition partners to use long-range missiles to strike Russian soil.
The British and French militaries have given the Ukrainians a limited number of Storm Shadow and SCALP missiles, which have a range of about 155 miles, less than the American missile system.
While British and French leaders voiced support for Mr. Zelensky’s request, they were reluctant to allow the Ukrainians to start using their missiles on Russian soil unless Mr. Biden agreed to allow the Ukrainians to do the same with ATACMS.
[…] The assessment warned of several possible Russian responses that included stepped-up acts of arson and sabotage targeting facilities in Europe, as well as potentially lethal attacks on U.S. and European military bases.
Officials said Mr. Biden was persuaded to make the change in part by the sheer audacity of Russia’s decision to throw North Korean troops at Ukrainian lines.
He was also swayed, they said, by concerns that the Russian assault force would be able to overwhelm Ukrainian troops in Kursk if they were not allowed to defend themselves with long-range weapons.
U.S. officials said they do not believe that the decision will change the course of the war.
But they said Mr. Biden determined that the potential benefits — Ukraine will be able to reach certain high-value targets that it would not otherwise be able to, and the United States will be able to send a message to North Korea that it will pay a significant price for its involvement — outweighed the escalation risks.
Mr. Biden faced a similar dilemma a year ago when U.S. intelligence agencies learned that the North Koreans would supply Russia with long-range ballistic missiles.
In that case, Mr. Biden agreed to supply several hundred long-range ATACMS to the Ukrainians for use on Ukraine’s sovereign territory, including the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula. Those supplemented the more limited supplies of Storm Shadow and SCALP missiles that the Ukrainians received from Britain and France.
The Ukrainians have since used many of those missiles in a concerted campaign of strikes against Russian military targets in Crimea and in the Black Sea.
As a result, it is unclear how many of the missiles the Ukrainians have left in their arsenal to use in the Kursk region.
The Trump transition team is compiling a list of senior current and former U.S. military officers who were directly involved in the withdrawal from Afghanistan and exploring whether they could be court-martialed for their involvement, according to a U.S. official and a person familiar with the plan.
Officials working on the transition are considering creating a commission to investigate the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, including gathering information about who was directly involved in the decision-making for the military, how it was carried out, and whether the military leaders could be eligible for charges as serious as treason, the U.S. official and person with knowledge of the plan said.
“They’re taking it very seriously,” the person with knowledge of the plan said.
[…] Matt Flynn, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for counternarcotics and global threats, is helping lead the effort, the sources said. It is being framed as a review of how the U.S. first got into the war in Afghanistan and how the U.S. ultimately withdrew.
“Matt Flynn has nothing to do with the Trump transition team, much less leading any review concerning military justice matters,” said Mark S. Zaid, Flynn’s attorney. In a statement Zaid said that “no one has sought out Mr. Flynn’s views on this hypothetical legal scenario.” [So, the true situation is clear as mud.]
[…] Trump has condemned the withdrawal as a “humiliation” and “the most embarrassing day in the history of our country.”
It is not clear, though, what would legally justify “treason” charges since the military officers were following the orders of President Joe Biden to withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan.
A 2022 independent review by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction blamed both the Trump and Biden administrations for the chaotic U.S. withdrawal in 2021.
Trump first reached an agreement with the Taliban in 2020 to withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan, roughly 13,000 troops, and release 5,000 Taliban fighters from prison. The Biden administration then completed the withdrawal and badly overestimated the ability of Afghan government forces to fight the Taliban on their own.
Trump’s choice for secretary of defense, Fox News personality Pete Hegseth, has criticized the withdrawal, saying the U.S. lost the war and wasted billions of dollars.
[…] “These generals lied. They mismanaged. They violated their oath. They failed. They disgraced our troops, and our nation. They got people killed, unnecessarily,” Hegseth wrote. “And, to this moment, they keep their jobs. Worse, they continue to actively erode our military and its values — by capitulating to civilians with radical agendas. They are an embarrassment, with stars still on their shoulders.”
The transition team is looking at the possibility of recalling several commanders to active duty for possible charges, the U.S. official said.
Speaking to NBC News days before the election, Howard Lutnick, one of the two advisers leading the transition, said Trump learned after his first administration that he had hired Democratic generals, and he would not make that mistake again. [blather and bullshit]
[…]
Federal prosecutors have accused Sean “Diddy” Combs of breaking jail rules in an attempt to manipulate witness testimony and taint the potential jury pool in his case, according to a court document filed Friday.
Combs, 55, is currently in custody in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center as he faces charges of racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. The music mogul entered a not guilty plea and has been denied bail in the case.
His legal team is fighting the decision to keep Combs in federal custody and has requested a new bail hearing. Prosecutors filed an opposition to the motion in the Southern District of New York, accusing Combs of engaging in obstruction even while he sits behind bars.
Combs has allegedly “continued to try to evade law enforcement monitoring, corruptly influence witness testimony, and further attack the integrity of these proceedings,” the filing said.
“At the defendant’s carefully curated direction, the defendant’s children posted a video to their respective social media accounts showing the defendant’s children gathered to celebrate the defendant’s birthday,” the filing said.
NBC News previously reported, along with numerous other outlets, that Combs’ children posted a video of themselves singing happy birthday to their father while on the phone.
Combs then monitored the analytics of the post’s engagement “and explicitly discussed with his family how to ensure that the video had his desired effect on potential jury members,” the filing said.
Some details in the prosecution’s filings were redacted, including excerpts of phone calls apparently made by Diddy and his “adult son” that the prosecution say showed “the clear inference that the defendant’s goal is to blackmail victims and witnesses either into silence or providing testimony helpful to his defense.”
Prosecutors wrote that there is “no condition” that could be set to assure Combs is not a flight risk or a threat to the safety of others.
“The defendant’s emphasis on 24/7 private security is also problematic,” the motion said. “The defendant has demonstrated an uncanny ability to get others to do his bidding — employees, family members, and MDC inmates alike.”
[…]
Chances of intelligent life emerging in our Universe “and in any hypothetical ones beyond it” can be estimated by a new theoretical model, reports the Royal Astronomical Society.
Since stars are a precondition for the emergence of life, the new research predicts that a typical observer [i.e., intelligent life] should experience a substantially larger density of dark energy than is seen in our own Universe…
The number of assumptions seems quite large. Speculation built on speculation.
Former CDC director Richard Besser critiqued […] Trump’s pick of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services on Sunday, calling Kennedy “cruel” for continuing to push theories that vaccines can cause autism. […]
Besser, the president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, was the acting CDC director from January to June 2009.
“We should address chronic diseases — autism is one of those — and spend money trying to understand what are the causes of autism, and how can you address that,” he continued. “But to keep lifting up the idea that it has something to do with vaccination is really a cruel thing to do.”
Kennedy has long been an anti-vaccine activist, founding the anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense. He took leave from the group in 2023 to campaign for president.
When asked about Kennedy’s record on vaccines — claiming that he would not take them away from anyone — Besser said it was less about taking them all away and more about the individualistic choices.
“It’s pushing the idea that vaccines should be something that is totally up to the individual,” he told Martha Raddatz. “We have a social contract in our country. There are things we do for our own health, but there are things we do that are good for ourselves, our families and our communities, and vaccination falls into that category and having somebody who denies that in that role [in the role of leader of the Department of Health and Human Services] is extremely dangerous.”
He emphasized that the dangerous thing about Kennedy’s nomination is that parts of what he says are true, making “it really hard to sort out what things you should follow because they’re based on fact, and which things are not.”
[…] “I am outraged because lives are at stake here,” Besser said.
“The head of Health and Human Services touches programs that affect every single life in our country,” Besser said, adding, “To have someone leading HHS who is one of the biggest deniers of vaccines in our country, would undermine the confidence in that program and likely would cost lives.”
I would strike “likely” from “likely would cost lives” and speak more plainly: “will cost lives.” And a lot of those lives will be the lives of children.
The US Army successfully deployed its cutting-edge Stryker-mounted 50-kilowatt laser prototypes in Iraq at the end of October, marking a key milestone in its air defense capabilities in the region.
According to Janes, this development was disclosed on the opening day of the SAE Media Group’s Future Armored Vehicles Survivability (FAVS) 2024 conference in London, which will run from November 11 to 13.
The system, known as the Directed Energy Maneuver Short-Range Air Defense (DE M-SHORAD), incorporates a 50-kilowatt RTX laser onto a Stryker vehicle, allowing it to defend against various aerial threats.
The laser-equipped platform can neutralize class one to three drones, rockets, artillery, and mortars. The initial production yielded four prototype vehicles assembled into a platoon and delivered to the US Army in September 2023…
Elon Musk retweeted as “True” the following post from Alex Tourville:
President Trump received a clear mandate from the people to assemble an extinction level event (ELE) administration with respect to spending, bureaucracy, and inefficiency in the federal government. This will make America stronger, more resilient, and great again.
The Extinction Level Event (ELE) now being repeated all over rightwing social media is that entire components of the government they don’t like: Department of Education, Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Agriculture, etc. etc. will be eliminated.
Commentary:
[…] As a student of economics and political science it’s my duty to state with 100% confidence that implementing an ELE would not only instantly harm the needed good it serves (food inspections) it would also immediately do great economic harm, you’re taking precious steady cash of out the economy, at the scale these idiots are talking about they’d cause a depression, not recession. […]
Abandonment of any guiding principle, gross constant lying, ridiculous self assertion of childish ignorance, this is fascism, and inevitably it leads to what we see right now at X, a wreck that serves no one and is one sorry god damn sight of humanity, it’s really not so hard to be so much better than this.
The first Trump term wrecked the Judicial Branch and directly excused consequence for Tump’s convicted felon status, which led to Trump’s re-election. No one calls that a functioning democracy, but it is in fact the first harbinger of America’s Extinction Level Event? Right-wing media dominance and collapse of pathetic American journalism certainly aren’t asking, they’re enabling it, so we may well in fact be on the way out of Democracy to our new 21st century American fascism.
Bleak and horribly depressing, I know, but we do have BlueSky before us as an example of American spirit and luck. Try to put us down or buy us out and a workaround will be found. Go ahead and enable fascism, New York Times, serious demand for the truth still exists and somehow a way will be found to build new structures to deliver it. […]
Can you really [force] fascism upon the American public with constant lying and fresh immigration prisons? Without serious pushback or failure? I doubt it.
Physicists have made a groundbreaking discovery that challenges the traditional understanding of light by demonstrating that laser beams can cast shadows. In an experiment led by Dr. Raphael A. Abrahao from Brookhaven National Laboratory, researchers observed that under specific conditions, one laser beam can block another, effectively creating a visible shadow.
“Laser light casting a shadow was previously thought impossible since light usually passes through other light without interacting,” said Dr. Abrahao, according to The Debrief. This counterintuitive finding opens new doors in optics and photonics, prompting scientists to reconsider foundational concepts in physics…
To demonstrate this phenomenon, the researchers conducted an experiment using a ruby crystal cube. They shone a green laser beam through the cube while illuminating it perpendicularly with blue light. When the green laser passed through the ruby crystal, it created a region that absorbed more blue light, effectively casting a “shadow” shaped exactly like the green laser beam. This shadow was visible to the naked eye, followed the contours of the laser beam, and moved with its source…
Their methods completely negates the theoretical considerations discusses in the prior paragraph. If one laser beam interfered with another in a vacuum, then they would be on to something interesting. But inside a ruby, or even in air? Things are different then.
Reginald Selkirksays
@460
Rephrased, the two light beams do not interact with other directly, but they both interact with the medium, and so can interfere with each other indirectly.
STEVE BANNON (HOST): By the way, a couple of reporters called me last night after a couple of my rants and said, hey we’re getting text messages from a lot of the producers, particularly younger producers at MSNBC and they’re saying is Bannon serious or is he just being Bannon, right?
I am 100 percent serious.
MICHAEL FLYNN (GUEST): I am too.
BANNON: You know what you did with various people out there you had on your shows. You are part of a vast criminal conspiracy against President Trump and that is going to be drilled down.
Excerpts from a longer New Yorker article written by David Remnick:
[…] For the titans of business, the new [Trump] Administration promised untold prosperity: regulation would ease, tax rates decline. Elon Musk would make government just as civil, generous, and “efficient” as his social-media platform, X. [LOL] Jeff Bezos, having ordered the editorial board of his newspaper to spike its endorsement of Kamala Harris, selflessly tweeted “big congratulations” to Trump, on his “extraordinary political comeback.” [LOL] Wall Street executives and Sand Hill Road philosophers exulted that the “mergers-and-acquisitions climate” would now bring opportunities beyond imagining. (How these opportunities might benefit the working class they presumably would clarify at a later date.)
Meanwhile, the President-elect convened his loyalists at Mar-a-Lago, where they went about putting together a White House staff and a Cabinet. […]
At least as a matter of rhetoric, Trump is uninterested in conventional notions of expertise (which smacks of élitism). Nor is he focussed on assembling a council of constructive disagreement, a team of rivals (which smacks of disloyalty). As his personnel choices rolled out in recent days, it became clear that they pointed wholly to his long-held priorities—and they are not the common good. The nominations of Matt Gaetz as Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., as Secretary of Health and Human Services, Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense, and Tulsi Gabbard as the director of National Intelligence are the residue of Trump’s resentments and his thirst for retribution.
[…] In other words, Trump’s nominations—in their reckless endorsement of the dangerously unqualified—look like the most flagrant act of vindictive trolling since the rise of the Internet. But it is a trolling beyond mischief. All these appointees are meant to bolster Trump’s effort to lay waste to the officials and the institutions that he has come to despise or regard as threats to his power or person. These appointees are not intended to be his advisers. They are his shock troops.
[…] Back in the days when Trump swanned about Manhattan as a caricature rich guy and gonif construction magnate, he was part of a metropolitan jokescape, up there in lights with John Gotti and Leona Helmsley. Spy, the satirical magazine of its time, fact-checked his finances (inflated) and his books (preposterous). Trump was not amused. His lawyers sent frequent letters to the editors, threatening litigation. He found himself in a similar mood, many years later, when Barack Obama, who had suffered Trump’s constant insinuations about his place of birth, took the occasion of the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner to rib the political aspirations of the host of “The Celebrity Apprentice.” Trump left the ballroom in a funk, nurturing, perhaps, an ominous resolve.
Trump has always been obsessed with dramas of dominance and submission, strength and weakness, who is laughing at whom. […]
Now Trump’s critics and an increasing number of his supporters are taking stock of his most disgraceful appointments—these men and women of perfect jawlines, dubious reputations, and rotten ideas. They wonder if this is not the ultimate joke, with national endangerment as its punch line. […]
The discovery of 27 cases of scurvy in a northern Saskatchewan community is raising concerns about grocery prices and access to fresh food as income inequality worsens.
Earlier this year, a doctor in La Ronge had a hunch that a patient was suffering from scurvy, a disease caused by vitamin C deficiency. The test came back positive and it raised questions about the prevalence of scurvy in the community.
The Lac La Ronge Indian Band partnered with Dr. Jeff Irvine and the Northern Inter-Tribal Health Authority to investigate. Irvine is a physician in La Ronge and works with Northern Medical Services, an off-shoot of the University of Saskatchewan college of medicine.
They tested 51 blood samples — all but one taken in 2023 or 2024 — and found 27 cases of low or undetectable levels of vitamin C. These results were followed with a physical exam, which confirmed a scurvy diagnosis in all 27 cases. Patient ages range from 20-80, and 79 per cent are Indigenous…
Antimatter doesn’t travel well—after all, it tends to just annihilate any container you stick it in.
[…]
To store the stuff long enough to study it, antimatter needs to be suspended in an electromagnetic field to keep it from touching the sides. The BASE experiment does just this, and it can store antimatter particles for well over a year. […] CERN built BASE-STEP, a smaller, portable version that’s 1.9 meters (6.2 feet) long, or just one-fifth the size of BASE. It’s designed to protect antiparticles from the bumps and shakes you’d expect during a road trip […] BASE-STEP packs a vacuum chamber to hold the antiparticles, a superconducting magnet to create the electromagnetic fields needed to suspend them, a cryogenic system that uses liquid helium to cool that magnet, and batteries to run the whole thing.
[…]
For this first test run, the scientists didn’t use antimatter particles but 70 loose protons, which are also sensitive to shock. These unbonded particles are just itching to form new bonds […] The run was successful, with the protons making their journey by truck across the [CERN] compound. After a bit more tweaking, the team plans to transport its first load of antimatter next year.
It looks similar to a plane. But when operated, it starts out floating on its hull, like a boat. It rises up onto a hydrofoil—a winglike structure that lifts it slightly above the water. Then in open water, it takes off and cruises on a cushion of air near the water’s surface. […] that cushion of air that birds are flying on when they fly low over the surface of the water.
[…]
Regent [a company] has completed [a 12-seat] prototype of the vehicle. […] expects to start commercial production within three years and plans to eventually scale up to […] 100 people or more.
Although the GEV may look similar to the seaplane and share many technical characteristics, it is generally not designed to fly out of ground effect. It differs from the hovercraft in lacking low-speed hover capability in much the same way that a fixed-wing airplane differs from the helicopter. Unlike the hydrofoil, it does not have any contact with the surface of the water when in “flight”.
Carr has his eyes on social media and has threatened to use the FCC to regulate speech that conservatives disagree with…
Bekenstein Boundsays
RFK Jr. wants to send people to government “Wellness Farms”
I can just see the sign over the entryway now:
IVERMECTIN MACHT FREI
BASE-STEP packs a vacuum chamber to hold the antiparticles, a superconducting magnet to create the electromagnetic fields needed to suspend them, a cryogenic system that uses liquid helium to cool that magnet, and batteries to run the whole thing.
I saw that movie. The battery ran low and the antimatter almost blew up the Vatican.
Steve Bannon accuses MSNBC producers of being “part of a vast criminal conspiracy against President Trump”
Carr has … threatened to use the FCC to regulate speech that conservatives disagree with.
This is how a free press starts to die.
‘Do not pet’: Why are robot dogs patrolling Mar-A-Lago?
What could possibly go wrong?
Here’s hoping Trump’s “I wish I had generals like Hitler’s” meets with malicious compliance … and that they know how to hack the mechanical hounds.
The biologists took chloroplasts—the cell components responsible for photosynthesis—from red algae and injected them into hamster cells. As a result, the animal cells gained the ability to photosynthesize light. This achievement, detailed in a study published on October 31 in the journal Proceedings of the Japan Academy, challenges the assumption that combining chloroplasts with animal cells is impossible…
Reginald Selkirksays
@472
Top comment
Divisible by Zero
While this is encouraging work, we need to strive for a balance that includes not only solar, but wind and nuclear powered hamsters as well.
…
Fresh proof of this was provided by Politico this week, which reported on a batch of leaked emails showing a European bureaucrat’s efforts to rid her professional spaces of the dreaded yellow fruit. According to the leaked emails, the government offices where Swedish Gender Equality Minister Paulina Brandberg appears must be banana-free, so as to accommodate her unusual phobia.
The emails are from Brandberg’s team to several different public agencies, in preparation for various meetings…
This week, a team of researchers described early evidence for “rotational technologies” near the Sea of Galilee.
The team published its study this week in PLOS One, describing 113 perforated stones found in Nahal Ein Gev II (or NEG II), a Natufian village in northern Israel. The team posits that the stones are 12,000-year-old spindle whorls, used to spin fibers into yarn. If they’re correct, it’s a very early example of humankind toying with the technology that would revolutionize human transportation and cultural exchange…
Nov 17, 2024
$20 registration fee includes shirt and a beer
StevoRsays
Racist reichwing shockjock & Cronukla riot inciter also now arrested for child sex crimes – live ABC news coverage :
Veteran broadcaster Alan Jones has been charged with historical indecent assault and sexual touching offences spanning two decades. NSW Police said Mr Jones was charged with a total of 24 offences involving eight alleged victims.
This Alan “NOT the 1980 F1 champion”Jones was a very powerful influential political tooas this article notes :
…Throughout his media career, Jones breached broadcasting rules on multiple occasions.In 2000, an Australian Broadcasting Authority inquiry heard Jones had accepted hidden sponsorships to promote clients on air. Jones was cleared of further cash-for-comment allegations in 2004. In the aftermath of the Cronulla riots and following comments he had made on air, the media watchdog ruled Jones had likely encouraged violence or brutality on the basis of ethnicity. During a 2012 speech at a Liberal party fundraiser, Jones claimed former prime minister Julia Gillard’s late father “died of shame” because of his daughter’s political “lies”. In the same year, Jones suggested Ms Gillard should be hauled out to sea.
Then in 2019, Jones said then-New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern should have a sock shoved down her throat.
Along with radio, Jones had a four-nights-a-week prime-time program on Sky News Australia and a regular column in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph….
Political figure too that is. As you can see a massive misogynist POS as well.
birgerjohanssonsays
If you have seen the sketch with Huey Lews and Al Yancovic discussing American Psycho you will have an inkling of my feelings towards Trump and all his enablers.
Spirit Airlines said Monday it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after struggling with losses, growing debt and a failed merger during the post-pandemic travel lull.
The company said in a stock market statement that it had secured a prearranged deal with bondholders that includes $300 million in financing to keep it afloat, with the business planning to end its bankruptcy in the first quarter of 2025.
Ticket sales and all other operations will continue as normal, the company said in the statement, which comes just 10 days before record numbers of travelers are expected to take to the skies over Thanksgiving…
birgerjohanssonsays
Democrats may hand Donald Trump a weapon to use against liberal non-profits
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=5aR_0bKmPjg
I have not had time to research this issue, but considerkng four decades of Democrat incompetence in the face of Republican rising hegemony I will not be surprised if the fear is justified.
Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, the couple and co-hosts of MSNBC’s flagship morning show “Morning Joe,” announced on Monday that they had visited Mar-a-Lago, rekindling their relationship with Donald Trump.
“Joe and I went to Mar-a-Lago to meet personally with President-elect Trump,” Brzezinski said, adding that the triumvirate had restarted communications.
“Joe and I realize it’s time to do something different,” she added. “And that starts with not only talking about Donald Trump but also talking with him.”
The meeting is the latest sign of mainstream media buckling under Trump—even before he is even sworn in to a second term. […]
Currying favor with Trump is something of a return to form for Scarborough, who entered the national political scene in 1994 as part of the Newt Gingrich-led conservative takeover of the House. In his time there, Scarborough marched in lockstep with other right-wingers, voting to restrict abortion rights, cut the social safety net, and vote against gun safety measures.
After he left Congress in 2001, Scarborough migrated to cable news, eventually landing at MSNBC with his original show, “Scarborough Country.”
“Scarborough Country” was largely a knockoff of the more successful “O’Reilly Factor” on Fox News. Scarborough used his show to champion right-wing causes like the Iraq War.
By the time he was co-hosting “Morning Joe” with eventual wife Brzezinski in 2016, that program was one of the leading media promoters of Trump’s presidential campaign. The hosts repeatedly defended Trump on air and praised his performance in the debates during the Republican primaries.
The couple had a public falling out with Trump in 2017 [a sure sign that their obeisance to Trump was not complete, or not complete enough to satisfy Trump] after Trump said Brzezinski was “bleeding badly from a face-lift.” He also referred to her as “low I.Q. Crazy Mika.” Scarborough claimed that he was no longer a Republican.
But now that Trump is headed back to the White House—and in spite of his history of racism, misogyny, ignorance, and hostility to free speech—all appears to be well once more among the three figures.
MSNBC has positioned itself as a “progressive” media outlet—even though it is owned by the corporate conglomerate NBC Universal—but it seems that “Morning Joe” has regressed to its old pro-Trump form. [That’s probably hyperbole. An overstatement.
Fear. It’s naked, blatant fear. And not without foundation. It’s the new reality where we find ourselves: ‘Death by a thousand cuts’: How experts warn Trump could use an authoritarian playbook to go after the media”. They know him.
——————
I will be watching the rest of the channel’s programming to see what happens. Rachel Maddow might be the only host I care to watch after this. [Chris Hayes is worth watching. So is Nicole Wallace, and she used to be a Republican.]
———————-
They are all fucking cowards, the lot of them. Genuflecting before an ignorant authoritarian monster. Even knowing what he is.
You now know exactly where they would have stood (or prostrated themselves) in Nazi Germany or Stalin’s Soviet Union.
————————-
This is going to be another two decade long 4 years, isn’t it?
————————-
They didn’t go there to conduct an interview, hard-hitting or otherwise.
———————
The evening hosts on MSNBC are still quite strongly critical of Trump. Just because Joe and Mika are selling out doesn’t mean all the hosts are.
———————–
Yet they’re still great programming on MSNBC. Deadline White House is a must watch for me, even if I can’t get to it live because it starts at 4 PM. Rachel Maddow. Lawrence O’Donnell. Even Stephanie Ruhle. And my weekend must watch is Ali Velshi at 10 AM on Saturday and Sunday. I’ll be watching to see if those folks make the turn, but it’s important to realize that morning Joe has always been an outlier when compared to their primetime programming. Here’s hoping.
———————-
I listened to their reasons, but at the end of the day regardless of whether they mean their stated reasons or not, it’s just further sanewashing.
In light of the staggering news that Donald Trump will be president again, we’re staring down the barrel of him appointing dozens of 30-something Federalist Society hard-liners to the federal bench. Therefore, Democrats are racing to confirm President Joe Biden’s remaining judicial picks.
But how many will actually get through before the new president takes office and the new Senate is seated?
The tough thing about guessing how many nominations the Senate can get through is that the nomination pipeline has multiple stages. So, while 31 nominations are pending, only 17 of those have advanced out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, while eight are awaiting votes in that committee, and six have not yet had a committee hearing. […]
It’s also the same Durbin who won’t kill the blue slip tradition, where a senator from the home state of a nominee can literally refuse to send back a blue slip saying the approval can move forward.
The packed legislative calendar, combined with the holiday schedule, will make it challenging to get through all of these, particularly the six who still haven’t had a committee hearing. The Senate typically recesses for Thanksgiving week and adjourns for good on Dec. 20, with everyone going home until the new Congress is seated in January.
That leaves Democrats with even fewer calendar days to rush things through. Plus, the Senate has to deal with voting on disaster aid, a defense bill, and the pesky work of keeping the government actually funded so it doesn’t shut down.
[…] Though it’s grim times ahead, it was awfully pleasing to see that the first post-election judicial confirmation stuck it to JD Vance. Last year, Biden nominated April Perry to be the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. She would have been the first woman to fill the top prosecutor job in Chicago. Vance blocked her nomination as a protest over the federal prosecutions of Trump.
Did Perry have anything to do with the prosecutions of Trump? No! Was Perry part of the Department of Justice? No! But the arcane rules of the Senate let any senator block a nomination if they feel like it. So, as time slipped away, Biden nominated her to a judicial seat instead. She was confirmed on Tuesday to a lifetime seat on the federal bench in Illinois. Take that, Vance.
The Senate also just confirmed Jonathan E. Hawley, currently a federal magistrate. Before that, Hawley spent 15 years as a public defender. Biden has made a particular commitment to diversifying the federal bench in terms of race, gender, and legal background, with over 40% of his confirmed judges having a background as public defenders or civil rights lawyers.
Biden’s deep commitment to making the federal bench more representative of the Americans it has power over is laudable and genuinely unprecedented. Thanks to the wonders of lifetime appointments, these judges will be able to exert their humanity and compassion even as Trump wreaks havoc on the rest of the judicial system.
[…] Unsurprisingly, Trump has demanded that no Republican senators vote to confirm any lame-duck nominees, complaining over at Truth Social that “no Judges should be approved during this period of time because the Democrats are looking to ram through their Judges as the Republicans fight over Leadership. THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE. THANK YOU!”
[…] one of Trump’s lame-duck appointees, Judge Aileen Cannon, did him the ultimate solid by throwing out his classified documents criminal case on the flimsiest of pretexts.
[…] While the Senate has confirmed 215 of Biden’s judicial nominees (compared to Trump’s 237), we can’t stop now.
It’s time for Senate Democrats, who are no doubt gripped with as much despair as the rest of us, to, in the words of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, “pull up our socks and get back in the fight.”
you should not fantasize about violence when posting in The Infinite Thread, nor should you propose that others do violence. The rule holds even if you are speaking metaphorically or jokingly.
Donald Trump demanded on Sunday that pollster Ann Selzer be investigated for releasing a preelection poll of Iowa that showed him losing to Vice President Kamala Harris.
“A totally Fake poll that caused great distrust and uncertainty at a very critical time. She knew exactly what she was doing,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform. “Thank you to the GREAT PEOPLE OF IOWA for giving me such a record breaking vote, despite possible ELECTION FRAUD by Ann Selzer and the now discredited ‘newspaper’ for which she works. An investigation is fully called for!”
Trump attacked Selzer after the longtime pollster announced that she is retiring from conducting election polling.
“Over a year ago I advised the [Des Moines] Register I would not renew when my 2024 contract expired with the latest election poll as I transition to other ventures and opportunities,” she wrote in a column in the newspaper, whose polling she conducted for decades. “Would I have liked to make this announcement after a final poll aligned with Election Day results? Of course. It’s ironic that it’s just the opposite. I am proud of the work I’ve done for the Register, for the Detroit Free Press, for the Indianapolis Star, for Bloomberg News and for other public and private organizations interested in elections. They were great clients and were happy with my work.”
[…] a poll that turned out to be incorrect is not illegal. And subjecting pollsters to ridiculous investigations if their polls were incorrect would have a chilling effect on the industry because pollsters wouldn’t want to risk their financial security or freedom and would either not release their surveys or shut down altogether.
But launching baseless legal actions against anyone Trump feels maligns him is a pattern for him. And he’s antagonized the press for years with meritless lawsuits.
On Oct. 31, Trump filed a $10 billion lawsuit against CBS News, falsely alleging that the “60 Minutes” interview the network aired with Harris was doctored and amounted to a “deceitful, deceptive manipulation of news.”
[…] He also demanded that CBS lose its broadcast license over the interview […]
First Amendment lawyer Charles Tobin slammed Trump’s lawsuit.
“This is a frivolous and dangerous attempt by a politician to control the news media,” Tobin told CNN. “The Supreme Court has made it crystal clear: the First Amendment leaves it to journalists—and not the courts, the government or candidates for office—to decide how to report the news.”
Trump also tried to sue CNN for $475 million, claiming the organization defamed him when they described his efforts to overturn the 2020 election as the “Big Lie,” with Trump’s lawyers claiming that using that term cause “readers and viewers to hate, contempt, distrust, ridicule, and even fear” him. But a judge dismissed the lawsuit, saying CNN did not defame him.
These meritless lawsuits pose a threat to journalism. They cost news organizations money to litigate, wasting resources in an industry that is already struggling financially. [True.]
What’s worse, media organizations may choose to preemptively treat Trump with kid gloves to avoid these kinds of costly lawsuits. [All too true.] […]
MSNBC is preemptively kissing Trump’s ring ahead of his inauguration in January. The co-hosts of the network’s “Morning Joe” program, who have been loudly critical of Trump since he incited an insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, went to Mar-a-Lago to clear the air with Trump before he takes office.
[…] What “Morning Joe” just did is a perfect example of Yale University history professor Timothy Snyder describes in his book “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century” as “obeying in advance.”
“[…] A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.”
If Trump’s lawsuits and threats of investigations already seem to be having their intended effect. Those who care about this country and want it to succeed need to stand up to Trump, not preemptively cave out of fear. […]
Support the people who do NOT preemptively bend the knee.
Mr. Trump’s election demonstrates how American tolerance for the unacceptable is nearly infinite.
Clearly, Mr. Trump is successful because of his faults, not despite them, because we do not live in a just world.
And the following are two money paragraphs. It is what every Democrat must come to grips with.
Mr. Trump’s voters are granted a level of care and coddling that defies credulity and that is afforded to no other voting bloc. Many of them believe the most ludicrous things: babies being aborted after birth and children going to school as one gender and returning home surgically altered as another gender even though these things simply do not happen. Time and again, we hear the wild lies these voters believe and we act as if they are sharing the same reality as ours, as if they are making informed decisions about legitimate issues. We act as if they get to dictate the terms of political engagement on a foundation of fevered mendacity.
We must refuse to participate in a mass delusion. We must refuse to accept that the ignorance on display is a congenital condition rather than a choice. All of us should refuse to pretend that any of this is normal and that these voters are just woefully misunderstood and that if only the Democrats addressed their economic anxiety, they might vote differently. While they are numerous, that does not make them right.
And Ms. Gay summarizes the challenge in stark terms:
The biggest challenge of our lifetime will be figuring out how to combat the American willingness to embrace flagrant misinformation and bigotry.
My take is that psyops-driven disinformation is the primary culprit, and the Republican-enabled aristocracy of billionaire puppeteers have cornered the market on it.
At 4:03 a.m. ET, the President-elect was online. He was thinking about “military assets” and mass deportations.
Tom Fitton, the right-wing activist and Judicial Watch leader, had written a post on the incoming President’s proprietary social network, Truth Social, saying citing “reports” that the new administration was “prepared to declare a national emergency and will use military assets to reverse the Biden invasion through a mass deportation program.”
“TRUE!!!,” Trump wrote in response in a pre-sunrise post.
It’s the first seeming confirmation since the election that Trump wants to see the U.S. military deployed domestically.
Using the military domestically — absent any crisis remotely needed to prompt or justify such a move — would break with centuries of practice in the United States, giving a President who has promised to deploy troops against the “enemy from within” the most powerful, and potentially unconstrained, tool in the federal arsenal.
[…] Deploying the military along the U.S.-Mexico border would be extreme but would remain within the bounds of a core military mission. The Pentagon already provides support to the border patrol and other agencies that monitor the southern border.
But using the military to conduct mass deportations — a law enforcement task that takes place in interior — would involve U.S. soldiers deploying across the country, a breach without any recent precedent in American history.
For Trump, the lack of seriousness or specifics here is tangled up with the broader point: he wants “military assets,” whatever that may mean, in the United States. And, he wants you to know about it.
[…] The National Emergencies Act is not what’s been keeping national security and military law attorneys up at night. Rather, it’s the Insurrection Act that has caused the most worry.
Under that law, Trump has broad, virtually unchecked ability to deploy troops domestically. He considered invoking it in response to the 2020 George Floyd protests, purportedly asking at one point why soldiers don’t “just shoot” protestors. […]
In rich nations, just a fraction of trashed electronics is mined for critical metals. We’re going to have to up our game.
I meet Baba Anwar in a crowded, chaotic market in the city of Lagos, Nigeria. He claims he’s in his early 20s, but he looks 15 or 16. Maybe all of 5 feet tall, he’s wearing plastic flip-flops, shorts, and a filthy “Surf Los Angeles” T-shirt and clutching a printed circuit board from a laptop computer, which he says he found in a trash bin. That’s Anwar’s job, scrounging for discarded electronics in Ikeja Computer Village, one of the world’s biggest and most hectic marketplaces for used, repaired, and refurbished electronic products. […]
Thousands of Nigerians make a meager living recycling e-waste, a broad category that can consist of just about any discarded item with a plug or a battery. This includes the computers, phones, game controllers, and other digital devices that we use and ditch in ever-growing volumes. The world generates more than 68 million tons of e-waste every year, according to the UN, enough to fill a convoy of trucks stretching right around the equator. By 2030, the total is projected to reach 75 million tons. [photos at the link]
Only 22 percent of that e-waste is collected and recycled, the UN estimates. The rest is dumped, burned, or forgotten—particularly in rich countries, where most people have no convenient way to get rid of their old Samsung Galaxy phones, Xbox controllers, and myriad other gadgets. Indeed, every year, humanity is wasting more than $60 billion worth of so-called critical metals—the ones we need not only for electronics, but also for the hardware of renewable energy, from electric vehicle (EV) batteries to wind turbines.
Consider your smartphone. Depending on the model, it can contain up to two-thirds of the elements in the periodic table, including dozens of metals. Some are familiar, like the gold and tin in its circuitry and the nickel in its microphone. Others less so: Tiny flecks of indium make the screen sensitive to the touch of a finger. Europium enhances the colors. Neodymium, dysprosium, and terbium are used to build the tiny mechanism that makes your phone vibrate. [photos at the link]
Your phone’s battery contains cobalt, lithium, and nickel. Ditto the ones that power your rechargeable drill, Roomba, and electric toothbrush—not to mention our latest modes of transportation, ranging from plug-in scooters and e-bikes to EVs. A Tesla Model S has as much lithium as up to 10,000 smartphones.
The millions of electric cars and trucks hitting the planet’s roads every year don’t spew pollutants directly, but they’ve got a monstrous appetite for electricity, nearly two-thirds of which still comes from burning fossil fuels—about one-third from coal. Harvesting more of our energy from sunlight and wind, as crucial as that is, entails its own Faustian bargain. Capturing, transmitting, storing, and using that cleaner power requires vast numbers of new machines: wind turbines, solar panels, switching stations, power lines, and batteries large and small.
You see where this is going. Our clean energy future, this global drive to save humanity from the ever-worsening ravages of global warming, depends on critical metals. And we’ll be needing more. […]
The Biden administration on Monday announced sanctions against what it described as Israeli citizens and entities involved in the extremist settler movement in the West Bank, part of U.S. efforts to curb escalating violence targeting Palestinians in the territory.
The sanctions fall under an executive order President Biden issued in February to hold accountable violence carried out by extremist Israeli settlers in the West Bank targeting Palestinians, and the organizations supporting such violence.
[…] While President-elect Trump, who has earlier endorsed Israeli settlements, will have the power to revoke Biden’s executive order, it’s not clear how easily sanctions on individuals and entities can be lifted.
Among the new sanctions was the blacklisting of the group Amana, a settlement development organization, and a construction and development subsidiary, Binyanei Bar Amana Ltd. The United Kingdom and Canada also sanctioned the entities.
[…] The sanctions against Amana, in particular, follow a letter to President Biden last month from 88 Democrats in the House and Senate calling for blacklisting the entity for its role in providing “loans and building infrastructure for new outposts that are illegal under Israeli law, including agricultural farms that facilitate settler violence against Palestinian communities.” […]
Last year we reported on preliminary research suggesting that ancient Egyptians may have used hallucinogens in their religious rituals, based on the presence of a few key chemical signatures taken from a ceremonial mug. Now those researchers have extended their analysis and fully identified the chemical components of those samples, confirming those preliminary findings, according to a new paper published in the journal Scientific Reports…
Last year, David Tanasi, of the University of South Florida, posted a preprint on his preliminary analysis of a ceremonial mug decorated with the head of Bes, a popular deity believed to confer protection on households, especially mothers and children. So unlike most other Egyptian deities, images of Bes were quite common in Egyptian homes. There were even special chambers built to honor Bes and his wife, Beset, at the Saqqara site near Cairo, which Egyptologists think could have been used for fertility or healing rituals, although their exact purpose is not certain (Bes was an ancient Egyptian deity of protection, fertility, healing, and purification). The mug is part of the collection of the Tampa Museum of Art…
The UK has conducted the first successful guided firing trial of Spear, a mini cruise missile that is set to be the chief strike weapon against ships for the carrier-launched F-35B fighter jets, and can also be used against tanks, target structures and fast-moving vehicles.
Spear is described as a next-gen turbojet-powered miniature cruise missile, and this recent firing from a Typhoon jet operated by BAE Systems at the Vidsel test range in Sweden was the first time the weapon had been tried against a target, Britain’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) said…
The missiles are capable of hitting targets more than 100 km away, and each F-35B jet is able to carry up to eight of them at a time…
For the convenience of readers, here is a link back to the previous set of 500 comments on The Infinite Thread.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2024/10/04/infinite-thread-xxxiii/comment-page-3/#comment-2241925
Abortion rights measures
I am going to do what I can to help other people in power mitigate the damage Trump will cause.
Cross posted from PZ’s I grieve for my country
A lot of Trump cult followers do not realize that they voted for fascism.
Steve Benen:
Link
Link
Link
A new city springs from the rainforest to become Indonesia’s tech hub
Membraneless organelles
“Tiny ‘Organs’ Hiding in Our Cells Could Challenge The Origins of Life : ScienceAlert”
.https://www.sciencealert.com/tiny-organs-hiding-in-our-cells-could-challenge-the-origins-of-life
Maybe not – but they had no excuse for not knowing: Trump has been making it abundantly clear throughout the campaign.
Bits and pieces of news, as summarized by Steve Benen:
Josh Marshall:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/thoughts-on-the-day-after
More at the link.
Link
Good news: Democrat Angela Alsobrooks won her Maryland Senate race, defeating two-term GOP Gov. Larry Hogan. She becomes Maryland’s first Black Senator.
Democrat Josh Stein won the North Carolina governor’s race, defeating self-described “Black Nazi” Mark Robinson.
Democrat Eugene Vindman won the VA-07 House race, defeating Derrick Anderson.
Link
https://www.wonkette.com/p/have-trump-and-elon-thanked-putin
Have Trump And Elon Thanked Putin For The Bomb Threats, Or Are They Totally Rude?
It appears Russia gave the winner at least one big Election Day reacharound.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/rudy-giuliani-secreted-his-goodies
Link
Good news:
Link
Excerpts from a longer New Yorker article by Susan B. Glasser:
Link
Link
@ 12
Empty words from an organization that has always defended the ability for fascists and bigots to spread their lies.
@ 3
Bullshit! They’ve been chomping at the bit for a racist, Christian national thug who will round up the minorities and libs for extermination since the 70s. They know exactly what they were voting for!
@12, 20
Furthermore, the ACLU is counting on the courts to maintain its positions. We have already seen how that works out when the criminal controls the courts.
Anyone relying on institutions and norms to solve any of the chaos that the Trump administration will bring is just fooling themselves and being very naïve. The norms were already dismissed in the first mandate and the institutions that try to block anything will just be dismantled one way or another. It will even be legal thanks to SCOTUS.
The only thing that will stop them is incompetence and lack of imagination. And possibly some internal squabble.
Once an Atheist Hero, Elon Musk Now Says He Believes in the Teachings of Christ
Note the distinction between believing in the teachings of Christ, as opposed to the existence and divinity of Christ.
I do not see that in Musk’s actions, past or present.
HJ Hornbeck – Resist Gradualism
Ancient unicellular organism indicates embryonic development might have existed prior to animals’ evolution’.https://phys.org/news/2024-11-ancient-unicellular-embryonic-prior-animals.html
Heh, just found a discussion on a hifi forum about if it’s a good idea to buy new gear before Trumps promised tariffs drive the prices up or if it’s better to be careful with your spending right now. The OP admitted that it wasn’t the most pressing problem he could think of, but it was the one on topic for the forum.
The following discussion was pleasantly MAGA free, with several people insisting they did not vote for the disaster to come and others cracking dark jokes about audio quality of gulag speakers blasting propaganda and practically everybody agreeing this was not the worst thing to come by far.
It’s nice for me to experience people not being OK with the repufascists outside of spaces like this.
Lynna@11:
Oh, dear God no.
…
Why isn’t pinching myself waking me up?
Wait, what? This isn’t a fucking dream? But surely it must be?
…
Ah hell. That’s it. Bring on the meteor. At least then we go out still clinging to a few surviving scraps of sanity. And there’s no risk of reality TV infecting the rest of the galaxy, unless some idiot already broadcast some through a high-output site like Arecibo.
@14:
Israel.
Obviously.
Pod Save Us
“Jimmy Kimmel Reacts to Donald Trump Winning the Presidential Election”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=5JxELubSgJg
Double standard
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/fresh-2
@ 24
Well, the Zillenials have declared atheism “cringe” because we’re just so mean. I’m sure Elon will be watching astrology TikTok’s and joining a Wiccan coven like all the cool kids do these days.
Filthy fucking savages.
birger @29, the number of people who thought that November 6 was election day, and who claimed they were going to vote (on Wednesday!), was astounding.
I think we may be underestimating the groundswell of willful ignorance in the USA. Unbelievable.
As Donald Trump prepares to reclaim power, some of his allies are moving the right-wing Project 2025 agenda back into the spotlight.
Link
Washington Post:
Huffington Post:
Politico:
JFC.
Link
Related: We have just witnessed the greatest failure of federal law enforcement in American history.
In my opinion, that article places too much blame on Biden. I do think that some blame should fall on Biden and on Merrick Garland, but I also see a good case for blaming Republicans for often bailing Trump out, for blaming the conservatives on the Supreme Court, and for blaming Trump himself (and his lawyers.) How about Aileen Cannon? We can place some blame on her.
True.
Kamala Harris’ concession speech: YouTube link
Facebook: If the latest US election was held in Europe
https://www.facebook.com/share/14Njfq3YrF/
Cartoon: We interrupt this Tom the Dancing Bug comic for a message from a living nightmare
Gavin Newsom:
Largest French newspaper on Trump win: ‘End of an American world’
Ohio Republicans’ Plan To Ratf*ck Gerrymander Reform Works Perfectly
Turns out all you have to do is lie!
Evangelical leaders celebrate Trump’s victory as a prophecy fulfilled
Some evangelical Christians see Donald Trump’s win as ordained by God, offering “a divine mandate” in his second term.
Well, that was predictable. I’m not even going to bother to post the rest of the “Wallnau and other evangelicals championed him as a flawed leader who had been anointed by God to save America from the demonic influence of Democrats” details.
@ 42
TL;DR Newsom: “Fascists are taking over, but we’ll spread our checks and let Trump fuck us lest he withhold disaster aid during wildfire season.”
Space Travel Damages Astronauts At The Cellular Level
Stephen Colbert
“You Are Not Alone / The World Reacts To America’s Decision”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=Xbj3xXSPTXY
I am the Swedish Chef, blowing up.
Reginald @47:
I did not know that. interesting.
In other news: In defeat, Democratic leaders show how democracy is supposed to work
Followup to comment 38.
Why Lindsey Graham’s message on special counsel Jack Smith matters
Link
Followup to comment 15.
Link
Followup to comments 42 and 46.
Link
Followup to comments 15 and 52.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/rudy-giuliani-in-court-for-coupe
https://www.wonkette.com/p/steve-bannon-gonna-do-rough-roman
Steve Bannon Gonna Do ‘Rough Roman Justice’ To Everybody […]
Re: Lynna, OM @ #55…
Traditionally, there are three types of people who get to use “we” when referring to themselves. Those are royalty, editors and tapeworms. Bannon sure isn’t royalty. He might be considered to be an editor. Has he had a good medical exam to rule out having a tapeworm?
As regards California… I think one of the first things that the state should do is to arrange with a pharmaceutical company (or start a new one) to manufacture the standard abortion inducing drugs in state. That way, they can be delivered in California where needed without ever entering interstate commerce…or even the USPS.
The TEC Show
“Exit Poll Shows HOW Trump Won 2024 Election”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=mGzbCe5XdjI
@49 Lynna, OM
Preparing for future missions to the Moon and Mars
The original article I linked previously is a bit muddled. The protection provided by the Earth’s magnetic fields is associated with the higher radiation levels in outer space; they are really the same issue. The International Space Station, which orbits at about 400 km altitude, is not high enough to be outside the protective magnetic fields. The only time Earthly astronauts have gone outside the protective magnetic fields is the Apollo missions.
Toronto crypto company CEO kidnapped, held for $1M ransom before being released
Republican David McCormick flips pivotal Pennsylvania Senate seat, ousts Bob Casey
fuck
Want To Leave The U.S.? Countries Welcoming Americans With Open Arms
@15, 52, 54
Judge scolds Giuliani for not turning over assets to two women, including car he’s driving
‘Scolds’? Fuck that shit. He should be jailed for contempt.
Major Hurricane: Rafael upgraded to Category 3 with large shift in projected path
Opinion: Five Reasons Why Trump’s Win Isn’t the End of the World
Except for the people who didn’t. Like all those who died from COVID. And while I personally did survive, I noticed some things during that time. Such as: Trump hires people who are incompetent, then he throws them under the bus. And every time a Trump acolyte gets fired, they get replaced with someone even worse. This time we are starting at rock bottom, but they will find a way to burrow lower.
Only because the people who woud do such a thing are the people who won. I don’t see how that’s a good omen.
While Trump did not start any new wars during his first term, I am not convinced that the policies he implements will lead to long term stability. For example, Ukraine is probably fucked. It’s bad for them. But does that in any way contribute to long term stability in Europe? Ask the same questions about Taiwan and East Asia.
(roll-eyes)
In which they fail to provide any evidence for their belief that the economy will be better under Trump than otherwise. Unless of course, you are a billionaire. I expect them to do especially well. We are going to have to adjust to a new term, trillionaire.
5 Democrats who could run for president in 2028
Too soon.
Opinion: Two Reasons Why The Above Is Fucking Moot:
1. Climate change
2. World War III, once Russia realizes it can now attack western Europe with impunity
“Scathing Atheist 612 Recrudescent Edition”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=CtPg7put6cQ
I agree with the Diatribe. Hate won the election. Let’s hate everything the Republicans stand for. Keep the anger alive. No more “When they go liw we go high”.
“Scathing Atheist 612 Diatribe”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=hOy2HHcvy_A
What we are as a country
Source : https://www.livescience.com/space/astronomy/ridiculously-smooth-james-webb-telescope-spies-unusual-pancake-like-disk-around-nearby-star-vega-and-scientists-cant-explain-it
A big and unexpected contrast to Fomalhaut which has the “Sauron’s eye” proplyd & likely exoplanets.
@ 69
That speech has to be shared nation-wide.
Police hunt 43 monkeys that escaped from a South Carolina research facility
Anyone who finds a monkey should not interact with it but instead call 911, authorities said.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/your-reactions-14
https://www.wonkette.com/p/what-you-should-know-about-climate
What You Should Know About Climate Change Under Trump!
He can’t undo everything!
The MAGA propaganda machine helped carry Trump back to the White House — and it’s not done poisoning America
On Deadline: White House, Angelo Carusone explains how “a large right-wing misinformation engine” has distorted people’s perception of reality
Excerpt:
Video and complete transcript are available at the link.
Good news: From education to abortion rights, minimum wage to family leave, progressive policy measures fared quite well in 2024, even amid Republican victories.
True.
The article is topped by a video featuring Chris Hayes. His analysis is good, and it restores a broader perspective. That video is about nine minutes long. The “Global Anti-Incumbency Movement” chart is enlightening.
The Vatican Launched an Anime Mascot and Web Users Wasted No Time in Porn-ifying It
Trump campaign quietly distances itself from RFK Jr after new vaccine safety comments
* Ha ha ha. Who appoints the people who hire the people who do security checks? Norms and institutions will not save us.
Similar to crisis hotlines, ‘warm lines’ offer non-emergency mental health support: to prevent crises. Anonymous, free, run by trained ‘peers’ with personal experience of trauma, recovery, and hope. Providing an empathetic ear, deescalation, coping strategies, resources. Orgs vary, most limit to 20 mins, and rarely 3-way-in crisis orgs much less 911—if ever. Lower stakes = less 1st-timer worry. Most calls are about isolation.
2021 National Warmline Survey (characterizing lines in the US)
Inclusive Therapists’ crisis resources lists a few warm lines. There are many more regional ones out there: existing in most US states and a number of other countries.
Huh, it seems DNA analysis on some human remains from Pompeii shows that the traditional interpretation of gender and family relationships were often quite wrong:
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(24)01361-7
Sorry the only non paywalled thing I found is this German language article:
https://www.spektrum.de/news/pompeji-dna-schreibt-familiengeschichten-der-opfer-neu/2241830
@81 mordred
Here’s an article about that at Gizmodo
DNA From Pompeii Victims Reveals Surprising Relationships Amidst the Chaos
Philosopher Michael Ruse dies
Elon Musk’s Daughter: Trump Win ‘Confirmed’ I’m Leaving USA
The closer one looks to Donald Trump’s claim to “an unprecedented and powerful mandate,” the worse the president-elect’s argument appears.
Justice Department brings criminal charges in Iranian murder-for-hire plan targeting Donald Trump
Link
China sets up ‘Birth Encourgagement’ offices”:
.
“China’s Youth Face Hardship! Not Having Children Is Seen as a Crime, Even Punishable By Fines”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=HoSJb-qiAYY
I have not been able to check this on any deeper level, but it seems dumb enough and heavy-handed enough to be a real policy.
Israeli soccer fans were attacked in Amsterdam. The violence was condemned as antisemitic
Followup to comment 14.
Election Day bomb threats overwhelmingly targeted Democrat-leaning counties
From Wonkette: These Little Nazi [B-word, plural] Are Trying To Terrorize Our Daughters And Children.
‘Your body, my choice’ is the newest rallying cry. [Image of red hat bearing that slogan]
https://www.wonkette.com/p/nyts-bret-stephens-perfectly-explains
Facebook. Porco Rossi, 1992.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/15CoeivGtc/
Better a pig than a fascist
A Turkish proverb about Trump
.http://youtube.com/post/UgkxzhVrVgYra7SaQMvrEWbahdvigUcX__bd
A question for physicists and generally well-educated nerds.
.
Is there anything even remotely feasible in this article or is it more superconducting BS?
“Designing multicomponent hydrides with potential high Tc superconductivity” by Adam Denchfield, Hyowon Park and Russell J. Hemley, 1 November 2024, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2413096121
Clarification. No, I did not mean the BS was superconducting.
FBI Says Hackers Are Sending Fraudulent Police Data Requests To Tech Giants To Steal People’s Private Information
Gisèle Pelicot rape trial |
‘Was I drugged and raped? I’ll never know’: partners of accused share fears at Pelicot trial | The Guardian
.https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/08/women-give-evidence-rape-trial-of-dominique-pelicot-continues
Patience. The Simpsons have not been wrong yet.
.https://www.facebook.com/share/p/14o4dVTGvv/
Russia jails soldiers who killed entire family in Ukraine
Transparent worm reproduces by injecting sperm into its own head
NBC News:
Associated Press:
NBC News:
New York Times:
Fox News hosts suggest ‘death penalty’ for Trump legal foes
Link
Link
https://www.wonkette.com/p/dorothy-allison-working-class-feminist
Dorothy Allison, Working Class Feminist, Author And Absolute Badass, Dies At 75
Excerpt:
Uh … not good. “Musk joins Trump in call with Zelensky”
Link
These are excerpts from a 2017 article, and yet it still applies today!
Private prison stocks up 100% since Trump’s win
The text below is from a Fortune article posted yesterday.
Paleolithic ocher mine in south africa is 48000 years old – the site was identified by the ‘fingerprint’ of the substance used at paleolithic sites. But the oldest documented use of ocher is by homo erectus, 285 000 years ago.
A tiny smidgeon of good news found at Facebook
“What is happening to Trump’s civil cases he’s on the hook for?”
.https://youtube.com/shorts/xLUV6XjpXsg
Lynna, OM, quoting Steve Benen @ # 85: [Trump] won, fair and square…
Surely a line we’ll hear for years from wimp liberals. I wish I could force Benen and his damn ilk to go state by state, starting with Florida and Georgia, and count the total of voters finagled off the rolls by Republican bureaucrats over the last, say, 10 years, and to do some surveys and calculations as to how the elections over that decade might have turned out if those citizens had not had their democratic rights stolen through sleazy manipulations.
Trump may have done something fair/square in his life, but winning this year’s election wasn’t it.
Indeed he did: he lost fair and square in 2020.
As for 2024, I call shenanigans. In the past two (post-Dobbs) years special election after special election has delivered a sharp rebuke to any MAGA candidate running. More recently we heard of massive, unusual early voting turnout that skewed female.
Did all of that just evaporate on the morning of Nov. 5 by magic?
How many votes ended up not being cast because of the Russian bomb threats? Or last minute illegal voter roll purges that were allowed through by Trump-appointed judges? Or assorted threats and intimidation by “election security” brownshirts menacing people near polling stations in heavily D-leaning areas?
Pierce R. Butler@114, Bekenstein Bound@115,
No doubt such shenanigans made some difference, but leading Democrats are not contesting the result. If enough Americans (particularly young Americans – I’ve seen a turnout figure of 42%) had turned out to defeat fascism, Trump would have lost. Best to face the facts: a majority of Americans either want fascism, or couldn’t be bothered to vote against it.
Hello again. I have some comments to post, after having been rudely distracted by a workweek in the midst of watching US election fallout.
Reginald Selkirk at 49 and 59:
If I understand correctly, particle radiation levels are even higher in some regions well within Earth’s magnetic field (the Van Allen belts), because particles from solar wind and cosmic radiation trapped into swirling around the planet. The actual flow of particles toward Earth’s atmosphere is much reduced by magnetic deflection, but the trapped particles accumulate and move around horizontally within the Van Allen belts. The atmosphere stops almost all downward moving particles before they reach Earth’s surface, but the magnetic field is important in reducing the particle flux entering atmosphere, which helps reduce surface radiation levels and the solar wind erosion of Earth’s atmosphere.
The ISS is largely protected, because it orbits within the thin upper reaches of atmosphere, and in lower latitudes where the strong magnetic field generally blocks downward particle flux most efficiently, directing it into polar regions (where the entry of particles into atmosphere creates the auroras). At slightly higher altitudes, radiation levels would increase very rapidly, because the Van Allen belts are concentrated in these very areas, where the magnetic field is strong. There’s still enough radiation at the ISS altitude that it’s potentially harmful to astronauts in the long term.
(please correct me if I’m wrong – I’ve struggled to understand this stuff in simple terms)
Sweet schadenfreude.
Farron Cousins:
“Trump Loses BILLIONS As Stock Crashes Following Election?”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=J2hFDFxysZo
NASA Remains Stubbornly Silent on Why Crew Went to Hospital After Dragon Splashdown
This May Be The Most Hilarious Catalytic Converter Theft Of All Time
At 95, Noam Chomsky has lost the ability to speak or write.
😞
Followup to comments 114, 115 and 116.
It is not shenanigans exactly, but it is there that the “asymmetrical information ecosystem” affected the election.
Here are some comments from Kate Riga on that subject:
Link
See also comments 73 and 91.
I would also advise Democrats to take a closer look at Sinclair, which now reaches 10 million households in the USA, and which is often aired on trusted local news stations.
TV giant known for rightwing disinformation doubles down on its national news agenda. That’s from The Guardian.
“Media analysts say Sinclair, known for anchors reciting script in lockstep, promotes conservative talking points”
Correction to comment 123: “it is there” should be “it is true.”
Link
The White House announced Saturday that the president and president-elect will meet in Washington next week.
Link
House Democrat targeted in apparent assassination plot
AP: Trump’s shunning of transition planning may have severe consequences, governance group says
Expect to see a lot of this in the near future. A lot of government officials are going to have to deal with this sort of situation. Where the laws, standards and regulations on how things are done are considered a problem by the new government. Some of these rules are new, trying to prevent some of the chaos of the previous Trump administration and some are long standing. The Trump officials are just going to ignore them or order them swept aside. Rules on who can get a security clearance? The Trump officials will issue them to anybody they want, no matter their history. Background checks? Hollowed out to signing a few forms. Ethics rules? The new president is a felon, that sets the bar on ethics.
There are some issues where I expect the law is strong enough to hold up. If only out of self interest Congress and the courts will try to keep Trump from stepping on their territory. The stuff that is just department regulation or tradition is going to get slashed though.
In the face of this some officials will resign, some will glumly put up with it and a few will side with Trump for their own advantage.
Cartoon: Surprise …
Link
Qatar suspends mediation efforts amid stalled Israel-Hamas cease-fire talks
Wildfires rage across the Northeast as 27 million people remain under fire alerts
Cities under fire alerts include New York City and Boston, where wind gusts up to 35 mph and relative humidity around 25% to 30% is expected.
birgerjohansson at 93:
I grew up with Porco Rosso, but haven’t watched the film in many years, and generally I’m not much into film analysis. I mainly love Ghibli films for the aesthetics.
Anyway, some time before the US election I saw that famous quote again on social media. It occurred to me that since Porco/Marco makes his living as a bounty hunter, he’s basically a poorly regulated freelance cop. A complicated, flawed character – and still better than a fascist, to make the point. At least, if he’d still be doing essentially the same job while serving formally in Mussolini’s air force. Better a wild pig than a fascist pig. Perhaps not a perfect analogy for Harris vs. Trump, since Harris is very much part of a system, while Trump’s fascism is poorly disciplined and amateurish.
I have to wonder if Marco’s pig transformation is, in part, a deliberate allusion to the English characterization of cops as pigs. And how that relates to whatever connotations “pig” has in Japanese culture.
Lynna at 103 and 110:
I suppose Trump having chats with world leaders is not considered a violation of the Logan Act now that he’s the incoming president (even if not formally confirmed by Congress yet).
However, I wonder if this license extends to his private supporters and possible future officials, such as Musk, who seems eager to insert himself in Trump’s future foreign policy.
The Onion is pivoting to video—no joke—with a former MSNBC anchor
Segments resumed Sep 30. Extra gags lurk in the chyrons. =)
Voters warned ballots flushed down toilet will no longer be counted (1:39)
Neo-Nazi pulls off surprise victory in long-held KKK district (2:30)
New Trump ad shows montage of people he’ll kill if elected (2:35)
* Chyron: Critics argue new ad could alienate swing voters who do not want to die.
* Among the targets were the state of Maryland, a puppy, and Tom Hanks.
Frieren: The Anime That Dares To Be Sad
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=xI9DKYVQgXc
Trump does not give a fuck about policy nor governance. The reasons he wants to be president are: to feed his narcissistic ego and to stay out of jail.
He farms out everything else.
Judicial appointments? He makes a deal with the Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society. It basically amounts to ‘help me get elected, and you I’ll appoint whatever judges you recommend.
Project 2025 was basically the same deal. The people behind the project would help get Trump elected, and he would give them free rein over policy. He claimed to know nothing about it, and that might possibly be true.
Somebody moved UK’s oldest satellite, and no-one knows who or why
Kelpies artist brings new sculpture to Minnesota
Heavy snow falls on Las Vegas during November snowstorm
@137 Reginald Selkirk:
That is very true. The point is that there is an existing huge governmental organization that will have to deal with the Trump administration. In some cases Trump and his administration will be able to sweep away standards, more then you would expect are ultimately set by the president or by tradition. In others the will have trouble because they are set by the Constitution or law or the organization is simply too big to redirect with a handful of edicts from the top.
It’s going to get very messy and it isn’t clear how things will turn out.
Youtube: After I heard him say ‘your body, my choice’
http://youtube.com/post/Ugkx12AHw3QHdSlePRI25VsmTVp4sLhDmg4X
Also
http://youtube.com/post/Ugkx-CYI8D4mSBro9QhFNA4zTegHB2NDDvDI
Spoiler alert: It’s going to turn out badly. It’s just a question of how badly.
lumipuna @134:
I have seen a lot of dispute about this online.
In my opinion (IANAL), Trump is violating the Logan Act because he is conducting “unauthorized negotiations.”
Text from January 30, 1799:
Does Trump have “authority”? No, he does not. Not yet. He will have authority after the inauguration, when he is officially sworn in as president.
Trump’s discussions with Putin about Ukraine should qualify as violations of the Logan Act, in my opinion. Ditto for Trump’s discussions with Bibi Netanyahu about the conflict in Gaza.
As for Elon Musk, that guy should no where near even quasi-official discussions of foreign policy, nor the making of USA foreign policy. Not at this time anyway. If he ends up with an official cabinet post, that could change. Meanwhile Musk appears in the “Trump Family Election Photo.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-family-election-photo-features-elon-muskbut-not-melania/
Reginald Selkirk@120:
Oh, wonderful. So, on top of bird flu, that nasty orange rash, and the continuing saga of COVID, now we get to deal with the Andromeda Strain, too?!
birgerjohansson@122:
Why?
Lynna@125:
ITYM series finale.
Re: Bekenstein Bound @145:
Noam Chomsky is recovering in Brazil (2024-06-12)
‘MAGA Panics McConnell Launches Senate “Coup” Against Trump’
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZasRucqgV0
.
Trump cannot get re-elected and some of his plans will be too impopular for his sycophants in the senate.
We have to rely on Mitch Fucking McConnell to stop Project 2025 ???
It is now 30 years since TLC’s album “Crazysexycool” (with music like ‘Waterfall’) arrived. They influenced artists all over the world.
Margaret Atwood is 85.
As she was born 1939, I realised those who were 15 at the start of WWII and just barely old enough to be soldiers at the end of the war will be 100 years old this year.
This means we will be losing those with living memory of fighting in WWII right about now.
Lynna at 144 – Thanks for your opinion. Meanwhile,
It’s been a few days since the election, and surrealism levels in US news are rapidly rising, evoking memories from the first Trump term. I knew from several years ago (since I’m extremely online) that Musk has a record of giving his children weirdo names that wouldn’t pass child protection scrutiny here in Finland. I had almost forgotten that – Musk regularly tries to provoke the media with something new, and I generally try to avoid paying attention to him (I’ve long had him blocked on Twitter).
This also caught my eye with its delightful absurdity (from Reginald Selkirk quoting The Telegraph at 79):
Just the other day, I saw a tweet from a well-reputed US medial doctor named Ashley G. Winter, saying simply “Just because you have great pecs, doesn’t mean you understand public health policy”. I hate that I’m not even American but I still knew instantly who and what argument this was about. Seriously, people have argued that Kennedy is well suited for managing public health because he’s deeply interested in health issues (like many nutcases are) and takes care of his own health (has a steroid body that signals fitness to other misguided idiots).
newslaundry
YT channel – Interview with Mehdi Hasan and Sreenivasan Jain on Trump’s threats to the press, why he founded Zeteo news – and an awful lot more 36 minutes and pre-election but some intresting points made & discussed re media, Trump, more.
Seems maybe this would work after all :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-05/world-first-wooden-satellite-developed-in-japan-heads-to-space/104564076
About to find out!
@147. birgerjohansson : “Trump cannot get re-elected ..”
Under current rules?* Sure.
Will Trump change those rules to serve more terms or rule by proxy?
Franklin D. Roosevelt had 4 terms before the rule was in place.. Trump, well, does he play by the rules and accept limitations and has he talked about abolishing the US Constituition (the document not the old ship) before?
Yeah, I wouldn’t count on it. Even with his age and likely poor health.
.* Which, to be fair, I don’t think are the best given frex a third Obama term could have been comfortably won and a lot better than what we got post 2016 & the whole lame duck effect thing although can see both sides of this. Whole USA political system is rubbish anyhow given who it’s allowed to come into power and keep winning even when they don’t actually get a majority of the people wanting them. Allthat is by the bye tho’ as saying goes.
^ Not that I’d put it past him to destroy the eponymous old sailing frigate either. After all, what use would Trump see in preserving maritime history and honouring the oldey timey “suckers and losers” who gave their lives to create the nation he parasitises.
Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Ironsides_(poem)
Sure Trump wouldn’t mind seeing those verses come true.. Besides, did her cannons capture any airports in that war huh? Did they?!!1ty!!?
Albeit I’m sure he’d rather flog it off to some billionaire for cash and favours for his own gain if he could..
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-10/jamie-oliver-pulls-kids-book-causing-offence-to-indigenous-aus/104583066
More respect to him from me for doing the right thing once called out.
Black Music Sunday: Remembering the late, great Quincy Jones
Lots of thoughtful praise in written text from various sources, plus many delightful videos, are available at the link.
Interesting history is also presented. For example:
Good news: Gallego defeats Lake in Arizona Senate race
FEMA employee fired after advising disaster relief team not to visit homes with signs supporting Donald Trump
https://www.wonkette.com/p/requiem-for-a-dream-of-coming-to
Requiem For A Dream Of Coming To America
https://x.com/nbcsnl/status/1855470889619411397
SNL cast members share a post-election message
The video is also available here:
https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live
A Handmaid’s Tale
“I know, I know.”
.http://youtube.com/post/UgkxudYIaAWrhYSqgjKLjrIDbcLjqAhiU25i
Monty Burns weighs in on the election
.https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1TAqCudumK/
Re: Lynna at 159, plus the recent main blog thread on US immigration enforcement
Lately, I’ve been thinking about two specific case studies on the successes (to be a bit snarky, but mostly serious) of the US immigration system. Both are Finnish persons also featured on English Wikipedia.
Tony Halme (1963-2010) was a socially dysfunctional, toxic-masculine muscle man from a broken family. He spent his young adult years (most of the 1980s and 1990s) in California, working odd jobs and building a career as actor, boxer and show wrestler. He appeared in a number of US and Finnish movies, including a minor role in Die Hard 3. After returning to Finland, he dabbled with politics in the ascending nationalist populist Finns party. His single term in the parliament (2003-2007) brought him to the attention of those Finns who didn’t already know him from the jackass sports. Personally, I still didn’t pay much attention to him, because I didn’t follow politics or celebrity screwup tabloid headlines at the time.
Just recently, I started looking up info about Halme because I heard a semi-credible rumor that he was actually deported from the US back in the 1990s. That was for possessing an illegal firearm, which turned into a recurring theme in his later life, together with alcoholism and drug abuse. Wikipedia only mentions that he had a green card acquired via his already broken first marriage, with an American. He ended up divorcing twice before his death, both times involving allegations of infidelity or domestic abuse. His whole life story is a remarkable clusterfuck. One could say America dodged a bullet in deporting him, perhaps literally. Finland wasn’t sending her best there.
Toward the end of his stint in parliament, Halme became known for occasional hate speech, drug/DUI and firearm offenses and worsening drug and alcohol related physical and mental health problems. I think his boxing career may have also contributed to the scrambling of his brain. Eventually, he was too ill to do any political work (he was also elected into Helsinki city council, but didn’t even try to work there). In January 2010 he shot himself dead in his home, again with an illegal gun. It is unclear whether it was a suicide or accident. That was a couple days after his 47th birthday, which was on January 6.
Meanwhile, Teemu Selänne (born 1970) was a world class ice hockey star. Since 1988 he played in the US National Hockey League, according to Wikipedia, and presumably lived mostly stateside. Officially, he became a resident of California in 2000. That was around the peak of his career, when he was Finland’s national pride and even some sort of celebrity in the US. Nowadays, he has a place in the NHL Hall of Fame or whatever. Personally, I never watched ice hockey and barely knew him by name.
By 2014, Selänne retired from ice hockey and became a regular rich asshole guy with fading celebrity value. In the age of social media, he and his wife became best known for spewing rightwing and anti-immigrant political opinions. In 2016 he spread a dubious story of a Syrian refugee rapist. In winter 2022-23, when there was a mild energy crisis and some Finns were struggling to heat their homes, he complained (while living in California) about the heating bill of his large, mostly empty second home in Finland.
In March 2024, Selänne and his wife became US/Finnish dual citizens. Later this year, they proudly reported on having voted for Trump. An immigration dream come true.
Seiko Ayase in Dan Da Dan kicks ass.
“Granny vs Granny”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=XfNggNeHQlo
A cool & quite attractive grandmother. And a hell of a battle mage.
lumipuna @163:
Aaarrrgghhh, well that’s a story that is all too typical. Anti-immigrant bluster, privileged and clueless (plus lacking in empathy), and then voting for Trump.
Sheesh.
Sabine Hossenfelder
‘Why Our Dreams of a Final Theory Might Remain Dreams’
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=m62ntuQS7xc
Good news.
3 states had paid leave on the ballot. Voters approved all of them
Zap Energy launches fusion prototype – Nuclear Engineering International
.https://www.neimagazine.com/news/zap-energy-launches-fusion-prototype/
Too good to be true. But it does not outright break the laws of physics…
Good news.
Tulsa elects first Black mayor in ‘historic and significant’ election
Facebook: Self-cockblocking idiots appear after Trump victory.
.https://www.facebook.com/share/p/18GHqp9wQB/
Delete your account. For real this time.
Taylor Swift Fans Are Leaving X for Bluesky After Trump’s Election
This Elephant Learned To Use a Hose As a Shower. Then Her Rival Sought Revenge
Lynna @159: From the Wonkette article;
Not so sure. There was a poll done which asked how Canadians would have voted in the US election (I could dig up the link). Harris 60+%, Trump 20+%, the rest undecided. But of Conservative voters, more than half would have voted Trump. The pro-authoritarian populist sentiment is rising in Canada as it is elsewhere. And the left-of-centre vote is always split between Liberal and NDP. I’m not optimistic about the near future.
The TEC Show
“GOOD NEWS!! Social Security Fairness Act Could Pass [WEP and GPO Eliminated?]”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=oPM16Vr9qeA
Rob @173, I see your point. Sigh.
Bad news … possibly … likely.
Reactions to the Republican sweep of the Ohio Supreme Court races
Ukraine launches ‘massive attack’ on Moscow, shutting down airports
The drone attack was the largest on the Russian capital since the war began in 2022, as the U.K. defense chief estimated that Russia suffered its worst ever month of casualties.
The Boss nazgul: “Your body, my choice!”
Eowyn: (runs him through with a sword)
Re: birgerjohannson @ #177…
…while the Hobbit slices his knee tendons from behind with an Arnorian blade.
Oilievre hobnobbed with Nazis. I think he could be very dangerous.
whheydt @ 178
Yes, both contributed to the prophecy “no man can kill him”.
But I was referring to a meme at Facebook (responding to idiot MAGA trolls).
Re birgerjohannson @ #180..
My late wife used to do an extended analysis of that. Starting from the fact that she had a degree in Linguistics and Tolkein was a philologist. Going to Latin, she pointed out the distinction in one word that gets translated as “man”, but in Latin distinguished “man” from “woman”. There there was another Latin word that also gets translated as “man” but distinguishes between a human being and an animal.
So she has Eowyn pointing out that she is a woman, not a man. The Nazgul replies but using the other term, to which Eowyn replies by say, “The meet the Hobbit–not a man under that term–who has just introduced an Arnorian blade into the back of your knee.” So, getting “not by the hand of man” regardless of which version is meant.
If I’m not too much mistaken (I don’t know Latin…she knew at least two versions), I think it is “homo” that is the man/woman distinction and “wer” that distinguishes between men and animals. But I could be wrong on which is which, and–indeed–in the spelling.
It appears that, besides Tolkien’s reservations about “when Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinan” being the army being hidden by cut branches, and instead, creating trees that could induce a forest to actually travel (the Ents and Huorn herding trees), he also appears to have felt that being delivered by C-section was a way to get around not being slain “by the the hand of man born of woman” was a weak solution.
So…back to MacBeth for both of these.
Facebook. Historical photo from Connecticut.
.https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1AjUdhag5B/
The invisible hand of free trade providing work for all / s.
Judge appointments
Occupy Democrats:
“Trump Just Issued A Chilling Order To Republican Senators”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=jdQfq3Blcqw
YIKES!! Trump Supporters Instantly Ruin Their Lives with Vote
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=pOg-PSE08HU
Myself, I might not ostracise people who voted for Trump as I understand most of them have a typically Merican level of ignorance, as distinct from being blatant racists.
But then again, I have the whole of the Atlantic Ocean as a moat, shielding me from the fallout.
Let’s see if this link works.
A realistic alien invasion.
.https://images.app.goo.gl/1XKVRn4SktJXVue67
The Cheney-loving Democratic party needs a reckoning about war | Stephen Wertheim | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/11/the-cheney-loving-democratic-party-needs-a-reckoning-about-war
Meme from Facebook
.https://www.facebook.com/share/p/15NEVUE8Ta/
.
It is her body, her decision!
Adding ceramic powder to liquid metal thermal paste improves cooling up to 72% says researchers
Given Joe Biden’s and Kamala Harris’ successes, all Donald Trump has to do next year is avoid screwing up the conditions he’s inheriting.
USA Today:
Commentary:
We remember that Haley endorsed Trump, and that she spoke approvingly of Trump at the Republican Convention. Her political career is still limited (if not ruined) because Haley ran against Trump in the Republican primary race. Trump’s decision is probably partly revenge, and partly sucking up to Putin.
Five days after he won a second term, one of Donald Trump’s first priorities was to take aim at a basic element of checks and balances.
Followup to comment 191.
Link
Cartoon: Shattered glass
Some decisions that Trump has made, including choosing an ambassador to the United Nations:
Link
Link
Stephen Miller is bad news personified.
Followup to comment 194.
Trump announces Tom Homan as incoming border czar
Homan touts hard-line immigration views and has previously vowed to “run the biggest deportation force this country has ever seen.”
Followup to comment 195.
Private prison stocks jump after Trump appoints immigration hard-liner as ‘border czar’
Yes, information is already being obscured by the trumpian way of doing things (compounded by the Russian way of doing things):
Link
Looks to me like oligarchs dictating government policy.
Link
Good news:
As summarized by Steve Benen from an NBC News article.
Excerpt from the White House statement:
Link
New Yorker linkHow Syria Became the Middle East’s Drug Dealer
Bashar al-Assad has propped up his regime by exploiting the Middle East’s love of an amphetamine called captagon.
Much more at the link.
The Ring of Fire
“Scottish Leader BLASTS America For Picking Literal Trash For President”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=LcJ9TNmRCAs
Politico: Schumer withholds Senate orientation invite from McCormick
There are two undecided races, one favoring Republicans and one favoring Democrats. The lead is not likely to change but could and both of them are close enough that major news organizations have not called them. McCormick is well ahead in PA but the remaining votes are largely mail in votes in cities that are heavily Democratic. I don’t know about the situation in Arizona but I suspect the news organizations don’t want to call that one until Lake has clearly lost because she is going to sue somebody.
Self-Experimenting Virologist Defeats Breast Cancer With Lab-Grown Virus Treatment
Emma Thorne
“Does the Bible Contradict Itself? 📖 (Yes)”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=J-So479IfDs
Watch John Oliver hit the anger stage of grief
Video at the link, 0:57 minutes long.
Idaho health agency halts COVID vaccine program
Haiti’s main airport shuts down amid gang violence surge
These People Voted For Trump Because They Hate You, And You Monsters Won’t Befriend Them?
Plastic-eating insect discovered in Kenya
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain @208, OMFG.
What doofuses.
Last week I got my COVID vaccine update, and at the same time my flu shot. In the nick of time.
I have friends who have been reminding each other to get their vaccinations while they could. RFK Jr. has speculated before about ending vaccine distribution. And then he tried to walk that back by claiming he wouldn’t take vaccines away.
Trump seems ready to let RFK Jr. “go wild on health.” We cannot, at this point, sort the the lies from the real intentions. We cannot, at this point, predict the coming changes to healthcare in the USA. With reasonable certainty, we can predict that whatever changes the Trump administration decides upon, they will make matters worse, not better.
It is very demoralizing to see an individual state, (Idaho), preemptively making COVID-19 vaccines unavailable.
We will watch what they do, not what they say.
Trump has made contradictory statements about the ACA (Obamacare). Republican supporters of his have vowed to repeal the ACA. Ignorant people who are better at getting stuff done than Trump seem to be intent on repealing Obamacare. We don’t know how this is going to shake out.
Followup to comment 212, I should clarify that, as CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain noted, only six counties in Idaho are facing that vaccine unavailability. Not a policy taking effect statewide.
Idaho has 44 counties.
Despite relevant scandals, Trump to get intelligence briefings again
If we’re lucky, Donald Trump won’t mishandle the sensitive secrets he’s poised to receive because he won’t pay any attention to the intelligence briefings.
Details at the link.
My bet is that Trump will arrange to have a lackey who does pay attention attend the intelligence briefings with him. That way the Trump administration will be ready to leverage the information to their benefit, and to Putin’s benefit, and to the detriment of our allies.
Blue state governors scorned after sending warnings to Trump: ‘The American people are done with’ this
The usual BS. FauxNews takes someone’s opinion and elevates it to unattributed fact. And, the assumption by
conservativesfascists that they are “the American people” and anyone who disagrees with them isn’t.Link
More details at the link.
Link
Here’s what the Trump presidency could mean for the housing market
Darn, even his Nazi house-stealing plan wouldn’t work… unless he deports the citizens too. *taps forehead*
@72 Lynna, OM
Monkey update:
South Carolina lab recaptures 5 more escaped monkeys but 13 are still loose
Studying the effects of reduced glacial load on Icelandic volcanic systems.
https://grapevine.is/news/2024/11/11/glacier-retreat-may-be-tripling-magma-formation/
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/dispatches/dead-last
Dead Last
Authoritarian rule always entails corruption. With Donald Trump in office, watch your wallet.
By Rachel Maddow
More at the link.
NBC News:
Politico:
The judge was appointed by Trump.
Meet the Trump appointees who are about to ruin your life
The report presents good, short summaries for each appointee, plus photos.
Link
Posted by readers of the article:
Source : https://www.sciencealert.com/tiny-earth-like-world-discovered-orbiting-nearest-single-star-to-earth
‘King Arthur’s Hall’ is five times older than thought, researchers discover
.https://phys.org/news/2024-11-king-arthur-hall-older-thought.html
5500 years!
NB!
.
“SHOCK: Dem Senator Finally ADMITS Why Bernie Sanders was “Shunned” by Dem Leadership”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=lrbcIu3Sh5U
Neoliberalism Uber Alles.
So, Putin is a Bond villain.
Let me know when they pop in the third reel so I can go grab some popcorn and watch his comeuppance.
Oh, I disagree. He will end gun violence being the greatest source of death for children. He’ll replace it with measles, polio, and rubella.
Justin Welby says he will step down as archbishop of Canterbury | The Guardian
.https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/nov/12/justin-welby-step-down-archbishop-canterbury
Mishandling an abuse scandal has consequences.
Israel Genocide Tracker account reportedly causing panic among Israeli soldiers
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=nOQb4hYz4Ak
Link
Paul Krugman, writing for The New York Times:
Judge delays Trump immunity decision in NY hush money case
Supreme Court rejects Mark Meadows’ appeal in Georgia election interference case
Donald Trump’s former White House chief of staff failed in his bid to move the case to federal court to mount immunity arguments.
Well, there’s one bit of good news. Mark Meadows may not escape justice. We’ll see.
Louisiana’s Ten Commandments law in public schools is blocked by federal judge
A coalition of parents sued the state to prevent implementation of a law that would require all public K-12 schools and colleges to display the religious text by January.
Good news that may be temporary. We’ll see.
“Witness To Israeli Hooligan Rampage Exposes How Media LIED About Her Footage:
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=2HFM_V1rnPA
To kill memory safety bugs in C code, try the TrapC fork
Ex-GOP Official Reveals How to Resist Trump Threats
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=9L6j3J-LfVo
This USB-C mouthpiece turns your phone into a musical instrument
@236
Of course, this will give the Christo-fascist SCOTUS the ability to finally reverse Engel v. Vitale and deal a death blow to church-state separation.
Well done Project Blitz.
The background to this territorial changeover shows the hypocrisy of the Chinese leaders.
“Chinese tourists find a Russian occupied area belonging to China”
.https://youtube.com/shorts/JVhrh_Dl488
Demonstrators wave Nazi flags outside local theater performance of ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ in Michigan
My hunch is that Trump will perform plenty of performative cruelty against undocumented immigrants, but avoid measures such as real mass deportations that would annoy those oligarchs who depend on undocumented workers or their profits, while complaining that such mass deportations are being obstructed by Democratic governors, and mayors, liberal elites, and the “deep state”.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/putin-and-trump-celebrate-election
Putin And Trump Celebrate Election With A Good Old-Fashioned Phone-Bone
Dad-dimir is so proud of Trump!
Women suing Idaho after they were denied abortions will tell their stories in court
The lawsuit challenges the state’s strict abortion laws, seeking clarity about when doctors can provide abortions without facing jail time.
WTF moments:
Link
Bannon is out of jail, and he is making all kinds of noise. He may yet recover his lost power.
In my opinion, Trump may be too diminished to effectively win a power struggle with Elon Musk. We’ll see. As of now the two doofuses still need each other.
Metagenomic sequencing test proves effective in diagnosing almost any kind of pathogen
.https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-11-metagenomic-sequencing-effective-kind-pathogen.html
A Different Bias
“How Trump Changes the Game for Ukraine”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=Y57Ubf9_J0Y
Coming soon to a “democracy” near you:
In 2076, the USofA will celebrate its 250th birthday (starting from the events of 1776). Look for Donald Trump to make it all about him.
Due to various issues (where the US election certainly plays a role) I cannot easily sleep, and must rest on the few occasions I manage to relax. I realise now there is a term for it!. I am no longer diurnal, nocturnal or crepuscular, I have become cathemeral.
@250 I meant 2026. Oops.
@253: I meant @251.
I am giving up now.
Reginald @253, no problem. I can see what you intended. Funny, though. We definitely hope that Trump does not live to see 2076. ;-)
In other news, “Trump Draft Executive Order Would Create Board to Purge Generals”
Panel could upend military review process and raise concerns about politicization of military
Wall Street Journal link
That article is paywalled.
Josh Marshall:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-aftermath-of-competitive-hyperbole
Forget how corrupt Trump’s first presidency was? Watch this
Excellent video is available at the link.
Anti-education:
Link
More at the link.
Lynna, OM @ # 255: “Trump Draft Executive Order Would Create Board to Purge Generals”
Not hard to guess which one tops the list.
Lights under surfboards could deter shark attacks – study
Sarah McBride says voters didn’t respond to Trump’s anti-trans message
This week’s dissection of bad religious films has arrived. Sometimes I imagine the robots from Mystery Science Theater 3000 hanging out with Noah, Heath and Eli to mock awful movies.
“GAM482: David vs Goliath Battle of Faith”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=H9d7nmEJdGs
Re 256:
More like a mirror image of the one Hillary Clinton won eight years ago, I’d say.
Ex-Israeli Negotiator’s SHOCKING Analysis Of What’s Really Happening – w/ Daniel Levy
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=WHFTn-O8Dgs
https://www.wonkette.com/p/trump-isnt-anti-war-hes-pro-invader
The Vipeholm Experiments and the Dark Origins of Saturday Candy
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=Luo_LpJP8Uo
An evil part of Swedish science history.
🙈 🙉 🙊
Bwahahahaha! What makes them think the Democrats will be any more able to “bounce back” in 2026 than the SPD was in 1936?
Reporting from Ukraine: 13 Nov: New Record! Ukraine LAUNCHES BIGGEST STRIKE YET!
The Ukrainians continue to fight, launching the biggest drone strikes into Russia so far. Striking near Moscow, at military camps and at a Russian navel base at the same time. They seem to have done serious damage to some of the military training camps, which are poorly equipped. How much damage was done in the rest of the raid is unclear. Most of these military strikes are not intended to do a lot of damage, they are intended to force Russia to keep their forces further back and spread out. The raids around Moscow seem to be a mix of frightening the population, forcing the Russian military to keep a lot of air defense around Moscow and hitting the many manufacturing facilities around Moscow.
The Ukrainians have developed their own long ranged drone, obviously a light propeller plane design reworked a bit for remote control. By flying low to the ground they can dodge detection until close to their target and since there is no concern for return they can go far on one tank of gas.
Source : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/sarah-mcbride-reflects-on-becoming-first-openly-transgender-person-elected-to-congress
Source : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/what-trumps-pick-of-zeldin-to-lead-epa-signals-for-his-environmental-plans
Page 78, “Climate Change is changing Astronomy’by Seven Ramussen, September Scientific American. magazine.
Richard Dawkins continues to make a fool of himself. On his Twitter account Tuesday he compared “transparently evil” and “stupid” Donald Trump to Elon Musk, who he describes as “highly intelligent and diametrically opposed to Trump, he has the welfare of the world at heart.” A statement even a cursory look at Musk’s personal Twitter account would show is nonsense.
Jimmy Kimmel: “Celebrity Appresident”
Trump’s Insane Cabinet Taking Shape, Jimmy Interviews Marco Rubio & The Bigliest Election Moments
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=1yknkdjMzA0
Some dude from Fox & Friends becomes secretary of defence?
Stephen Colbert
“Trump Taps Rubio, Noem For Cabinet | Rudy’s Tough Times | How To Move To Canada | A Round Of Sausage”
The Guardian is quitting X
@271. Correction make that page 75 NOT 78 and typos”from that “Climate Change is changing Astronomy’ there are mine obvs. Mea culpa.
Seven is Ramussen’s actual first name and not a typo tho’.
Donald Trump announces Elon Musk will co-lead Department of Government Efficiency
Ha ha! Get it? Department Of Government Efficiency – D-O-G-E. This is very on-brand for Musk, the man who named his car models S-3-X-Y and enabled them to make fart noises.
There are serious arguments to be made about conflict of interest, etc. but I can’t be bothered.
South Korean actor Song Jae-lim dead at 39
@ 277. Reginald Selkirk : So another unfunny Xmas Cracker / stereotypical
Dadsleazy racist weird uncle joke to mock everyone as Musk indicates he’s ready to fuck up national governance in the same way he fucked up Twitter..Half heard whilst doing things with TV / radio on in background about Climate Change causing or contributing significantly to inflation.
Global Overheating – inaction on that = higher cost of living, higher prices for everything and everyone. (Mostly?)
I’m no economist, whole area seems like a pseudoscience and just doesn’t make sense to me so dunno. But inituitively FWIW sounds ’bout right? Seems to follow.
Is that right? If it is can economists and pundits who talk about that and politics kinda point that out more and give the clueless masses as a big cluebat that that is the case (if it is) please?
Trump assembles Cabinet with the same disregard for ethics that marked his first term, by Rachel Maddow
If you had any hope normal people would come into his administration to do normal things, that wishful thinking hasn’t survived one week after the election.
I never, not for a moment, indulged in that “wishful thinking.” Thinking along those lines would amount to self-delusion.
The Collapse Of The Trump Prosecutions Is Almost Complete
More Clown Show details:
Link
Another deluded Republican questions election results:
Link
Cartoon: It did happen here
About the misogyny, see comment 51.
Thune elected Senate majority leader
https://www.wonkette.com/p/trump-pick-for-defense-is-weekend
Kind of funny in a “narrowly avoided another fascist stamp of approval” way:
https://www.wonkette.com/p/trump-wont-get-to-unperson-terrorist
Sign of the times:
Link
Republicans Complete Trifecta With Tiny House Majority
Trump taps Gabbard for director of national intelligence
Well isn’t that just wonderful.
Trump picks Rep. Matt Gaetz as attorney general
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain @292, LOL.
Could there be a worse pick? Ken Paxton of Texas maybe, an indicted man, just like Trump.
Proposing Matt Gaetz for attorney general is so effing awful that I wonder if Trump is not just doing it for laughs, or to own the libs, or to begin a negotiation over the person he really wants the Senate to confirm.
As an aside, this is the first time I find myself in tune with Mike Simpson.
Followup to comments 292 and 293.
Josh Marshall, writing for Talking Points Memo:
More on the Gaetz pick:
Link
Unprecedented failure led to the collapse of the world-renowned radio telescope in Puerto Rico, report shows
The iconic Arecibo Observatory telescope collapsed due to the decay of the zinc-filled sockets supporting the steel cables holding up the telescope’s 900-ton receiver platform.
Photo at the link.
Prepare yourself for a four-year-long shit storm.
And remember the rule: when a Trump appointee gets fired/denied, they get replaced with someone even worse.
Followup to comments 292, 293, 294 and 295.
More details regarding the Gaetz pick:
Another telling detail:
Link
@72, 219 Monkey update
2 more escaped monkeys recaptured and enjoying peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in South Carolina
Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird charges second non-U.S. citizen with voter fraud
Wow, two whole votes. And neither person voted in a state or federal election, this was local stuff.
Trump’s team drawing up list of Pentagon officers to fire, sources say
The precedent for Gaetz as AG is probably Koko in Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Mikado being appointed Lord High Executioner. For those unfamiliar with that operetta, Koko is number one on the list to be executed, so he can’t cut off anyone else’s head until he cuts his own off. Suitably enough to Gaetz’s history, Koko’s crime was flirting.
Mobile Launcher That Can Fire Four Times More Weapons Than HIMARS Emerges
Gaetz as Attorney General cements the upcoming administration as a disaster of monumental proportions. Electing Trump is the worst thing to happen to the country since Pearl Harbor.
As before, the US again lowers the bar, Israel strides right into it, and the US keeps sending weapons anyway.
The US says Israel is doing enough to bring aid into Gaza. On the ground it is a different story.
* Did Israel meet US Gaza aid requirements?
^ An itemized list of requirements the US had given, each of which is accompanied by statements from Israel, the UN, and aid groups as to whether it was met.
Link
Journalists begin new exodus from Elon Musk’s X
Embedded links are available at the main link.
Followup to comment 307.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/its-a-great-day-for-all-of-us-to
With Gaetz as AG, Trump’s wasting no time in making sure high level Republicans will continue to have access to a steady supply of underage girls and an umbrella of protection from being investigated or prosecuted for this.
Meanwhile there’s the whole “your body, my choice” harassment campaign targeting women online.
Now will mainstream people believe us feminists when we talk about rape culture? <smh>
Waltz, Gaetz – curious pattern there.
The former & future guy has so far raptured two Florida congressmen and one Senator, so three consolation prizes to DeSantis for (potentially) himself and two or three cronies. Rep. Luna seems
weird enoughlikely to join the roster, making four.Florida may also end up giving up Joseph Ladapo for national service [sob!] – the perfect counterbalance to Health Co-Czar RFKJr.
Who else would you like? How about Rufo? Have no doubt he & Dr. L can scrub those DeSantis cooties to Presidential satisfaction. (Don’t worry, we’ve got more just like ’em!)
Howsomever, these musical chairs don’t alter the partisan/ideological balance in Congress at all, which may count as a gain when we’re losing on so many other fronts. (Thank you to the anonymous majority of Repub Senators who rejected Fla’s soon-to-be senior senator for their Mighty Leader! Do not turn your backs to him…)
Speaking of losing, are we down to Thune to defend the Constitution?!? Any bets on how long until DJT informs us Thune is a RINO®?
How long until Musk buys a prison-for-profit chain and invents the Ultimate Panopticon? Where is Foucault when we need him?
It may look like Hulk-Trump wil smash everything, but just wait till we’re allowed to see the Trump/Vance Efficiency Xonstitution™! TVEX will MAGA!
@307, 208 Lynna, OM
I have been seeing many articles about leaving X (e.g. @171). The Verge has run multiple such articles(Tech site, but leans left). Bluesky seems to be the preferred destination.
Jamie Lee Curtis and Don Lemon quit X, formerly Twitter: ‘Time for me to leave’
It would be great if some really huge celebrities, such as Taylor Swift, would do the same.
Experts Testify US Is Running Secret UAP Programs
In which the same tired “evidence” is dredged up yet again without mention that it has been thoroughly debunked. We might see more of this stuff under Trump, since he will not be putting highly competent people in positions of authority.
Snake yoga is here to make you squirm
Iran announces ‘treatment clinic’ for women who defy strict hijab laws
RFK Jr.’s Wellness Guru Says He Found His Calling to ‘Make America Healthy Again’ on a Shroom Trip
Four passengers die in burning Tesla after electronic doors seemingly won’t open
* Understanding electric vehicle fires: A comprehensive guide
* An infographic comparing hazards of burning vehicles: combustion engine vs EVs
Followup to comments 292, 293, 294, 295, 298, 302, 304, 306, 309, and 310.
More details, reactions and prognostications regarding Trump’s pick of Matt Gaetz for attorney general:
Matt Gaetz Is Trump’s Way Of Humiliating Senate Republicans
Rudy Giuliani’s attorneys have asked to stop representing him, saying he refused to follow their advice.
Schadenfreude moment.
Followup to comment 317.
Link
Infowars Acquired by The Onion, Will Become a Parody of Itself
Followup to comment 317.
Wonkette’s take on the many-layered farce cake that is the Gaetz pick:
https://www.wonkette.com/p/matt-gaetz-ag-nomination-is-just
@321 Lynna, OM: Gaetz also may be a sacrificial lamb. Throw out Gaetz’s name and after he goes down whoever Trump nominates next will sound good.
I am relatively happy to see Rick Scott go down. It indicates the Senate will fight for their power and privileges. Trump wants such absolute power that this will put him in conflict with the Congress. His failure to understand that the government doesn’t work like a private business and he can’t just throw out directives held him up a lot in his first term. As long as Congress fights to keep their power this will get in his way in his second also.
Followup to comment 320.
Link
Mark Sumner takes some pundits to task:
Link
I am told The Onion has bought Alex Jones’ site Infowars to operate it as a satire of itself…
JM @322, good points. Thanks.
In other news, this is a followup to comment 318.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/rudy-giulianis-lawyers-are-trying
I, for one, doubt that the carapace of Rudi Giuliani’s self-delusion will crack before he dies.
Looks to me like Wall Street is afraid of Elizabeth Warren:
https://www.wonkette.com/p/elizabeth-warren-not-taking-any-crap
Britain: A Different Bias
“Badenoch Collapses at PMQs”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=WwTEmJHM6H8
“The Anglican church’s long history of failing to act on abuse ”
.https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/14/anglican-church-long-history-of-failing-to-act-on-abuse
@322 JM
You are forgetting the first rule of Trump World: When a horrible Trump appointee is finally driven out, they are replaced with someone even worse.
Speaking of Attorney General; Merrick Garland should have got to work faster, and maybe we wouldn’t be in this situation.
Researchers Are Trying To Reinvent the Wheel
Haka erupts in New Zealand Parliament before Treaty Principles Bill
Video at the link has the best footage I’ve seen, which includes the gallery.
I recommend watching! =)
The article, however, needs supplemental background…
New Zealand Parliament suspended after haka protest over Māori rights bill
Video here has a nice close-up of Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke ripping the bill.
The parliamentary camera cut away from the haka and awkwardly stayed fixed on the Speaker, an old White man glowering.
A matter of principles
More detail at the link.
* The Waitangi Tribunal statement
https://e-tangata.co.nz/comment-and-analysis/tearing-the-crown-maori-relationship-apart/The Treaty Principles Bill is already straining social cohesion—a referendum could be worse
https://www.popehat.com/p/refuge-in-kakistocracy
Popehat: how the worst of us may somewhat shelter the rest of us
@330 Reginald Selkirk: In retrospect Garland turned out to be a huge disaster. I knew he wasn’t going to be as aggressive as I would have liked but his trying to slow prosecution of Trump and senior Trump administration officials has turned out to be a huge mistake. Yes, being more aggressive probably would have resulted in some cases being lost in court. It looks like his very slow and careful tactics is going to result in the most important cases being abandoned without any resolution at all.
This will turn out the same as the Russian meddling investigation, which was stopped before investigating Trump. The Republicans and Maga will claim that it proves Trump was innocent while Democrats won’t push hard because there isn’t a conclusion.
Charles Herbster considered for U.S. Secretary of Agriculture role in Trump administration
All bark, no bite? Musk’s DOGE unlikely to have any real power
This will be a test of judicial consistency. Recently, federal courts have been nitpicking government agencies, saying in effect, “there is no legislative basis which allows you to regulate N” (where N is some random thing). And here we have a federal agency fabricated out of thin air, with no legislative basis at all. Will the courts continue their strict legalese interpretation? Or will they give Trump whatever he wants?
Anti-hate group sued by X says it’s leaving the platform.
Everybody should be leaving X.
Re 317:
There’s a story alleging that a corrupt Roman emperor once made his horse into a senator. Soon, I expect, we’ll see if US senators make a horse into the czar of something or other.
“Scathing Atheist 613: Dear Waaabby Edition:
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=190Mb4cjlyU
“Trump Acts Cordial With Biden While Gaetz, Gabbard, and Hegseth Score Nominations”; The Daily Show
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=klEF0fjTOsE
Re: Reginald SElkirk @ #337…
The gaming convention (DunDraCon) that I run ConReg for is leaving X.
Behold the Oldest Written Text in the World: The Kish Tablet, Circa 3500 BC
That thing everyone was expecting happened
Trump picks vaccine sceptic RFK Jr for health secretary
A serial adulterer who says he has not washed his hands in ten years will be the new secretary of defence…
He reached a rank of major but the skill set of a major and the secretary for the most complex national defence in the world do not overlap.
Sort of a followup to Reginald @342.
More of the same: Friend of Don Jr.’s Who Hawks Trump Merch To Run White House Personnel Office
Professional Trump flatterer to control office in charge of recruiting and vetting admin staff
Eva Longoria (‘Desperate Housewives’) is leaving USA because of the election.
Late Night with Seth Meyers
“Trump Aides Annoyed with Tagalong Elon Musk”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=uJHFcu1dwdo
Good news.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/nice-abolitionist-helper-lady-from
Some photos and images of historical documents are available at the link.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/which-trump-appointee-is-making-putin
@347 Lynna, OM
So she was a spy, and a military commander, and a hero; all great.
But – a Maryland resident? Hold on a crabcake-loving minute.
Her home is a National Historical Park, and it’s in Auburn, New York. Maryland is where she lived when she was a slave. When she had a choice, she moved elsewhere.
A time span which encompasses those Civil War activities.
RE where she lived in Maryland:
Site of Harriet Tubman’s Lost Maryland Home Found After Decades-Long Search (2021)
Pennsylvania Senate contest headed toward a recount, and possibly litigation
Elon Musk’s AI turns on him, labels him ‘one of the most significant spreaders of misinformation on X’
China unleashes new microwave weapon that can fry enemy drone 2 miles away
Thailand zoo releases official Moo Deng song
Bear costume used in elaborate car insurance fraud scheme
What’s the deal with Pete Hegseth’s Crusader Tattoos?
He got “Yahweh” tattooed in Hebrew thinking it meant Jesus.
LucasArts Presents
A George Lucas Film
INFO WARS
Episode V:
The Libs Own Back
Mark Hamill Carrie Fisher
Harrison Ford James Earl Jones
COMING SOON
Signal boost for this by Daylight Atheismby Adam Lee. I believe these things too and well put :
Source : https://proxy.freethought.online/daylight/2024/11/14/things-i-still-believe/
Well worth reading in full.
Musk, Gaetz, Gabbard, Hegseth, RFK Jr…. It’s like Trump is showing his utter contempt for everyone stupid enough to vote for him.
Sweden Wants to Be the First Country to Trademark Its Name
Oh, and Huckabee. I forgot Huckabee.
If You’re a Republican Waiting in Line to Guffaw at Matt Gaetz as AG, Stay in Line!
Despite its longer years On Mars its a new year already!. YT short.
Huh. That link don’t work? Okay. Take II
Happy New Year Mars – European Space Agency
Reginald @349, thanks for the additional information.
In other news: Trump Wants To Install His Personal Lawyers In Top DOJ Posts
.
It’s worth noting that Biden has been consistently lying, and breaking the law, in order to keep enabling Israel’s genocide.
Sorry, @305 not @304 above.
Oh, I’d say its much worse than Pearl Harbor. There was, after all, no real possibility of Japan – even in alliance with Nazi Germany – defeating the USA. There does seem a very real chance that Trump 2 – The Revenge could bring about the end of the USA.
PC Mag: This ‘AI Granny’ Bores Scammers to Tears
Somebody has had a really good idea for an LLM. For this it just needs to churn out plausible garbage and keep the other end on the line as long as possible. Wasting the scammers time is one thing that will really stop them because they are paying something to make the calls. Even if this results in an AI vs AI scammer war it will take money from the scammers.
Marjorie Taylor Greene hijacks pandemic hearing to spew gobbledygook
She also called, again, for Dr. Anthony Fauci to be prosecuted.
The proposed appointment of Gabbard highlights a problem for the governments of the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand/Aotearoa, countries which, together with the USA, constitute the “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing consortium. (It’s interesting, BTW, that this exclusive grouping of primarily WASP nations exists at all.) Anything passed to Trump would of course be at some risk of finding its way to Putin, or whichever other dictator Trump favours; but Trump, being so ignorant and lazy, is unlikely to actually read – let alone understand – such materials. Gabbard is a different matter, and is a long-time admirer of India’s would-be dictator Narendra Modi, as well as a shameless apologist for Putin and Bashir al-Assad.
Followup to CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain @355.
Hegseth is not just one man with bad ideas. He is representative of a network of reactionary Christian Nationalists with bad ideas.
Link
@368 Lynna, OM
MTG’s district re-elected her with 64.4% of the vote.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/the-more-things-change-the-more-tommy
The “not that most people know it” is itself a condemnation of both Harris’s campaign, and Biden’s inability to get the worthwhile things he has done in domestic policy into the public consciousness. Picking Walz was about the last good move Harris made. She clearly made a strategic decision to go for the votes of anti-Trump Republicans and right-wing independents, rather than use to the full the surge of enthusiasm that clearly followed her replacement of Biden on the ticket. She insultingly ignored the majority of Democrats who are disturbed by Israeli genocide in Gaza and Biden’s enabling of it, she shut up about taxing the rich and big corporations, she schmoozed with billionaires and right-wing Republicans such as Liz Cheney, she promised to appoint a Republican to cabinet, she said she couldn’t think of any Biden policies she would change even though Biden was very unpopular. As a result, while Trump’s vote was about 2 milllion up on 2020, Harris got around 8 million less than Biden: she lost because voters stayed home.
BTW, my #373 is not intended to excuse voters who stayed home. If you can’t be arsed to vote against fascism (however unappealing he alternative), then FUCK YOU.
RFK Jr. to head newly formed Department of Disease Efficiency
Washington Post Link
Lindt admits its chocolate isn’t actually ‘expertly crafted with the finest ingredients’ in lawsuit over lead levels in dark chocolate
Lynna @370:
Soon the rubble will be ours!
Wikipedia – Black Stone
* Not my math. I saw another conflicting claim of the return year. *shrug*
Trump’s team skips FBI background checks for some Cabinet picks
Cathie Wood says Elon Musk will succeed in his audit of the federal government because he has ‘more proprietary data’ than anyone
I don’t know who Cathie Wood is, but someone should tell her that running a government is not the same as running a business. Also, they should point her to Musk’s track record of running Twitter (into the ground).
Almighty G-d once again occupies himself with interfering in sportsball outcomes.
Video shows Chiefs’ Andy Reid promise to buy Leo Chenal a cheeseburger after win
Trump rewards personal lawyers with justice department posts
Bananapants Things RFK Jr. Has Said Or Done
Beaver Moon, last supermoon of the year, and Leonid meteors to light up sky on same weekend
The beaver moon will reach its peak on Friday and the Leonid meteor shower will be on full display on Saturday.
Link
I figure the reason Trump is appointing his private lawyers to DoJ posts is that it’s a way not to pay them out of funds anywhere near his own pocket.
Germany’s Scholz discusses Ukraine with Russia’s Putin in first such call in 2 years
The new communication between Scholz and Putin — their first since December 2022 — comes at a time of widespread speculation about what the new administration of President-elect Donald Trump will mean for Ukraine.
@385, whheydt, good point.
In other news: Measles cases rose to more than 10 million in 2023, WHO and CDC say
The surge in the preventable disease was driven by “inadequate immunization coverage,” the agencies said.
Trump Pentagon pick had been flagged by fellow service member as possible ‘Insider Threat’
Austria says Russia to cut off gas from Saturday
Civil rights attorney announces $100 million lawsuit against FBI, CIA and the NYPD over assassination of Malcolm X
Man Who Proclaimed ‘I Am A Racist,’ Used N-Word Resigns From University Advisory Board
More than 800 Utah homes lose power after woman climbs transformer
@ #366
You don’t seem to realize what Pearl Harbor led to. Like Trump, it wasn’t the act itself but what the consequences were.
Facebook:
Now we have the backstory
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1AZkMMEzWX/
First-Ever ‘Einstein Zig-Zag’ Found in Space Could Help Solve the Universe’s Expansion Mystery
All this talk of Trump’s ego and incompetence seems to leave aside the elephant in the room: that Trump likely won’t survive four more years and at some point Vance will take over.
Lauren Boebert Told Congress She Is Worried About Space Aliens Operating From Underwater “Bases”
@396
Please, you will scare the children.
Wednesday, Nov 13 was ESP Day.
That’s right, Education Support Professionals Day.
Study: Equal pay for disabled workers creates, not costs, jobs
Of course I do. But it is only too likely that the return of Trump will lead to destruction, suffering and premature death on a scale far greater than WW2.
BTW, tomh@393, Pearl Harbor probably shortened WW2 even though it expanded it geographically, because it brought the full power of the USA in on the side of the Allies – something Roosevelt might not have been able to bring about otherwise. Hence the (completely unevidenced) conspiracy narrative that he knew it was coming and deliberately let it happen. Certainly, Churchill was delighted – he had been trying to get the USA into the war ever since he came into office.
Good interview here with Arwa Damon of the humanitarian organization INARA Report from Gaza: Palestinians Feel They Are Being “Slowly Exterminated” in Israel’s Genocide by the Democracy Now YT channel under 15 mins long.
MIT engineers make converting CO2 into useful products more practical
Pentagon fails 7th audit in a row
Birders flock to Shelf to see Scarlet Tanager
Novara YT channel interviews Feroze Sidhwa here – Gaza Surgeon Reveals Why The US Won’t Save Palestine 35 minutes long. WARNING : extremely confronting material being discussed – war, death.
Dr Becky – Is there hope for the TRAPPIST-1 planets after all? just posted yesterday 23 mins long.
Teslas Are The Most Fatal Cars On The Road, Study Finds
New @CookPolitical
Trump has fallen below 50% of the popular vote. With 152.7M votes counted, he leads Harris 49.99%-48.22%.
https://www.cookpolitical.com/vote-tracker/2024/electoral-college
David Weigel:
Mehdi Hasan:
Link
Pete Hegseth’s remarks about women in combat are met with disgust and dissent
Hundreds of women have proven their competence and were awarded for their heroism during the nation’s longest war in Iraq and Afghanistan, advocates said.
Youtube shorts
Is Matt Gaetz the “least qualified,” or does he just have a lot of potential?
.https://youtube.com/shorts/219wyApti2k
Cartoon: Very efficient
https://www.wonkette.com/p/crazy-idea-boost-ev-adoption-with
Crazy Idea: Boost EV Adoption With Cheap Slow Public EV Chargers Everywhere
Fast charging is mostly needed on road trips. Make most public charging low-tech, cheap, and ubiquitous.
China Observer: Russia – North Korea cooperation
A nice summary of the deal between Russia and North Korea and what the countries get out of the deal.
The North Korean soldiers sent to Ukraine are experienced but are totally unfamiliar with modern combat and know little of modern electronics. This is compounded by the Russians using them as cannon fodder.
North Korea and Russia have signed a large deal. The public part of the deal includes a mutual defense agreement. North Korea can churn out a lot of basic gear, letting Russia concentrate on more advanced gear. North Korea also has a lot of basic infantry to spare. In exchange North Korea gets food, money and luxuries.
Kim is making a gamble here. China has never treated North Korea well. Mostly considering it nothing but a buffer between China and western troops. So looking for another ally makes sense. But if Russia doesn’t come out of this war in a good situation North Korea may find itself more cut off then ever.
Newsweek: Kursk War Map Reveals Ukrainian Advances Despite Major Russian Deployment
Russia is throwing everything they have at the Ukrainians in the hopes of making some significant advance this year, both in Kursk and in Ukraine. They are not making much progress, if any. The weather is starting to turn bad and there has not been much but small back and forth shifts over the past couple of weeks. In total since the mid point of the year the Russians have slowly made progress but at huge expense in manpower and gear. North Korean manpower and gear has let the Russians keep their offense going into the fall it isn’t helping real progress. The North Korean gear has poor manufacturing standards, even compared to the Russian supplies. The North Korean soldiers are experienced soldiers but totally unfamiliar with modern combat and electronics.
King Arthur left an ancient trail across Britain. Experts say it offers clues about the truth behind the myth
Hey, “experts” are allowed to have opinions, just like anyone else…
@ 15, 52, 54, 318, 326
Rudy Giuliani turns over his 1980 Mercedes-Benz convertible, luxury watch collection and a diamond ring to women he defamed
JM @418 and 419.
I assume the South Koreans are carefully watching what happens with the North Korean troops deployed by Russia. Everyone will notice that: “The North Korean soldiers are experienced soldiers but totally unfamiliar with modern combat and electronics.”
@ 421 Reginald Selkirk: Typical of his kind that they are very evasive right up until actually threatened with jail time. As long as stalling is just a game played in court they will stall everything. When they judge makes it clear that further stalling will be done from the inside of a prison cell they start turning things over. I wish judges were quicker to throw people in jail when they are clearly just delaying the case. They can make bogus appeals or evade penalties if they want but it’s going to seem like a much worse option from inside a prison cell.
The gun industry uses deceptive tactics for political purposes:
By Corey G. Johnson, ProPublica
Link
Lord of the Rings in Ukraine’s war
@422 Lynna, OM: North Korea has no illusions they can win a war with South Korea. They depend on much of the population of South Korea being within artillery range of North Korea and having nuclear weapons to make the idea of war too messy.
The government of North Korea is so unpopular that if South Korea actually invaded the population of North Korea would hide or turn against the government en mass. However, between artillery and nukes a significant portion of the population of South Korea would die within the first 24 hours. This is also why North Korea makes such a point about the small possibility of them hitting the west coast of the US. They are afraid that the US might push South Korea to go to war despite the losses because that is what they would be considering.
@425 CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain: I can see why the Russians draw a connection with Mordor but the idea that the one ring has any connection to nuclear weapons is just wrong. Tolkien wrote most of the story and background material while serving in the trenches in WWI. It was only finished and published later but the outline was written long before nuclear weapons existed.
A better analogy with the orcs might be draw with the idea that the orcs hated the war, hated their own leaders and knew they were being used as cannon fodder. But still never thought that stopping or protesting might be a viable idea. Against Sauron this made sense, any leader among the orcs that suggested stopping would be killed or mind controlled, rebellion wasn’t an option. It is against Putin, even if just hiding within the population and not supporting the government.
Wild hybrid ‘mystery plant’ found growing in Kansas farm fields
NC Senator’s office response to woman’s abortion law question goes viral after featured on TikTok
Grandma with chunky sunglasses becomes unlikely fashion icon
Re: JM @427:
The article cited Fielden for that, so I looked that up…
Mike Fielden’s BA thesis (2019)
@429
Odd. I thought the Republicans loved Russia now.
North Korea goes out of its way to avoid dependence on modern electronics and electricity. Which makes me suspect their “final war plan” involves the heavy use of EMPs …
Link
Submarine designed with women in mind joins U.S. Navy fleet
RFK Jr. wants to send people to government “Wellness Farms”
Followup for New Zealand #332:
Hana’s haka shows up the House
We are not coping well with the current and impending destructive, chaotic society in which we find ourselves. We created a video as a cathartic effort and are sharing it broadly.
It is at: http://theartsinarizona.org/the_heroic_heretic_faces_more_reality.mp4
Sincerely,
Sherman J of the arts in arizona
and all the international family of Omnigma Organizations
Monkey update
8 Escaped Monkeys Remain at Large, Now Joined By Two Fugitive Emus
Small Modular Nuclear Reactor Partnership Announced between America and Ukraine
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain @437, and people who run these “wellness farms” could make a lot of government-subsidized money, all while offering a care regimen that is not supported by science.
Maybe Elon Musk could spot the waste of government money?
Cartoon: Good grief, America!
Link
That’s just great. Lutnick is even worse. And Musk prefers Lutnick.
Link. That link leads to a roundup of news items. The details about Lutnick are just one of many presentations of current news.
So Musk is meddling in Italian immigration policy.
Same link in comment as in comment 444.
Using the successes of X to inform the Department of Government Efficiency
Washington Post link to a multi-panel cartoon by Edith Pritchett.
@440 Reginald Selkirk reported on: Small Modular Nuclear Reactor Partnership Announced between America and Ukraine
I reply: Oh, what a great idea, dangerous, polluting, nuclear plants in a war zone!
shermanj @447:
Some context: a line from Reginald’s article and a link therein.
“Small modular reactors (SMR) are an emerging technology that allow for reactors to be transported and assembled on site.”
Ukraine’s energy crisis drives power decentralization (2024-07-31)
Now that Wossname has beaten a 56-year-old boxer it is time for him to challenge Master Roshi of Dragon Ball Z (300 yers old).
Lynna, OM@444,
Musk wanted Rick Scott as Republican leader in the Senate, but Republican Senators chose John Thune – and it doesn’t seem likely they would have done so if Trump had made lear he wanted Scott. And Trump has shown some irritation at Musk’s presumption, so he may not get who he wants as Treasury Sec. (It’s difficult to believe two such massive egos can long exist in such close proximity without an explosion. Obviously Trump wants money from Musk, but I can’t see him being prepared to share the monarchy.)
New York Times link
Biden Allows Ukraine to Strike Russia With Long-Range U.S. Missiles
With two months left in office, the president for the first time authorized the Ukrainian military to use the system known as ATACMS to help defend its forces in the Kursk region of Russia.
An NBC link for the news featured in comment 451, in case some readers are not able to access The New York Times.
Trump transition team compiling list of current and former U.S. military officers for possible courts-martial
All of the officers were involved in the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan
Link
New Model Calculates Chances of Intelligent Beings In Our Universe and Beyond
(aka ‘extrapolating from a sample size of one’)
The number of assumptions seems quite large. Speculation built on speculation.
Link
I would strike “likely” from “likely would cost lives” and speak more plainly: “will cost lives.” And a lot of those lives will be the lives of children.
Multiple E. coli infections, 1 death in California linked to organic carrots
Laser Weapons On Stryker AFV: U.S. Army Deploys DE M-SHORAD To Middle East To Counter UAV Threats
Elon Musk retweeted as “True” the following post from Alex Tourville:
The Extinction Level Event (ELE) now being repeated all over rightwing social media is that entire components of the government they don’t like: Department of Education, Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Agriculture, etc. etc. will be eliminated.
Commentary:
Link
Can lasers cast shadows? Answer redefines understanding of light, researchers say
Their methods completely negates the theoretical considerations discusses in the prior paragraph. If one laser beam interfered with another in a vacuum, then they would be on to something interesting. But inside a ruby, or even in air? Things are different then.
@460
Rephrased, the two light beams do not interact with other directly, but they both interact with the medium, and so can interfere with each other indirectly.
Steve Bannon accuses MSNBC producers of being “part of a vast criminal conspiracy against President Trump”
Bannon: “I am 100 percent serious”
Video at the link.
Excerpts from a longer New Yorker article written by David Remnick:
Link
Hossenfelder debunks a climate skeptic
“New Evidence” That CO2 Doesn’t Cause Global Warming? I Don’t Think So.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=chDl-u4va_A
a href=”https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c30p16gn3pvo”>‘Do not pet’: Why are robot dogs patrolling Mar-A-Lago?
What could possibly go wrong?
Researchers diagnose 27 cases of scurvy in northern Sask. community
Head that washed ashore in South Florida belongs to missing 19-year-old
So technically, he’s now only partly missing.
Physicists may have figured out how to safely transport antimatter
Battery-powered sea glider could make coastal travel more climate-friendly
* Wikipedia – Ground-effect vehicle
Trump picks Brendan Carr to lead FCC
I can just see the sign over the entryway now:
IVERMECTIN MACHT FREI
I saw that movie. The battery ran low and the antimatter almost blew up the Vatican.
This is how a free press starts to die.
Here’s hoping Trump’s “I wish I had generals like Hitler’s” meets with malicious compliance … and that they know how to hack the mechanical hounds.
Biologists Just Created Solar-Powered Hamster Cells
@472
Top comment
Leaked Emails Show Swedish Minister’s Unique Fear of Bananas
12,000-Year-Old Spindles Hint at Humanity’s First Steps Toward the Wheel
Organizers set up a lab-monkey-themed run after 43 monkeys escape a research facility in South Carolina
Lab Monkey Freedom Run
Racist reichwing shockjock & Cronukla riot inciter also now arrested for child sex crimes – live ABC news coverage :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-18/alan-jones-charged-police-over-alleged-indecent-assault/104612940
This Alan “NOT the 1980 F1 champion”Jones was a very powerful influential political tooas this article notes :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-18/who-is-alan-jones-backstory-2gb-radio-host-veteran-broadcaster/104613232
Political figure too that is. As you can see a massive misogynist POS as well.
If you have seen the sketch with Huey Lews and Al Yancovic discussing American Psycho you will have an inkling of my feelings towards Trump and all his enablers.
Myself @ 480
My revenge fantasy of choice
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=XfNggNeHQlo
Momo’s granny Hinata takes out the trash (from the anime DanDaDan)
“Thames Water Covering Up Their Dire Situation?”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=BblOKPULD-
Privatised water company is even worse than expected.
Spirit Airlines files for bankruptcy amid growing losses and debt
Democrats may hand Donald Trump a weapon to use against liberal non-profits
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=5aR_0bKmPjg
I have not had time to research this issue, but considerkng four decades of Democrat incompetence in the face of Republican rising hegemony I will not be surprised if the fear is justified.
A more cheerful subject; A film from SaveAFox
‘Visiting Foxes in the night 🌙 ‘
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=DMu_UzWZCIc
The Guardian |
Who does the Democratic party actually represent? | Alex Bronzini-Vender
.https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/18/harris-biden-democratic-party
Top Russian ballet dancer Vladimir Shklyarov, 39, falls to his death from fifth floor after criticising Putin’s war
.https://www.the-sun.com/news/12914333/russian-ballet-dancer-vladimir-shklyarov-dead/
Normally I would not trust the Sun but this is plausible.
Climate scientists react to Trump by Dr Gilbz. nearly 20 mins long.
WTF?
Followup to comments 462 and 471.
Link
Posted by readers of the article:
Jason Kelce’s Christmas duet with Stevie Nicks knocks Mariah Carey from iTunes top spot
Democrats race to confirm judges—while they still can
Re: birgerjohansson @480, 481:
Lynna’s rule still stands. Here’s another wording.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain @492, thank you.
In other news: Trump threatens pollster
Support the people who do NOT preemptively bend the knee.
An opinion column that nails it.
Good point.
Trump Reminds Everyone: He Wants US Soldiers in US Streets
A $60 Billion-a-Year Climate Solution Is Sitting in Our Junk Drawers
In rich nations, just a fraction of trashed electronics is mined for critical metals. We’re going to have to up our game.
Much more at the link.
Link
Study confirms Egyptians likely used hallucinogens in rituals
UK test-fires Spear mini cruise missile that will equip F-35 fighters
Canadian Spa Hopes Hair-Freezing Contest Can Continue for Another 12 Years