Henry Kissinger has died, 100 years old. He was a monster, who was held in high regards by the political elite in both US parties. He was undeservedly treated as a respectful elderly statesman, instead of the monster responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths all over the world.
Anthony Bourdain, a man who sadly lived fewer years than Kissinger, had a perfect description of Kissinger
It used to be that The Young Turks was a progressive voice, though a problematic one, given the sexism and Armenian genocide denial by Cenk Uygur in the past. Lately, however, many are asking what has happened to them. Both Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur has made anti-trans remarks, and Ana has come strongly out against the homeless.
This has led to 10 of the moderators of The Young Turks youtube channel to resign – they have written an open resignation letter.
Boris Johnson has resigned as a MP due to the result of the investigations into the partygate scandal, which is the scandal that forced him to resign as a PM. The results of the investigations are not public, and Johnson has stepped down, rather than getting pushed out. Considering the number of lies and falsehoods he have presented over time, both as a journalist and as a politician, it is rather incredible that he ever managed to become a MP, let alone the PM.
And in similar news, as most of you probably know, Donald Trump has been hit with a 37-count indictment for his mishandling of classified documents, and his behavior relating to this:
The 49-page indictment contains the first-ever federal charges against a former US president. It says the classified documents Mr Trump stored in his boxes contained information about:
- United States nuclear programmes
- Defence and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries
- Potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack
- Plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack
Prosecutors say that when Mr Trump left office, he took about 300 classified files to Mar-a-Lago – his oceanfront home in Palm Beach, which is also an expansive private members’ club.
The charge sheet notes that Mar-a-Lago hosted events for tens of thousands of members and guests, including in a balDonald Trumlroom where documents were found.
Prosecutors say Mr Trump tried to obstruct the FBI inquiry into the missing documents by suggesting that his lawyer “hide or destroy” them, or tell investigators he did not have them.
“Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we don’t have anything here?” Mr. Trump said to one of his attorneys, according to the indictment.
Source:
Of course, an indictment doesn’t mean a conviction, nor does it keep Trump from running for the Presidency, but it _is_ the first step of getting him put into jail.
There is no doubt that the news out of the US Supreme Court has been abyssal this year, and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. Fortunately, this doesn’t necessarily reflect on the rest of the US courts, where there have been a number of good rulings.
Among these are the nearly $1.5 billion rulings against Alex Jones, the sanctions against Trump lawyers, and a course a number of cases involving Trump, where the judges have allowed the cases to go forward.
Now, a couple of new pieces of good news can be added:
A judge on Tuesday ordered Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman, two right-wing conspiracy theorists behind robocalls that sought to intimidate Black voters here out of casting mail-in ballots in the 2020 presidential election, to spend 500 hours registering voters in low-income neighborhoods in the Washington, D.C., area.
Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge John Sutula placed each on two years of probation, fined each $2,500 and ordered them to wear GPS ankle monitors with home confinement beginning at 8 p.m. each day for the first six months of their probation.
Sutula, 71, said that most of the civil rights advances in the United States have occurred in his lifetime. He compared the men’s effort to those who used violence to suppress southern Black voters in the 1960s.
Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the rightwing Oath Keepers militia, has been found guilty of seditious conspiracy, a charge arising from the attack on the US Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump.
Rhodes and co-defendant Kelly Meggs are the first people in nearly three decades to be found guilty of the rarely used civil war-era charge at trial. The trial was the biggest test yet for the US justice department in its efforts to hold accountable those responsible for the attack that shook the foundations of US democracy.
This appears to be a clear cut case of justice prevailing – if this wasn’t a case of seditious conspiracy, what is? But some times these things are harder to prove in court than would appear logical, so we should be glad that the US justice department managed to get the convictions.
I think we can all get behind the message!
Orrin Hatch has died This is hardly something I feel sad about, and I pretty much concur with PZ Myers. Reading his obituary, I noticed that he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Trump.
Wikipedia explains the purpose and history of the medal:
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is an award bestowed by the president of the United States to recognize people who have made “an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.” The Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal are the highest civilian awards of the United States. The award is not limited to U.S. citizens and, while it is a civilian award, it can also be awarded to military personnel and worn on the uniform. It was established in 1963 by President John F. Kennedy, superseding the Medal of Freedom that was established by President Harry S. Truman in 1945 to honor civilian service during World War II.
Until Biden there has been handed out 656 Presidential Medals of Freedom, spread out across 11 presidents.
| John F. Kennedy | 31 |
| Lyndon B. Johnson | 58 |
| Richard Nixon | 28 |
| Gerald Ford | 26 |
| Jimmy Carter | 34 |
| Ronald Reagan | 86 |
| George H. W. Bush | 42 |
| Bill Clinton | 110 |
| George W. Bush | 85 |
| Barack Obama | 132 |
| Donald Trump | 24 |
Until Trump, the Presidential Medal of Freedom was given to sport and cultural personalities, as well as noteworthy public servants and politicians across the political spectrum. Under Obama, a lot of the recipients were people involved in Civil Rights, less so under other presidents. Unsurprisingly, Trump used the Medal of Freedom as a political tool.
I took a look at the list of recipients under Trump, and tried to categorize them:
As you can see from the figure, more than half of the recipients are sports people, a couple of which were foreign. Most of the rest were Republicans, all of which supported Trump.
This pretty much demonstrates why the Medal of Freedom is a farce. It is completely up to the president to decide who gets it, and it is frequently used to award political allies. Also, I find it curios, how someone like the Swedish golfer, Annika Sörenstam, is qualified to get the medal – she was the last recipients of Trump’s Medals, which I used her as an example, but I could use any number of the Trump recipients.
Anyway, the Presidential Medal of Freedom might have meant something in the past, but like everything else he touched as a President, Trump has shown how it can be used for political purposes, and that it is a farce, like everything else that the US Presidential position has the full control over.
A few interesting links.
There is no “Putin wing” of the GOP: Why almost no Republican backs Ukraine over Russia by Amanda Marcotte
Republicans may say they oppose Putin, but they keep siding with the Russian dictator over Democrats and democracy
Amanda Marcotte explains very well why the Putin Wing of the Republican Party is almost the whole party, and that the only time that most Republicans will speak out against Russia and Putin is when they are forced to by public opinion, or, more likely, when they can use it against President Biden in one way or another.
Preparing for Defeat by Francis Fukuyama
I’m writing this from Skopje, North Macedonia, where I’ve been for the last week teaching one of our Leadership Academy for Development courses. Following the Ukraine war is no different here in terms of available information, except that I’m in an adjacent time zone, and the fact that there is more support for Putin in the Balkans than in other parts of Europe. A lot of the latter is due to Serbia, and Serbia’s hosting of Sputnik.
As a general rule, don’t expect me to link to stuff by Fukuyama, but this was an interesting list of predictions by him – even if some of predictions would be better characterized as wishful thinking.
Spectacularly Colorful Fish Is First New Species Ever Described By A Scientist From The Maldives by GrrlScientist
An international team of scientists discovered a new species of mesophotic coral reef-dwelling fish in the Indian Ocean
It’s always interesting when new species are discovered, and it is great that science is getting decolonized.
There are a number of Atheist organizations out there, working to promote atheism and try to protect the rights of atheists. Some of them are good, such as the Freedom From Religion Foundation, others are more problematic, and some are outright horrible.
In the latter group, falls Atheists for Liberty, a right-winged organization which participates in CPAC, and have David P. Silverman as the advisory board chair.
As their pinned tweet shows, they are proud of both of these things.
If there is any doubt about how horrible, the organization is, on the whole, just take a look at the books they promote, and the words they use to sell them.
This is nearly a literal who’s who of horrible people connected to atheism (some more of these can be found in the organization’s board of advisors)
Looking at the Atheists for Liberty’s website, I was not surprised to see that their major cause right now, is to allow atheist to get exemptions from the vaccine mandate. They couch it in the argument that allowing religious exemptions only, is discriminatory towards atheists, but instead of trying to get the religious exemptions removed, they are instead trying to get them expanded, showing that they are supporting the anti-vaxers.
Atheists for Liberty writes on their website:
Vaccine Mandate Equality Project
Atheists for Liberty has a firm stance on vaccine mandates: Atheists musts be treated equally. Across this nation, atheists, like our client/member Patrick Wilmers who are opposed to the Covid Vaccine, are being fired, while their religious counterparts are being allowed to stay because of “religious exemptions”. This policy writ large, as promoted by the US Government, effectively thins atheists from the workforce while allowing religious people to stay. It’s religious discrimination and it’s illegal.
Left unchallenged, it would set nationwide precedent – we would effectively lose a right – the right to equal treatment – and it would surely be used against us in the future as precedent for even more erosion.
We simply cannot stand and let our rights be reduced under the guise of safety. Civil rights still count, even and especially in difficult times. Atheists for Liberty ALONE (so far) is working to defend equal protection under the law for atheists with regards to vaccine mandates. We seek plaintiffs, lawyers, and your financial support for this important effort.
On the surface, it might seem like a reasonable stance that it is discriminatory to allow for religious exemptions, but not secular ones, but the right remedy would be to work for the removal of religious exemptions, not for allowing atheists to not be vaccinated when holding jobs as nurses or working together with other people in large companies. This probably explains why Atheists for Liberty are “ALONE” in working for this.
One of the Atheists for Liberty people at CPAC, was transbigot and Trump-fan Arielle Scarcella, who is actively promoting anti-vax propaganda by retweeting it
All in all, it is pretty clear that Atheists for Liberty are anti-vax, but I guess that is hardly surprising for a group that have notorious bigot and anti-vax promoter, James Lindsay on it’s board of advisors.
A schoolboard in Tennessee has decided to ban the usage Art Spiegelman’s award winning graphic novel Maus while teaching about the Holocaust. Maus is of course, a graphic novel based on the true experiences of Art Spiegelman’s family as told by his father.
The McMinn County School Board voted 10-0 to ban the book in a Jan. 10 meeting, citing concerns over “rough” language and a nude drawing of a woman, according to meeting minutes posted to the district website. The book was part of its eighth-grade English language arts curriculum.
Maus was serialized in 1986 – 1991, and won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992 (the special award in letter), and is so far the only graphic novel to have won any Pulitzer prize. When arguing whether graphic novels can be literature, Maus is held up as the number one exhibit in favor.
When I was a Danish school kid, back in the Eighties, we would be told stories about the holocaust and the German occupation by people who experienced it. This was incredible impactful. As the people who experienced the Holocaust are dying out, works like Maus becomes more and more important. They tell the stories that otherwise would be lost, allowing us to remember the atrocities, and pushes us to ensure that they never happen again. The US Holocaust Museum states it well:
As news spread about the school board’s decision, the U.S. Holocaust Museum said, “Maus has played a vital role in educating students about the Holocaust through sharing detailed and personal experiences of victims and survivors.”
“On the eve of International #HolocaustRemembranceDay, it is more important than ever for students to learn this history,” the museum said Wednesday on Twitter without mentioning the district. “Teaching about the Holocaust using books like Maus can inspire students to think critically about the past and their own roles and responsibilities today.”
Of course, the ban on Maus is just part of a larger culture war, as Art Spiegelman himself points out:
While it’s not the first time “Maus” has been the subject of controversy, Spiegelman said he is alarmed by school boards nationwide banning books amid tense debates over the teaching of race, slavery and oppression.
“This is not about left versus right,” Spiegelman told The Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY Network. “This is about a culture war that’s gotten totally out of control.”
When start to ban books, especially books like Maus, the rest of us should take note, and speak out. This is the first step towards a very dark path.
One of the clear signs that US society doesn’t work probably, is the fact that people have to do fundraisers to cover medical costs and increasingly, to cover basic costs of living. One of the big platforms for these fundraisers, is GoFundMe. Now, the CEO of GoFundMe is speaking out, pointing out that this is wrong
GoFundMe CEO: Hello Congress, Americans need help and we can’t do your job for you
Coronavirus surge of fundraisers on GoFundMe shows why Congress must pass emergency aid for monthly bills, restaurants, small businesses and food.
The opinion piece in USA Today doesn’t tell us anything that most of us didn’t already know, but it is good that a CEO of a company, which is benefiting greatly from the current situation, is speaking out.
The Burger Flipper Who Became a World Expert on the Minimum Wage
As a 16-year-old kid flipping burgers at a Seattle McDonald’s in 1989, Arindrajit Dube was earning the state minimum wage of $3.85 an hour. “I remember feeling privileged that I was going to go on to college, while there were many older workers working at that wage,” he recalls.
He still thinks about the minimum wage, only now it’s from his perch at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he’s possibly the world’s leading authority on its economic effects. Dube’s research is guaranteed to get a bigger audience as Democrats in Congress attempt to make good on President Biden’s pledge to raise the federal wage floor to $15 an hour by 2025.
Intuitively, it makes sense that increasing the minimum wage, would force companies to increase prices, drive down sales, reduce company profit, and will even force companies into closing. Fortunately, as with many things, intuition is wrong in this.
This is for a few reasons:
Yes, there might be companies surviving on the very margins, which can’t increase their sales, which will close, but my guess is that many of those companies already have closed during this pandemic.
Further reading: Home Articles Making the Case for a Higher M… SHARE: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call Making the Case for a Higher Minimum Wage by Arindrajit Dube
Big Tech as an Unnatural Monopoly
Interesting piece by Tim Brennan in the Milken Institute Review, where he takes a look on Big Tech as monopolies, why they defy the current anti-trust laws, and what can actually be done about Big Tech.
Further reading: Rethinking Antitrust by Lawrence J. White (also in the Milken Institute Review)
This COVID-vaccine designer is tackling vaccine hesitancy — in churches and on Twitter
Immunologist Kizzmekia Corbett helped to design the Moderna vaccine. Now she volunteers her time talking about vaccine science with people of colour.
Kizzmekia Corbett’s twitter feed can be found here.
It is a low bar that President Biden has to clear, but I find it so nice that the US now has a president who is willing to thank people for their hard work
To everyone at the NIH — all the doctors, scientists, and researchers fighting this pandemic and saving lives — thank you from the bottom of my heart. You’re truly the best America has to offer. pic.twitter.com/lLpdZSLdjX
— President Biden (@POTUS) February 12, 2021