The state’s evangelical voters were once skeptical of the former President. Now they are among his strongest supporters.
Below, I have posted excerpts from a much longer article:
[…] Jon Dunwell, an Iowa legislator and evangelical pastor, [said] “So I feel like I am one of the most hated pastors in all of America right now,” Dunwell told me when we met, on December 14th, on the second floor of the capitol. “People would say to me, ‘Forget the Constitution, it’s a dead document. You’re a Christian first.’ ” […] “There is a vein in my party [the Republican Party] of Christian nationalism,” Dunwell told me.
That faction, he went on, was generally associated with the Trump movement and did not take the traditional approach toward politics—that Christian conservatives should try to elect people who would reflect their views and influence government. “It literally is their belief that Christianity should be the supreme religion of the United States, and everything should be judged in subjection to that.”
[…] In November, Reynolds announced her endorsement of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, joining earlier commitments by the state Senate president and state House majority leader. Two weeks later, the evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats, whose endorsement was so coveted that, for months, Politico had been breathlessly reporting about the “Vander Plaats primary,” declared that he was for DeSantis, too. In most cases, these Republicans tended to emphasize their personal disgust with Donald Trump. “I’ve never met a mom, or a dad, or a grandpa, or a grandma who wants their son or grandson to grow up to be like him,” Vander Plaats has said. Steve Deace, an Iowa talk-show host with a base among evangelicals, took aim at the treatment of Trump as a theological figure, tweeting, “We already have a Messiah to place our hope and faith in.”
But, when the authoritative Des Moines Register poll came out in mid-December, it showed that none of the endorsements had changed the dynamic: DeSantis was still at fifteen per cent, and Trump was far ahead, basically out of sight, at fifty per cent. It had been fourth-and-one; the conservative leaders had given their big anti-Trump push. They’d been, it seemed, stuffed.
[…] “Christians are running back and saying, ‘Don’t hand me that weak effeminate Christianity,’ ” Dunwell told me. “So I gotta pull a sword out now and have some sort of muscular Christianity?” He began speaking more quickly. “It grieves my soul,” he said. “These Christians—they call me a boomer. They say my generation of Christianity is the reason America is this way, not because we were ineffective in transforming lives but because we weren’t bold enough to grab the sinner by the neck and throw him down and enforce the laws of God. And that, to me, is scary. It’s a little bit—it can be Talibanistic.” Dunwell laughed grimly and added, “If I can use that word.”
[…] Among the Christian conservatives who had embraced Trump, Dunwell said, there was “this religious bent that says, We’re so sick and tired of losing. We’re so sick and tired of that, that what we’re going to do is try to impose our will now. They’ve been imposing their will on us, now we’re gonna try to impose our will on them.”
[…] Nationally, conservative Christian voters have become a bulwark of Trump’s support, so much so that, when the Deseret News surveyed Republican voters across the country, it found that sixty-four per cent of them thought Trump a “person of faith,” while just thirty-four per cent said the same about Mitt Romney, perhaps the country’s most famous member of the Mormon church. In Iowa, many of the same figures who had helped organize Christian conservatives behind Huckabee, Santorum, and Cruz have backed DeSantis, only to see his candidacy falter. […] in the pews the sentiment seemed to be Trump, no matter what.
[…] “Maybe this would sound strange to you, but I believe Trump has given us the gift of discernment,” the pastor said. “[A pro-Trump pastor from northern Iowa who agreed speak on the conditions that the reporter not name him, his church, or his town.] What I mean by that is he came in, he was asking questions and pushing back on so many things that never entered our mind. And it was like somebody just punched a hole in a brick wall. And we’re, like, there’s another side to this.” Trump, the pastor went on, “is very provocative and embellishes certain things. But, when you look at the core message, I think there’s a lot of truth to it, and it is that the people in charge aren’t to be trusted.”
[…] The pastor declined to say whether he thought that the 2020 election had been stolen, but in the debates over its legitimacy he saw a similar pattern: “Instead of wanting to be transparent about the voting process, it was almost, like, ‘How dare you question the way we did things?’ And you have to shut up and accept the way it was run.”
[…] “There’s coming a day when the world’s coming together,” he said. “And at the very top is going to be a man called the Antichrist or the king of sin, and he will rule for approximately seven years. And at the end of that time the Bible tells us Jesus Christ is coming back, and he is going to destroy that man.”
The pastor said this very evenly, in the same tone that he would use a few minutes later to explain the heart condition of a parishioner in the hospital. “So that’s why I don’t care about whether we are winning or losing the cultural war,” he said. “The Bible says this is where it is going.” In the meantime, he had his process of discernment.
[…] According to Samuel Perry, a sociologist at the University of Oklahoma who studies conservative Christianity, Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority, which helped define the Christian right in the eighties, had promoted the notion that America was under attack by internal forces that sought to sever the country from Biblical principles. That same insistence that the forces of secularism were “evil, even demonic,” as Perry, who is an evangelical Christian himself, put it, also prevailed in the George W. Bush years, when the power of the religious right was arguably at its peak. “What has changed,” Perry went on, “is a very real sense of demographic and political threat.”
[…] “I can show you quote after quote where Trump is talking about how Christianity is under attack and where Christians are losing ground,” Perry said. […] people think it’s all a good-and-evil election, and in the solution, that we need a strongman—that it’s so serious we can’t play around anymore with a nice guy.
[…] Trump himself has long talked about “witch hunts” and “evil people” out to get him—his words, for all their imprecision, often carry a theological charge. Just as often at his campaign stops, such sentiments come during the opening prayer. At an October rally in Waterloo, Pastor Joshua Graber, of the Cornerstone Baptist Church, in Vinton, had said, “We ask that those who stand against him would be put to silence. That those horrendous actions against him and his family would be exposed and struck down. When we leave this place, give us the courage to say no to evil. . . . Give us the courage to stand with President Trump in the caucuses and in the election to come.”
[…] “I suppose, in a way, ‘persecuted’ is the right word,” Graber said. Trump, he went on, “was being charged with a lot of things in court that I thought were politically motivated. […]
Listening to Graber, I could hear how naturally Trump’s conception of politics as a fight between good and evil resonated with the evangelical perspective—even more so now, in the time of his legal trials […]
I often heard from pastors in Iowa a similar theological over-excitement, a conviction that good and evil were at work in even the most basic political events. […] many pastors saw the Trump trials “as satanic.” […] For them, the attraction was the promise of power: the richest billionaire, the brightest display of force.
[…] “You think the farmers out here give a fuck about suburban women?”
[…] “If an election can be stolen, so can anything—our rights, our freedoms, our property, guns, anything.”
[…] “The whole point of separation of church and state was never to remove the church from government; the whole purpose was to keep the government out of the church.”
[…] “I believe with all my heart that through the stolen election there’s been devastation, destruction—there’s been nothing good the last four years,” he said. “Everything seems to be deliberate destruction. Why open the borders? Why close the pipelines? It’s ultimately to destroy our nation and our way of life.”
[…] “This is more than a fight between left and right, Democrats and Republicans,” Hall said. “This is good and evil. Biblically.”
birgerjohanssonsays
Where Homer Simpson went.
“Iconic Black Hole Pioneer Disproves The Existence of Singularities?”
Lynna, OM @2
The masks have fallen off.
If Biden (and democracy) survives the next election, the religious right will have dug its own grave. Apart from rural areas there will be no young people joining and replacing the old.
After his murder conviction was overturned in 2020, Marvin Cotton Jr. checked into a Comfort Inn outside Detroit, ready to begin a new life after nearly two decades in prison.
[…] More than a month living at the hotel ate up his modest savings, Cotton said. His conviction still showed up in background searches, he said, so when he found a landlord willing to rent to him, he had to pay extra. Finding a job seemed impossible. To keep up with expenses, he took out high-interest loans.
But there was hope: Michigan offers $50,000 for each year a person is wrongfully imprisoned, thanks to the Wrongful Imprisonment Compensation Act, which took effect in 2017. For Cotton, it seemed to promise nearly a million dollars.
[…] But in court, rather than agreeing to Cotton’s compensation claim, the Michigan attorney general’s office exercised its right to challenge it. It urged the court to reject the claim because it did not fit neatly into the parameters set out by WICA.
“You fight for years to prove your wrongful conviction was actually wrong,” Cotton said. “And then immediately, when you step out, you pick up this new war, and you’re constantly trying to prove yourself again.”
[…] Of the 103 people who filed claims between 2017 and late 2023, about 68% received compensation
[…] WICA has fallen short of early expectations, causing conflict in the courts while creating further uncertainty for people in the aftermath of a grave injustice.
[…] Now 60, Tomasik said he has nothing saved for retirement. He and his wife are on Medicaid, and he earns money by doing repair jobs on snowmobiles and dirt bikes. “I live at the lowest means I can possibly live on and survive,” he said.
Compensation wouldn’t make up for the terror he experienced in prison, Tomasik said, or for missing his children’s graduations, his son’s wedding and his mother’s deathbed. But, he said, “I’d love to get compensated at least something so I don’t got to worry about what I have to sell to pay my property taxes every year.”
Across the country, despite broad acknowledgement that wrongfully convicted people are entitled to some financial help, there is no uniform standard for how governments should compensate them. […]
On Friday, Donald Trump posted a fan-made tribute video, “GOD MADE TRUMP”. (The link goes to Truth Social. If you do not want to give them traffic numbers, a complete transcription follows.) To call this book-licking hagiography ‘bizarre’ would be a kindness. In truth, it is a glimpse into the mind of a zealot who has sacrificed their sanity on the cult’s altar.
[…] The ass-kissing would make Charles Dickens’ Uriah Heep blush.
[…] The voiceover intones:
“On June 14, 1946, God looked down on his planned paradise and said: ‘I need a caretaker.’ So God gave us Trump. God said I need someone willing to get up before dawn. Fix this country. Work all day. Fight the Marxists. Eat supper. Then go to the Oval Office and stay past midnight at a meeting of the heads of state. So God made Trump.
[…] It gets worse.
“I need someone with arms strong enough to rustle the Deep State. And yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild.”
[…] “I need somebody who can shape an ax. But wield a sword. Who had the courage to step foot in North Korea. Who can make money from the tar of the sand. Turn liquid to gold. Who understands the difference between tariffs and inflation. Will finish his 40-hour week by Tuesday noon. But then put in another 72 hours. So God made Trump.”
[…] “God had to have someone willing to go into the den of vipers. Call out the fake news for their tongues as sharp as a serpent’s. The poison of vipers is on their lips. And yet stop. So God made Trump.”
The religious imagery continues as the narrator celebrates the Lord of the Sheeple. […]
Next comes some political boilerplate celebrating the candidate’s prowess at energy independence, job creation, and national security. No news there — they all do that. However, the narrator loses the plot with the howler that Trump is a church-goer.
“Somebody who is willing to drill. Bring back manufacturing and American jobs. Farms the lands. Secure our borders. Build our military. Fight the system all day. And finish a hard week’s work by attending church on Sunday.”
At this point, the viewer — at least one who has not lost their mind — will think it cannot get more ludicrous. It does.
“And then his oldest son turns and says, “Dad, let’s make America great again. Dad, let’s build a country to be the envy of the world again. So God made Trump.”
(I do wish people didn’t project their ignorance unto others)
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
@birgerjohansson xxix,p6#449:
I think there is a difference between old-timers who know no better […] and young ones who choose to punch downwards.
[…]
Family Guy and South Park […] but they are consistently offensive to everyone without bias
[*plot summaries*] Even for someone who has complained about the show’s violently transphobic history, I had forgotten […] how bad Family Guy can be. What’s particularly disappointing, however, is that the show vowed to change.
in the latest episode […] a character interjected, “thought I read you guys were phasing out gay jokes,” to which Peter hit back: “That quote was taken out of context and widely misunderstood.”
[…]
After a wave of backlash [to the earlier vomiting episode], [Seth McFarlane], who identifies as straight, doubled-down on the narrative, suggesting that he may have reacted in the same way if he’d been […] “fooled” into sleeping with a trans person. […] This dodging through hoops to find ways to defend offensive humour is exhausting, so why does the show continue to do it?
[…]
[American Dad’s father character] regularly makes problematic jokes, but they usually come with a consequence and try to advocate morals. When Peter Griffin is homophobic, it’s just another day.
Seth said to HollywoodReporter in 2022 (re trans topics, etc): “Look, there are always things that you would do differently when you look back at earlier points in your career. There isn’t a big change I would make.”
“I mean, it really is that we take an issue, and we sort of always have two sides about to kill each other over it and the boys in the middle doing fart jokes and saying, you know, who cares?” Parker told NPR back in 2010. “This is, you know, you’re both crazy.” In a way, that both-sidesism—the idea that at the heart of every issue lie two equally wrong, equally annoying parties—was symptomatic of the show’s proudly childish point of view.
[…]
the show was created by two straight, cisgender, (now incredibly wealthy) white men. “I spend shockingly little time thinking about real-world stuff,” Parker told Rolling Stone in 2007, “As far as I’m concerned, I’ve got a computer, the Internet, an Xbox and PlayStation 3, so fuck off.” When you see the world from that childish vantage point, it’s easy to de-prioritize anything beyond your own enjoyment of life. Political disputes are just grating background noise that have no real impact upon their lives beyond distracting them from their video games.
[…]
its overriding opposition to the idea of ever conceding any amount of personal freedom to accommodate others aligns it with some of the more venomous ways that politicians and pundits have weaponized the free speech argument […] The truth is that no one […] made much effort to censor South Park in quite some time. […] two of the world’s richest comedians […] empowering those who seek to use their invented victimhood as a smokescreen for bigotry. This is Fox News’ gambit when they talk about the war on Christmas
South Park joked, global warming is just a dumb myth […] “Transgender people” are just mixed-up, surgical abominations. The word “[f-g]” is fine. Casual anti-Semitism is all in good fun. “Hate crimes” are silly.
[…]
South Park may not have “invented” the “alt-right,” but at their roots are the same bored, irritated distaste for politically correct wokeness, the same impish thrill at saying the things you’re not supposed to say, the same button-pushing racism and sexism, now scrubbed of all irony.
John Moralessays
CA7746, that’s all just hyperbole. Don’t take it seriously. :)
(How do ya like it?)
wzrd1says
Lynna, OM @ 5, that explains two ad campaigns I’ve been seeing inundating youtube. One, against solar in general, with all manner of outlandish claims for why solar is evil. The other, blathering about EV’s mystery battery failures that isn’t backed up with any factual reporting.
Gotta keep the fossil fuel industry happy, after all! And provide the additional benefit of cost savings on heating steel to heat treat it by turning earth into venus…
StevoRsays
Seems seals can catch bird flu – and sadly it kills them :
If the latest suspected case is avian influenza, it would be the closest the disease has been to Antarctica, after previously being detected as near as the Falkland Islands and South Georgia Island. Preventing its further spread across the frozen continent — including the vast section in the east claimed by Australia — is near impossible. “In South America, the virus travelled the entire 6,000-kilometre spine in about six months,” Dr Wille said. “So this virus has the capacity to move vast distances, fast. “We can only hope that it does not reach the Australian Antarctic Territory this austral summer. “If it does, it will likely do so with a trail of destruction.”
A study released late last month reaffirmed the devastating impact of the disease.
The report, published in Marine Mammal Science, analysed data from an outbreak among southern elephant seals at Peninsula Valdez in Argentina in early October. About 70 per cent of the 1,891 seal pups born along a 13-kilometre stretch of coastline during the peak breeding season died. During the same period a year earlier, the mortality rate was less than 1 per cent. By extrapolating the results across the region’s entire colony, researchers estimate around 17,400 seal pups succumbed to the deadly disease.
The Peregrine Mission 1 robotic lunar lander has been successfully (so far anyhow) launched NASA live launch video for that here whilst we have a wikipage on it here :
StevoR @ 15
Thank you for the link!
.
‘The Constitution disqualifies Trump’: Famed conservative judge predicts SCOTUS ruling.
(I wish I was as certain the SCOTUS judges will be non-corrupt!)
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=pH5JdL8FGGo&si=GRiOCh2e5c43lSyY
birgerjohanssonsays
StevoR, I was en route to work and could not watch the launch in real time.
Even if it is not a crewed mission, a craft designed for a crew landing on the moon is the first since Apollo 17 (I am old enough go have watched every Apollo launch since Apollo 8, and I would really have wanted to see this).
God-emperors are far beyond mere math.
Or sense.
As well proved when he wanted to nuke a hurricane.
birgerjohanssonsays
I love it when evil people make mistakes.
“Tories Select Disgraced MP’s Partner As Candidate”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=kfrwaYy1IPY&si=ALnFFS9CennLZ3WB
Never mind that a huge number of people -including conservatives- support the accusations against him, the local party will support the candidacy of his partner (who denies the allegations).
So they will be handicapped in an already difficult election, when tories are widely impopular and their rival party at the far right is also fielding a candidate.
May the US Republicans embrace the same kind of unfounded optimism!
birgerjohanssonsays
StevoR @ 14
To simplify watching, I have added times for significant moments.
“First US Commercial Moon Launch: Astrobotic Peregrine Mission 1 (Official NASA broadcast)”
Take-off is at 50 minutes 15 seconds.
Mach 1 is reached 1 minute 10 seconds into the mission.
SRBs are separated at 1 minute 50 seconds. I always get surprised how time flies when watching a launch
Cindy Morgan (Tron, 1981) has died. She was 69 years.
Akira MacKenziesays
I fail to see why liberals are complaining about the threat of fascism and Christian nationalism when they don’t seem willing to do anything to actually stop them.
Ukrainian Special Operations Forces (SSO) units reported the discovery and destruction of a rare Russian electronic warfare complex (EWC), “Triada-2,” in the Donetsk sector, the SSO announced on Jan. 8 on Facebook…
Triada-2 is an EWC specifically designed to disable communication satellites. The Russians completed its development in the fall of 2018, and by the spring of 2019, Triada-2 was first detected on the territory of the occupied Luhansk Oblast…
At one point during Rep. Jim Jordan’s latest interview with Maria Bartiromo, the Ohio Republican told the Fox News anchor that he wants to see Hunter Biden face consequences for failing to fully comply with a congressional subpoena. “It could be up to a year of jail time for failing to come and comply with a deposition,” Jordan said, adding that this is “serious stuff.”
Left unsaid was the fact that it was less than two years ago when Jordan himself received a congressional subpoena, which he proceeded to ignore.
The House Judiciary Committee chairman has not commented on whether he believes it was also “serious stuff” when he failed to comply.
But that wasn’t my favorite part of the interview. Rather, it was during the same on-air appearance when Bartiromo asked her guest for “the most damning evidence” he’s uncovered in his crusade against President Joe Biden.
“The most, I think, damning evidence thus far is what we got from Devon Archer, Hunter Biden’s business partner,” Jordan replied. [video at the link]
The GOP congressman probably should’ve thought this through a bit more.
In case anyone needs a refresher, House Republicans were excited this past summer ahead of their Q&A with Archer, hoping that he might be to provide them with explosive revelations.
He didn’t. Archer testified under oath that President Joe Biden wasn’t involved with Burisma, didn’t talk business with his son’s associates, and didn’t take bribes, effectively shredding each of the Republicans’ core claims. We know this for certain because GOP investigators released a transcript of the testimony.
Once the information came to light, it was Democrats who were eager to draw attention to Archer’s answers, since they did fresh harm to the Republican’s crusade.
That was five months. Now, evidently, Jordan expects the public to believe that the information provided by Archer to congressional investigators the most “damning evidence” they’ve uncovered to date. But therein lies the rub: If the most damning evidence House Republicans have is Archer debunking their claims, then House Republicans haven’t received any damning evidence.
Jordan’s comments weren’t a boast; they were effectively a confession that he has nothing.
[…] Accused of being a threat to democracy, Trump said Biden is “the real threat to democracy.” Accused of crossing legal lines in his hush-money scandal, Trump said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is “the real criminal.”
When Biden-era job growth soared, Trump said his followers should turn to him to understand “the real job numbers.” After he was caught pressuring Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” votes for him after his 2020 defeat, Trump said it was Raffensperger’s recording of the phone call that was “the real crime.”
Similarly, in 2019, facing a variety of intensifying scandals, Trump said the “real crimes” were committed by congressional Democrats.
Now, he’s apparently still hoping to identify the “real“ insurrection, too.
Let this be a lesson for those taking note of the former president’s rhetoric: When Trump references “the real [fill in the blank],” he’s trying to pull a fast one.
Trump went further in social media posts over the holidays, calling [President Joe Biden] an “insurrectionist” in response to a decision by the Colorado Supreme Court to remove Trump from the primary ballot. … On Saturday, Trump returned to the theme, concluding an extended broadside against undocumented immigration by saying, “When you talk about insurrection, what they’re doing, that’s the real deal.”
More than 500 gun purchases have been blocked since a new gun law requiring stricter background checks for young people went into effect in 2022, Attorney General Merrick Garland said Friday. … The bipartisan law passed in June 2022 was the most sweeping gun legislation in decades and requires extra checks for any gun purchases by people under age 21.”
Thee AP report added that, according to the Justice Department, those who’d been denied a gun purchase included “a person convicted of rape, a suspect in an attempted murder case and someone who had been involuntarily committed for mental-health treatment.”
President Joe Biden, who signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act in 2022, issued a statement that said, “Simply put: this legislation is saving lives.”
Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who helped negotiate the provisions of the law, added, “It can be difficult to measure success in terms of tragedies prevented, but there is no doubt that stopping these 500 guns from landing in the hands of someone who poses a danger to themselves or others has saved lives.”
I’m not unsympathetic to arguments that the bulk of the efforts to combat crime is done at the local level. But the more laws like these work, the more we’re reminded that federal policymakers can — and should — make a difference.
On Sunday, ABC News reported on alleged statements from Donald Trump staffers forced to testify to special counsel Jack Smith about events on Jan. 6, 2021. Included was former deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino, who continues to work for Trump as a paid adviser to his election campaign. Those statements shred any idea that Trump did anything other than support the insurgency.
The result of testimony by Scavino and others who were present in the White House as the Trumpist mob stormed the Capitol doesn’t just confirm what was already known—that Trump sat and watched images of the insurrection without taking action—it undercuts a critical item that supporters have been using in an effort to distance Trump from assaults on police and threats against members of Congress.
A tweet including the phrase “stay peaceful,” which appeared on Trump’s Twitter account almost half an hour after the pro-Trump forces smashed through the windows of the Capitol, was not written by Trump. Instead, it was both written and posted by Scavino while Trump sat cheering on the attack.
he “stay peaceful” part of the tweet was always a lie. The message appeared over an hour after police on the scene first reported injuries and called for backup as the Trump mob forced them to retreat to the Capitol steps and broke through line after line. It was far too late for Trump’s supporters to stay peaceful.
The brief tweet seems to be urging Trump supporters to at least halt their assaults on the police, though it notably doesn’t call for them to withdraw from the Capitol.
But even this small gesture turns out to be a lie. According to the testimony reported by ABC, the tweet came as Trump was sitting in the White House dining room “with his arms folded and his eyes locked on the TV,” angrily cheering on the insurgents. After 20 minutes of trying to get Trump to send some kind of message to calm the situation, Scavino and other aides stepped out of the room.
When they did, Trump pulled out his phone and posted to Twitter.
Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done […]
This tweet spurring the insurgents on was authentically written and posted by Trump.
After seeing this message, Scavino and others returned to the dining room and told Trump this wasn’t what was needed to resolve the situation. “But it’s true,” said Trump. When he was told that Pence had to be rushed to a secure location, Trump responded, “So what?”
It was only after this, with pro-Trump insurgents already inside the Capitol and assaults on police continuing, that Scavino—who also had access to Trump’s Twitter account—wrote and published the “stay peaceful” tweet. Scavino reportedly showed the tweet to Trump before it was posted and was given permission to send it.
[…] Finally, almost two hours after the Scavino tweet, Jared Kushner talked Trump into sending a video that eventually helped to end the event. But even then, that brief video informed the insurgents that they were “very special,” declared that Trump loved them, and insisted that “this was a fraudulent election.” It wasn’t a warning to the insurgents. It was a pat on the head.
[…] Trump didn’t just fail to act, he refused to act in the face of repeated requests from his closest advisers, members of Congress, and his daughter. Scavino only agreed to provide this testimony to Smith’s office after losing a battle over a federal subpoena.
The single action of the afternoon that was seen by some as exculpatory wasn’t written or posted by Trump. Instead, Trump was directly responsible only for the tweet that encouraged his followers to take out their wrath on Pence […]
I hope the conservatives on the Supreme Court take note.
As we head into the final year of his first term, President Biden is 21 judicial appointments behind former President Trump’s pace of 187 confirmed judges after three years. This is not for a lack of nominations by the White House, but for a lack of consistent political will by the Senate majority in prioritizing judges. As a result, Senate leadership is starting the new year with this challenge before it: to confirm upwards of 70 judges in twelve months to ensure that Biden matches, or better yet exceeds Trump’s total of 234 confirmations in four years. […]
BTW the celibacy was really because there were problems with inheritance etc and the celibacy was then retroactively justified ideologically by saying priests hanging out with women was inherently sinful because wimminz are oozing evil, or whatever.
The Catholic Church is not a bastion of clear thinking.
A ban on the public display of swastika symbols and the Nazi salute in Australia went into effect Monday.
The first-of-its-kind law was passed last month as a response to rising antisemitism and hate crimes in the country, especially after the onset of the Israel-Hamas war.
Attorney General Mark Dreyfus said the law sends “a clear message: there is no place in Australia for acts and symbols that glorify the horrors of the Holocaust and terrorist acts.”
Specifically, the law bans the display or sale of symbols associated with designated terror groups, which includes Nazis. Violations are punishable by up to 12 months in prison.
More antisemitic incidents have occurred in the three months since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war than the previous year, according to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.
There were 662 such incidents in October and November alone, the organization said, about 50 percent more than the entire 12 months prior.
Notable incidents in Australia include a group of protesters chanting “gas the Jews” in October, and a group of neo-Nazis performing a salute during a transgender rights protest in March.
The bill was proposed in June, with the salute ban being added by amendment in November. Every Australian state has already banned Nazi symbols, Dreyfus’s office said. […]
Back in 2011, the European Union barred the export of sodium thiopental and other drugs used in lethal injections on the grounds that the death penalty is repugnant and they want the US to stop doing it. Manufacturers such as Pfizer followed suit, making the three-drug cocktail formerly used to end the lives of people sentenced to death for crimes they may or may not have committed practically impossible to get. Doctors won’t participate either, as nearly all medical associations deem the practice unethical — leaving IV insertion to untrained hands.
While all of this has certainly slowed down the number of executions in the US, it hasn’t stopped it entirely. Instead, many states have tried other lethal injection cocktails, leading to a surge in executions going terribly, terribly, horrifically wrong. In 2022, more than a third of attempted executions were botched — including Alabama’s attempted execution of one Kenneth Eugene Smith, convicted of murder-for-hire in 1996, in which a bunch of Definitely Not Medical Professionals spent hours and hours trying and failing to properly insert an IV while Smith was strapped to a gurney.
But Alabama has not given up on trying to kill Kenneth Smith, even though the only reason he is facing the death penalty is because of a judicial override of the jury’s recommendation that he receive life without parole, a practice outlawed in the state in 2017.
Rather, they plan to try to kill him on January 25 by asphyxiating him with nitrogen hypoxia, something which has never been attempted before in Alabama or any other state — at least on humans. It was once used to put animals to sleep, but was later deemed too “unacceptable” by the American Veterinary Medical Association due to its tendency to produce panic, distress and seizures in non-avian animals (like humans).
While such death penalty enthusiasts as Alabama Governor Kay Ivey are very excited to give the cruel and unusual new method a go, non-sadists are less enthusiastic. Experts from the United Nations issued a statement last week warning the state not to go through with it.
Via United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights:
The recently approved ‘Executions’ Protocol’ of the State of Alabama, allows for the use of nitrogen gas asphyxiation. “We are concerned that nitrogen hypoxia would result in a painful and humiliating death,” the experts said. They warned that experimental executions by gas asphyxiation – such as nitrogen hypoxia – will likely violate the prohibition on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment.
They expressed regret about the continuation of executions in the US, which contradict global trends towards the abolition of the death penalty. Botched executions, lack of transparency of execution protocols and the use of untested drugs to execute prisoners in the US have continuously drawn the attention of the UN mechanisms, including special procedures.
The experts noted that punishments that cause severe pain or suffering, beyond harms inherent in lawful sanctions, likely violate the Convention against Torture to which the United States is a party, and the Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment that guarantees that no detainee shall be subjected to medical or scientific experimentation which may be detrimental to his health.
[…] it would almost appear that those in charge of our prison system specifically used the UN’s Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Nelson Mandela Rules) as a guide for what not to do.
The UN experts have appealed to both the United States and the state of Alabama to halt this execution pending review of this method, but that seems relatively unlikely to happen, because America/Alabama.
@37: “The Catholic Church is not a bastion of clear thinking.”
Heh. Understatement.
johnson catmansays
re birgerjohansson @25: I have been looking forward to the new season of True Detective ever since I read that Jodie Foster was going to be starring in it. I have seen all three previous seasons of the show, and they were all interesting and compelling.
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 38
GASP! What a horrible infringement of freedom of speech! How can Australia call itself a “democracy’ if Nazis aren’t allowed to wave their bloodly banner and spread their foul racist crap? Some needs to call the Down-under equivalent of the ACLU to sue on behalf of white supremacists everywhere!
Two cellphones that fell out have been recovered.
In the preceding month, a cabin pressure warning light activated on three occasions.
birgerjohanssonsays
In Germany nazi symbols have been banned since the war, for obvious historical reasons.
They are banned in Sweden, too.
The reasoning is, people who feel affinity with the fucking Austrian art-school reject are potential mega-war-criminals and – like that Norwegian mass murderer- their complaints about human rights are BS.
birgerjohanssonsays
BTW at 5000 m altitude the air pressure is nearly half that at sea level.
A rapid pressure drop like that must have been painful, also you need to rapidly lose altitude even if 5000 m is generally not enough to lose consciousness.
.
At normal cruise altitude of 12000 m there would certainly have been fatalities.
The pressure gradient at the hole would have sucked out nearby passengers even if they had been wearing their seat belts.
Quickly grabbing oxygen masks would have been essential for surviving while the pilots quickly tried to reach low altitude.
I am reminded of the DC-10 that crashed in the late 1970s after a poorly designed cargo hatch was torn loose. The pressure gradient tore up the floor, where the hydraulic lines to the controls were mounted.
Is exploitation a bad thing? The Holy Roman Catholic Church has been exploiting its power over families for a century or more. By opposing effective birth control, they hope to get many more young Catholics.
Chinese officials filled missiles with water instead of rocket fuel in one example of pervasive corruption, according to a report on U.S. intelligence assessments of China’s military…
A special election to replace former Rep. Kevin McCarthy following the speaker’s resignation last month will be held on May 21, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Monday.
The primary for the special election is set for March 19, the governor said…
Police and fire trucks showed up Sunday night at the house of Tanya Chutkan, the federal judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s election interference case after she appeared to be the target of an attempted “swatting” attack.
Police confirmed to NBC News that they responded to false reports of a shooting at a house that a witness identified as Chutkan’s home. A law enforcement official also confirmed that it was Chutkan’s home and that she was home when police arrived at her residence…
birgerjohanssonsays
Noah and Eli at God Awful Movies are torturing Dr. Cara Santa Maria with the film “E-motions 2.0”.
(I am a Patreon member but they will probably put this at Youtube in another day)
birgerjohanssonsays
From Mano Singham:
“The further adventures of Kristina Karamo”
Did you know that Democrats are harvesting organs from children?
The company behind America’s latest mission to soft-land on the Moon is battling to save the project.
Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic says its Peregrine spacecraft has a faulty propulsion system that’s losing “critical” amounts of fuel.
The issue has already made it difficult for the craft to point its solar panels at the Sun to generate electricity and may now scupper the planned touch-down.
Astrobotic is now talking about changing its mission goals.
[…]
“We are currently assessing what alternative mission profiles may be feasible at this time.”
Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft’s attempt to justify his ludicrous threat to have President Joe Biden removed from the state’s electoral ballot spiraled into chaos over the most basic of questions: “How so?”
During a Monday interview with CNN’s Boris Sanchez, the Republican was asked how he justified his threats to have Biden removed from the state’s ballot in retaliation for recent attempts to remove Trump from state ballots on grounds that his actions in the aftermath of the 2020 election constitute insurrection. The constitutionality of such a removal will soon be reviewed by the Supreme Court.
“What would then be your justification for removing Joe Biden from the ballot in Missouri. Has he engaged in your mind in some kind of insurrection?” Sanchez asked.
“There have been allegations that he’s engaged in insurrection,” Ashcroft replied. He was then met with the most dreaded predicament amongst grandstanding blowhards: a follow-up question…
wzrd1says
birgerjohansson @ 47, not that great a pressure change. The cabin altitude for US flights is between 8000 and 10000 feet. So, about a change from 10.1 – 10.9 PSI to 8 PSI, a 2 PSI change, sea level being 14.7 PSI. At 30000 feet, one is talking about 4.36 PSI.
And people skydive from 12000 – 18000 feet, with supplemental O2 at the higher altitudes, time of usable consciousness being much higher at 16000 feet, compared to 30000 feet. Figure around a half hour at 16000 feet, 1 – 3 minutes at 30000 feet, at 35000 feet 30 – 50 seconds, 40000 feet and you’re screwed at 15 – 20 seconds.
At high altitudes/low pressure, the blood gas exchange system essentially begins draining the blood of its gases, to a fair extent, nitrogen included, but CO2 and O2 both are quickly lost. Frostbite also becomes a major risk at any of those altitudes, with 35000 feet basically reaching dry ice temperatures.
Getting ejected, that’s as much flow vs surface area within the air flow, the closer to the hole, the greater the force.
That said, it’s likely my personal time of useful consciousness would be fairly, if not much lower than the average. At normal cabin pressurization levels, I tend to feel out of sorts, drained and have difficulty remaining awake. At cruising altitude, I’d likely be awakened by a depressurization event, loaded with adrenaline as my bloodstream is depleting atmospheric gases and if I managed to find my face with my mask, I’d be unlikely to remember to tug on the tubing to activate the oxygen generator. Which is one reason flight attendants have oxygen tanks to lug down the aisles, so that they can check that passengers are masked and have the generator activated.
A bit of trivia, the plug type door that fell off and was found weighs in around 60 pounds and images of NTSB personnel recovering it show it appearing quite intact.
Makes me wonder if teacher Bob emulated the 2001 scene when the apes found the monolith in their garden… ;)
Claudia de la Cruz…
The Party for Socialism and Liberation… But De la Cruz, the party’s presidential candidate, is optimistic about this moment in American politics – even if she is realistic about what she and her running mate, Karina Garcia, can achieve at the ballot box next year…
Attorneys for Donald Trump claim that the former president didn’t have “fair notice” that his attempts to reverse his Georgia loss in the 2020 presidential election could result in criminal charges against him…
“Our country has a longstanding tradition of forceful political advocacy regarding widespread allegations of fraud and irregularities in a long list of presidential elections throughout our history, therefore, President Trump lacked fair notice that his advocacy in the instance of the 2020 presidential election could be criminalized,” according to his attorneys…
Russian forces remain on the offensive throughout much of Eastern Ukraine, although their greatest focus appears to be predominantly around Avdiivka and Bakhmut. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s only active offensive of note [is] attempting a crossing of the Dnipro River east of Kherson, around the village of Krynky.
One notable development has been Ukraine’s careful shuffling of its most powerful armored fighting vehicles among its engaged front-line units handling Russian offensives large and small. Ukraine has been getting this hardware where it is most needed while taking pains to rest and recover many of its key units from its summer counteroffensive. [map at the link]
Although the battle lines have not moved more than a kilometer or two in any direction this winter, the fighting has remained fierce. Even in areas with fewer concentrations of Ukrainian and Russian troops, like the fighting in the far northeast around Kupiansk, Russia has been launching repeated smaller-scale assaults.
For example, between Dec. 14, 2023, and Jan. 4, the Russians launched a series of seven assaults towards the town of Synkivka, about 8 kilometers northeast of Kupiansk. Synkivka sits on the main highway approaching Kupiansk from the northeast. The town thus represents a crucial logistical stepping stone for any Russian attempt to recapture the strategically important town of Kupiansk, a key crossing site of the Oskil River. [map at the link]
Accordingly, Ukraine has reportedly heavily fortified the town, including the laying of dense minefields to protect against potential approach vectors by Russian assault forces. The town is reportedly garrisoned by elements of the 14th and 30th Mechanized Brigades. Both are veteran units that date back to 2014 or before, although equipped predominantly with aging Soviet-era arms and equipment.
Russian attempts to punch through these defenses have not gone well. [Tweet and video at the link]
Russia began a series of mechanized attacks running straight through the minefields north of Synkivka, sending columns of various tanks and BMP infantry fighting vehicles through narrow routes supposedly cleared of mines by Russian combat engineer units.
The attacks have yielded no significant advances. More recent Russian attacks in the same minefield can be seen driving beside the wreckage of prior attacks.
Despite the repeated failures, the latest video posted by the 30th Mechanized [video at the link] shows yet another column of Russian BMPs rolling straight into a minefield and getting pinned down by FPV drone attacks before the remainder are subjected to artillery bombardment—topped off with a cluster-munition shell raking the dismounted survivors.
Similarly, Russian forces have relentlessly tried to push Ukraine back from its toehold on the left bank of the Dnipro River around Krynky. Despite vastly outnumbering Ukrainian ground forces in the area, Ukrainian advantages in drone warfare and artillery have balanced the odds. [Tweet and video at the link]
Ukraine’s offensive in Krynky is being conducted by the light infantry brigade of the 35th Marines, supported by numerous artillery, drone, anti-aircraft, and electronic warfare units. However, Ukraine has very few armored vehicles on the left bank due to the difficulty of moving armor across the river without a bridge.
So where are Ukraine’s best armored units?
One of Ukraine’s most powerful armored units is the 47th Mechanized Brigade. It spearheaded the Ukrainian advance that liberated Robotyne in the Zaporizhzhia portion of the summer counteroffensive, and given that it is equipped with M2 Bradley fighting vehicles and Ukraine’s most advanced Leopard 2A6 tanks, it is arguably the most powerful fighting unit in the Ukrainian Army.
The 47th Brigade is presently deployed north of Avdiivka, and has been instrumental in halting the Russian advance toward Stepove for over two months,
In particular, the Bradleys’ rapid-firing 25mm autocannons have been devastatingly effective at stopping both Russian light armor and massed infantry assaults. [video at the link]
One curious recent development has involved one of the 47th Brigade’s other advanced armored vehicles: its Leopard 2A6 tanks. Despite the fact the 47th Brigade is involved in one of the fiercest areas of combat anywhere in the present Russo-Ukrainian war, the Ukrainian General Staff appears to have stripped the 47th Brigade of its Leopard 2A6s and replaced them with the ubiquitous T-64BV tank.
Rumors about the transfer of the tanks began to swirl around social media in late December as posts from the 21st Mechanized Brigade revealed that they were now operating Leopard 2A6 tanks.
The 21st Mechanized operates far to the north of Avdiivka, defending Ukrainian positions east of Lyman against a Russian offensive out of Kreminna. The 21st Brigade is sometimes called the “Swedish Brigade” because it received training in Sweden and was equipped with the highly advanced Swedish CV90 infantry fighting vehicle and Strv 122 tank (a Swedish variant of the Leopard 2A5 tank). [map at the link]
The reason the 21st Brigade revealing its use of the Leopard 2A6 immediately raised eyebrows is due to this model’s rarity within the Ukrainian army. Ukraine received only 21 Leopard 2A6 tanks from Germany. A Ukrainian Mechanized Brigade typically operates a single tank battalion with 30 tanks, and so a battalion of Leopard 2A6 tanks would have begun understrength, and at least seven of the tanks have been confirmed destroyed with several more damaged.
The 47th Brigade may have had under a dozen operational Leopard 2A6s remaining. It appears that Ukraine may have chosen to consolidate its remaining Leopard 2A6 and Strv 122 (Leopard 2A5s) as a single battalion attached to the 21st Brigade.
As the 21st Brigade received only 10 Strv 122s and has lost at least a few in combat, the Leopard 2A6s may have been needed badly. As a result, the 47th Brigade appears to now be operating the heavily upgraded Soviet T-64BVs, one of Ukraine’s workhorse Soviet-era tanks.
The T-64BVs are Ukraine’s most commonly fielded tank. At 40 tons, it is far lighter than the 62-ton Leopard 2A6 or the 68-ton M1A1SA Abrams. It has a far weaker engine and far less protection for its crew.
Extensive upgrades to its fire control systems and night fighting abilities make the T-64BV a dependable and solid if lightly protected tank. The T-64BV has performed admirably, and its night fighting capabilities have proved superior to many older Russian tanks. It is still an unmistakably inferior tank to a Leopard 2A6.
Why would Ukraine choose to remove its best tank from a unit involved in the heaviest and most desperate fighting anywhere in the war?
One possible answer suggested by analysts was that the 31 M1ASA Abrams tanks that arrived in Ukraine this winter were intended for the 47th Brigade—but thus far, there has been no indication that Abrams has been deployed with the 47th Brigade, or has entered combat at all. One possible reason for the Abrams’s absence may be the need for additional protection against drone strikes for the weaker side armor of Abrams, but whatever the case may be, the Abrams does not appear to have replaced the Leopard 2A6s on the front lines.
Instead, the reason may be simple scarcity and need. Unlike in past modern conflicts, tanks used in close-range assault roles in large numbers simply have not been a common part the fighting in Ukraine except during the first few months of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Rather than pressing in at close ranges to assault enemy positions, the most common use of tanks has been as heavily protected fire support platforms—staying 2-3 kilometers back from combat while firing shells to support infantry attacks.
When both sides’ tanks are standing back 2-3 kilometers, the tanks only rarely venture into each other’s practical firing ranges, making tank-on-tank combat quite a rarity.
To the extent that tanks do venture forward, it is often to rescue an embattled and isolated unit. If a Ukrainian infantry fighting vehicle is disabled and its crew and passengers pinned down, it is not an uncommon tactic for a pair of tanks to push forward to help.
Their heavy armor makes such a move more survivable, and its powerful main gun can be extremely threatening to anything short of a Russian main battle tank, forcing other vehicles to pull back. The tanks can lay down smoke and the survivors can hop onto the tops of the tanks to hitch a ride back to friendly lines.
In fulfilling such roles, it may be that the modern tanks are more needed by the 21st Brigade than the 47th.
The 47th Mechanized Brigade’s Bradleys have the powerful TOW2 anti-tank guided missiles that can help them take out all but the most modern Russian tanks with equally advanced electronic countermeasures. They can do this on their own, without the need for a tank acting in support.
Comparatively, the 21st Brigade’s CV90s have a powerful firing 40mm autocannon that can tear up any Russian armor short of a main battle tank and utterly wreck dismounted infantry units—but it is not powerful enough to penetrate the frontal armor of most Russian main battle tanks.
Given that tank-on-tank combat is relatively rare in the first place, and that the Bradleys can hold their own against older Russian tank units better than CV90s, the 21st Brigade’s need for modern tanks may simply have been greater than the 47th Brigade’s.
Whatever the case may be, the episode also equally shows just how few modern tanks Ukraine has been given, and the struggle for Ukraine to meet the needs of its front-line units, juggling their limited resources.
The news isn’t all bad.
Some of Ukraine’s most elite units that led the summer 2023 counteroffensive appear to be resting, recovering, and incorporating replacement troops. There has been little sign of the powerful 82nd Air Assault Brigade, with its Challenger 2 tanks and American Stryker Fighting Vehicles, which Rybar reports as resting in Western Ukraine. There has been no sign of the 1st Tank Brigade anywhere on the front lines since early November 2023.
Ukraine has been busy standing up five new mechanized Brigades (160th, 161st, 162nd, 163rd, and 164th) equipped largely with Soviet equipment. Some of these units are likely to receive the older Leopard 1A5 tanks that should be arriving in the hundreds in 2024.
Despite the Biden administration announcing it has exhausted the last bit of available funding for Ukraine aid as of Dec. 27, and while the European Union struggles to pass an aid bill for Ukraine due to a veto by Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orbán, Ukraine appears to be doing its utmost to preserve and strengthen a reserve fighting power for spring and summer.
Any hopes of a major victory may be slim without significant further U.S. and European aid, making reserves critical if Ukraine hopes to continue grinding down Russian combat strength in the continuing war of attrition.
Roger Stone plotted to kidnap/assassinate Representative Swalwell or Nadler and assassinate them. Further, it’s on tape.
In a recorded conversation with Sal Greco (actual name), NYPD police officer moonlighting as security for Stone, at the Caffe Europa (actual name) restaurant in Fort Lauderdale Florida, the following was stated by Stone just weeks before the 2020 election:
“It’s time to do it. Let’s go find Swalwell. It’s time to do it. Then we’ll see how brave the rest of them are. It’s time to do it. It’s either Nadler or Swalwell has to die before the election. They need to get the message. Let’s go find Swalwell and get this over with . . . He needs to be punished. You have to abduct him and punish him. That has to be done. It will be easy to abduct him because he is a weakling.”
Greco does not deny the conversation, dismissing it as “ancient political fodder.” For his part, Stone claims it is a deep fake AI hoax.
Greco, who acted as security for Stone and was with the operative during the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol soon after the 2020 election, was fired by the NYPD over his association with Stone. An NYPD spokesperson confirmed to Mediaite that Greco was terminated in August 2022.
There’s also this:
Stone was convicted of obstruction, witness tampering, and lying to Congress in the Mueller investigation. Prosecutors sought a nine-year prison sentence for the longtime Republican operative, but Trump’s Justice Department reportedly intervened to impose a less severe sentence. Stone’s sentence was eventually commuted by Trump days before reporting to prison.
A conservative anti-Trump group is running a TV ad this week reminding voters about Donald Trump’s culpability for inciting the deadly Jan. 6 riot.
The spot, which will run on Fox News Jan. 8-10, intersperses actual riot footage with several congressional Republicans weighing in on Trump’s responsibility during the brief window in which they dared to speak the truth. The ad is set to run nationally during Fox News town hall events featuring Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, and Donald Trump as Republican voters prepare for the first-in-the-nation caucus in Iowa on Jan. 15 and the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 23.
“We want to make sure Republican primary voters don’t miss this,” wrote Republican Accountability Project executive director Sarah Longwell, subtweeting the ad. [Video available at the link]
In the opening frames of the ad, Trump tells the MAGA faithful during his Jan. 6 speech at the White House Ellipse, “You have to get your people to fight!”
Footage of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell speaking from the well of the Senate follows, with McConnell, representing the GOP’s establishment wing, declaring, “President Trump is responsible for provoking the events of the day.”
Back to Trump: “And we fight … we fight like hell.”
Cue Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, from the MAGA wing of the party: “The president’s language and rhetoric crossed a line and it was reckless.”
Trump then says, “We will never concede … you don’t concede when there’s theft involved.”
From inside the halls of Congress on Jan. 6, Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, a rising GOP star, says, “This is the cost of telling thousands of people that there is a legitimate shot at overturning the election.”
As block letters stating “Trump Did This” fill the screen, Trump is heard saying, “And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
The ad is a clear effort to persuade any voters who harbor hesitations about Trump to abandon him […]
The chances of anyone defeating Trump in the Republican primary remain exceedingly low, but the longer he has to fight for the nomination, the better for President Biden’s reelection chances—and democracy as a whole.
Hm. I note there are 95 matches for ‘Trump’ on this page as I type this.
Constantly in the conversation, he is.
Either a coincidence, or he’s a fucking genius at being in the conversation.
—
P.T. Barnum: “There’s no such thing as bad publicity”.
Oscar Wilde: “There’s only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”
Ah well.
(PS “There is no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary.” — Brendan Behan)
birgerjohanssonsays
I would love if SSAT disappears into obscurity. He has been polluting the media on a daily basis since 2015.
.
I do not pity the NRA, but the idea of “designated contrarians” is a good one. Also, Elon Musk would hate it which is another argument in its favor.
Both the Catholic Church and the Israeli military use it, with varying success.
“Opinion: ‘Designated contrarians’ could disrupt the kind of consensus and groupthink that contributed to the NRA’s economic woes”
Gabriel Attal has been named France’s next prime minister, as Emmanuel Macron aims to revive his presidency with a new government.
At 34, he is the youngest PM in modern French history, outranking even Socialist Laurent Fabius who was 37 when he was appointed by François Mitterrand in 1984.
Mr Attal replaces Élisabeth Borne, who resigned after 20 months in office…
Gabriel Attal, who is currently education minister, certainly makes an eye-catching appointment…
The slaughter and sale of dogs for their meat is to become illegal in South Korea after MPs backed a new law.
The legislation, set to come into force by 2027, aims to end the centuries-old practice of humans eating dog meat…
Under the new law the consumption of dog meat itself will not be illegal…
The new law focuses on the dog meat trade – those convicted of butchering dogs face up to three years in prison, while people found guilty of raising dogs for meat or selling dog meat could serve a maximum of two years…
The list of people Republicans are currently trying to impeach. or whom they want to impeach, is growing:
As this week got underway, House Republicans announced plans to advance their impeachment crusade against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. A day later, another House Republican announced new efforts to impeach Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
Around the same time, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer made another appearance on a conservative media outlet, where he seemed amenable to the idea of impeaching Attorney General Merrick Garland. [video art the link]
Keep in mind, over the course of 2023, several GOP lawmakers, including then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, raised the prospect of impeaching the nation’s chief law enforcement official. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia introduced a pending impeachment resolution against Garland last May, as did Rep. Scott Perry, who also unveiled a similar resolution.
Evidently, Comer is open to the same idea.
All of this, of course, also coincides with the House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry targeting the incumbent president, which advanced last month with the unanimous support of the GOP conference. In addition to Biden, Mayorkas, Austin, and Garland, the House Republicans’ impeachment list also includes Vice President Kamala Harris, several other Cabinet secretaries, the director of the FBI, and a federal prosecutor some conservatives don’t like.
Republicans want to impeach:
President Biden
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin
Attorney General Merrick Garland
Vice President Kamala Harris
Secretary of State Antony Blinken
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg
Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona
FBI Director Chris Wray
Matthew Graves, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia
Where do they find the time?
birgerjohanssonsays
Cause of Sinéad O’Connor’s death ruled as natural causes
[…] The arguments about Trump’s immunity was heard by a panel of three judges: Biden appointees Michelle Childs and Florence Pan, and George H. W. Bush appointee Karen Henderson
[…] As his legal briefs tell it, Trump simply believes two things.
One is that what he did to overturn his loss in the 2020 election constituted protected, non-prosecutable official duties of the president.
The other has to do with his February 2021 impeachment. His acquittal, Trump argues, means that he cannot be charged criminally over crimes which he says formed the subject of his impeachment.
[…] Special counsel Jack Smith has dismissed Trump’s immunity argument in appeals briefs as an attempt to “license Presidents to commit crimes to remain in office.”
A potential way for the D.C. Circuit to keep the case on time emerged last month from an unexpected place.
Nonprofit organization American Oversight proposed via amicus brief that the immunity issue is only appealable after conviction.
That is to say, the D.C. Circuit should hold off on deciding the underlying issue until Trump completes his trial.
[…] Lots of questions, particularly from Childs, about whether this is the proper time for them to hear the immunity question
Pan Brings Up Hypothetical: What If President Has SEAL Team Six Assassinate Political Rival?
!!! Pan unveils a chilling hypothetical to poke holes in Sauer’s argument. She’s currently trying to corner him into saying that Presidents can be criminally prosecuted for official acts.
“Doesn’t that narrow the issues before us to ‘can a president be prosecuted without first being impeached and convicted?’” she asked, adding that all of his other arguments seem “to fall away.”
Childs Hammers Political Nature Of Impeachment VS. ‘Impartial’ Prosecutions
Team Trump has been trying to make a “double jeopardy” argument based on the similarity of the two proceedings; Childs is pointing out that impeachment is just different, and more narrowly tailored to the Senate’s “political judgement.”
Pan Reminds Sauer That Trump Once Said No Former Office Holder Is Immune
Trump said it then, via his lawyer, in the context of trying to convince senators not to convict him during his impeachment proceedings, since criminal prosecution was always available later — a little bit of robbing Peter to pay Paul.
“Why have you changed your position?” Pan asked.
[…] “I think it’s paradoxical to say that Trump’s constitutional duty to take care that laws be faithfully executed allows him to violate criminal laws,” Henderson said.
She added that they’re at the motion to dismiss stage, meaning that they have to take the indictment as facially true.
Henderson is Sauer’s most natural ally on this panel — and she doesn’t sound very convinced by his arguments.
The pretextual reason for GOP senators to vote to acquit Trump in his Jan. 6 impeachment trial wasn’t on the merits, Judge Childs just pointed out. Rather, they clung to the idea that because Trump was out of office, the Senate lacked jurisdiction.
“If there is an acquittal, how are you using it in that regard?” Childs asked. “Sometimes, the acquittal can arise from lack of jurisdiction, not from trying the merits of the case.”
[…] [Sauer says] the case should be kicked back down to the district court so it can sift through the indictment to determine which charges actually focus on official acts vs. private ones. [Delay tactic!!]
[…] Judge Henderson wants to know: “How do we write an opinion that would stop the floodgates?” referring to a supposed deluge of prosecutions of former presidents once they leave office. “Your predecessors in their OLC opinions recognized that criminal liability would be unavoidably political.”
Pearce replied that there’s never been an allegation like that against Trump: that he used his power to “subvert” the peaceful transfer of power.
Pearce added that Nixon’s acceptance of a pardon after his resignation undermines the “impeachment first” argument Trump has been making.
[…] Pan Tees Up Impeachment Argument For Special Counsel
Judge Pan returned just now to her earlier point: if Trump concedes that he can be prosecuted post-impeachment and conviction, then doesn’t he fundamentally agree that presidents are subject to criminal prosecution? Aren’t we then simply arguing over an interpretation of the impeachment judgement clause?
Pan lobbed that question to Pearce, inviting him to address Trump’s argument with that helpful framing.
“I think that’s basically right,” he replied.
Sauer is gripping tightly to the “floodgates” argument that Judge Henderson briefly entertained earlier.
“What he’s forecasting is a situation where the floodgates will open,” Sauer said, asserting (perhaps not unrelatedly to who he is representing) that not granting Trump immunity will lead to a wave of political prosecutions.
[…] Childs Asks If Serving As President Essentially Gives You Lifelong Immunity
[…] Judge Pan asks, in several forms, would Trump be prosecutable for Jan. 6 had the Senate convicted him?
Let’s keep in mind that Trump himself is sitting in the room, watching as Sauer tries to formulate a reply, saying everything except yes.
“I would not phrase it that way,” Sauer said.
That’s A Wrap
After some grilling of Sauer on rebuttal, arguments have finished. We expect a decision from this court, which has taken pains to speed this procedure along, fairly quickly. After that, it’s near-certain that the losing side will ask the Supreme Court to hear this question too.
Posted by readers of the article:
It’s a campaign performance. All he’s looking for is the courtroom artist’s portrait of him scowling during the hearing, and then he will no doubt have an impromptu speech on the courtroom steps afterwards where he attacks Biden. No questions will be taken.
—————————-
“Biden has opened a “Pandora’s box,” and that if he, Trump, doesn’t win on his immunity claims, they won’t be a defense for Biden and his supposedly multitudinous crimes either.”
[…] don’t lose track of the main story line here: Trump is using the immunity argument to buy time. It’s part of his larger delay strategy. So we’ll be especially focused on timing issues: How quickly will the appeals court rule? How quickly will the Supreme Court take up and dispense with the case? Will either court permit U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to resume the trial-level proceedings that are currently on hold?
[…] If the appeals court determines there is such a thing as presidential immunity in the criminal context, then it must articulate a standard for qualifying for that immunity.
Once it articulates that standard, then the appeals court must determine if Trump meets the standard.
[…] Special Counsel Jack Smith was the victim of a swatting attempt on Christmas Day at his Maryland home in suburban DC.
[…] confirmation and additional details on the attempted swatting of U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan at her DC home Sunday night.
[…] Trump says he hopes the economy crashes so he can blame President Biden: “I hope it crashes during these next 12 months.” [JFC. Trump doesn’t care who gets hurt.]
[Image: Trump is not arguing that he’s innocent, he’s arguing that he has a right to be a criminal.]
[…] Actually, although some media outlets reported it that way, it was a (tiny) bit more nuanced than that —
JUDGE PAN: And so, in your view, could a president sell pardons or sell military secrets? Those are official acts, right? It’s an official act to grant a pardon. It’s an official act to communicate with a foreign government. And such a president would not be subject to criminal prosecution …
JOHN SAUER: He would have to be and would speedily be, you know, uh, impeached and convicted before the criminal prosecution–
JUDGE PAN: But there would be no criminal prosecution, no criminal liability for that? …
JUDGE PAN: I asked you a yes, no, yes or no question. Could a president who ordered Seal Team Six to assassinate a political rival, who was not impeached, would he be subject to criminal prosecution.”
[Trump Attorney] JOHN SAUER: If he were impeached and convicted first.
In other words, if his political party will back him, and controls either the House or the Senate, (will refuse to bring articles of impeachment in the House, or will refuse to convict by a 67-vote majority in the Senate), [he means a 2/3 vote in the Senate] there is absolutely no limit on a President’s criminal behavior.
And we think we are a nation of laws, and the Constitution applies to all of us?
Astonishing !!!
Posted by a reader of the article:
All the Senate can do is remove the person from the office and enforce disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States.”
President Joe Biden delivered a powerful speech Monday at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. The state is simultaneously friendly and hostile territory, as Black southerners remain his most loyal supporters, and white southerners overwhelmingly back the New York-born fascist.
South Carolina Republicans, of course, took great offense at Biden’s visit […] Donald Trump boot licker Nancy Mace released a video on the generic social media site in which she mocked Biden for failing to “restore the soul of the nation” and promote harmony with the same people who tried to overturn his election victory.
“Today, Joe Biden will visit Charleston and try to use the pulpit of a church to further divide our nation and distract from his failures on the economy, the border and foreign policy.”
Mace, whose district in Charleston was ruled an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, is a singularly graceless liar, which not-so coincidentally was a major theme of Biden’s speech. [Correct description of Mace!]
“Once again, there are some in this country trying to turn a loss into a lie — a lie which, if allowed to live, will once again bring terrible damage to this country,” Biden told the 700 parishioners and other guests gathered at the church. “This time, the lie is about the 2020 election.”
Biden repeatedly called Trump a “loser,” which he is, but it’s also an effective line of attack because it highlights how small Trump is. He’s a wannabe despot, sure, but at his core, he’s an emotionally empty coward who couldn’t accept so public a defeat (one that not even the Electoral College could erase), so he torched the very foundations of our democracy.
The president also had some fiery words for Gone With The Wind fan-fic writer and less successful presidential candidate Nikki Haley, who keeps sticking her zip-a-dee in her doo-dah whenever she discusses the Civil War.
“Let me be clear for those who don’t seem to know — slavery was the cause of the Civil War,” Biden said. “There’s no negotiation about that.”
Regrettably, I must report that some morons showed up to heckle Biden during his speech. They chanted “cease fire now!” as if this were in any way an appropriate venue for their protest. This ain’t open mic night. […] Biden was more patient with the attention seekers than they deserved, and of course Fox News relished the spectacle. The hecklers were eventually drowned out by chants of “four more years!” […]
Biden somberly recalled how the 2015 slaughter took place just a few feet from where he stood. Gunfire might’ve taken those nine people’s lives, but the gunman himself was filled with a deadly poison.
“What is that poison?” Biden asked. “White supremacy. Throughout our history, it’s ripped this nation apart. This has no place in America — not today, tomorrow or ever.”
From The New York Times:
He added that hope sprang from tragedy, noting that the shooting in 2015 led South Carolina to lower the Confederate battle flag that had flown on the grounds of the State House, though he did not mention that it was Ms. Haley as governor who led the drive for a law to do so.
Led the drive? GTFOH. More like she was dragged kicking and screaming after years of appeasing Confederate apologists. The NAACP had staged a longtime boycott over the traitor flag that cost the state at least $10 million in lost tourism. This is going to be one of those New York Times articles, isn’t it?
Peter Baker at the Times suggested Biden was simply trying to “rally disaffected Black supporters” and someone on CNN claimed he was reaching out to Black voters “at the last minute.” Yes, Biden’s speech was political, but not cynically so. He’s speaking directly to Black Americans about the existential threat from crazy-ass Republicans, and voting is how we keep our front-of-the bus privileges.
Baker cites the Times’ own polling that showed 22 percent of Black voters in six battleground states had lost their damn minds and planned to vote for Trump. That’s a major surge from Trump’s six percent nationally in 2016 and eight percent in 2020. However, please don’t shrug off that bleak statistic as impossible unless you’ve actually spoken to a Black person in the past year … who’s not me.
We can debate the number but even if it were rightly two percent, South Carolina’s junior US senator Tim Scott would be among them. Biden’s visit shocked his conscience, which people insist he possesses.
“President Biden’s visit to Charleston to stoke fears as his numbers are dropping amongst all minority groups is remarkable,” said Mr. Scott, who dropped out of the Republican presidential contest when his own campaign failed to gain traction. “But it’s also indicative of the fact that people of color, Americans all across this nation, are losing confidence in this president.”
Scott himself resorted to actual scare tactics during his failed presidential campaign, which he launched at Ft. Sumter where he insultingly compared Biden and Kamala Harris, the first Black vice president, to the Confederacy. He also supports Donald Trump, who offers nothing but division and hatred, demonizing his political opponents and smearing private citizens. […]
Video of Biden’s speech is available at the link.
Reginald Selkirksays
@75: Buying time
Since the arguments are so bad, the appeals court could grant a summary judgment against, which need not take long at all (a week?). And then the Supremes could refuse to hear an appeal, which would also be fast.
IANAL, yada yada yada
There are calls for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to be disqualified from Donald Trump’s Georgia election-interference case, following unsubstantiated allegations she has been involved in a romantic relationship with Nathan Wade. He was hired as a special prosecutor for the proceedings.
The claim was made by Michael Roman, one of Trump’s co-defendants, in a legal motion filed on Monday. It seeks to have his seven charges dismissed and Willis and her staff members disqualified from the case. Newsweek reached out to the Fulton County District Attorney’s office and representatives of Trump for comment by email on Tuesday…
Even if true, I don’t see how a relationship between two prosecutors would constitute a conflict of interest.
In an interview with The Washington Times, Georgia criminal lawyer Andrew Fleishman said the state’s Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council could choose to disqualify Willis from the case, replacing her with a new district attorney who “may wash their hands of it.”
That sounds far-fetched. The investigation and prosecution are far advanced, and several defendants have already flipped.
American Atheists released the sixth edition of its State of the Secular States report today. The organization’s annual policy publication is an in-depth analysis of state-level legislative attacks against religious equality and the separation of religion and government. Many of the political forecasts outlined in State of the Secular States have proven accurate over the years, and it has become a powerful tool for lawmakers, the media, and advocates to understand the nationwide trajectory toward religious extremism.
“Last year was one of the worst legislative sessions in recent memory,” explained Alison Gill, Vice President for Legal and Policy at American Atheists and author of the report. “We tracked a record number of bills attacking civil rights, and in state after state, we saw protections for LGBTQ people and access to abortion care set back decades. A well-funded network of religious lobbying groups succeeded in proliferating harmful, hateful policies and decimating our most foundational democratic norms. With the 2024 election season looming, it’s likely these trends will not only continue but intensify over the next year.” …
Why do so many Republicans believe a bizarre conspiracy theory about the FBI and Jan. 6? Probably because Donald Trump keeps telling them it’s true.
As the third anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack approached, a national Washington Post-University of Maryland poll found a disheartening number of Americans embracing bizarre conspiracy theories about the assault on the Capitol.
The survey found that 30% of independents, 34% of Republicans, and 39% of those who say Fox News is their primary news source believe the FBI “organized and encouraged the Jan. 6 attack.” Among self-identified Trump voters, the total was 44%.
As for why in the world so many Americans would buy into such a nonsensical idea, the Post also reported on Donald Trump’s rhetoric the day before the Jan. 6 anniversary.
In that speech, Trump also repeated baseless conspiracy theories blaming the violence on outside agitators or undercover agents rather than his own supporters. … “There was antifa and there was FBI,” Trump said in Sioux Center. “There were a lot of other people there, too, leading the charge.”
Whether the former president realizes this or not, there is literally no evidence pointing to FBI officials and/or antifa activists “leading the charge” in the pro-Trump assault on the Capitol.
But that didn’t stand in the way of the likely GOP nominee touting this nonsense anyway, helping shed light on why so much of the electorate believes it.
At face value, there might appear to be a degree of logic to all of this. A group of Trump supporters, fueled by Trump’s lies, attacked their own country’s Capitol in the hopes of handing power to a losing candidate. It’s not too surprising that the man responsible for helping instigate the violence would prefer to shift blame to anti-fascist activists and FBI officials.
But just below the surface, there’s a related problem […] In the immediate aftermath of the riot, several Republicans scrambled to try to shift blame to far-left troublemakers who, the theory went, wanted to make the right look bad. When such talk proved unsustainably ridiculous, Trump and his allies decided that the Jan. 6 rioters weren’t radical liberals, but rather, heroic conservative patriots who deserved to be celebrated.
Indeed, the likely GOP nominee also said in Sioux Center over the weekend — in the same aforementioned speech — that convicted Jan. 6 criminals are “hostages,” adding, “[N]obody has been treated ever in history so badly as those people.”
So to recap, we’re supposed to believe the Jan. 6 attack was bad, except for the good parts, and the rioters were heroes, except for the secret anti-fascist activists and FBI officials, who definitely exist, despite the total absence of evidence.
Baseless conspiracy theories are a scourge. Baseless conspiracy theories that evolve in incoherent ways are worse.
Update, 1:12 p.m.: Shortly after this article was published, Musk responded to a question about the issue from far-right influencer Jackson Hinkle. Musk promised to investigate, and the accounts went back up soon after. Musk later blamed the “mistake” on X’s spam algorithms. The Hamas account is still suspended.
X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, purged an unknown number of prominent accounts over the last 24 hours with little to no explanation, and then restored the accounts minutes after this article was published. The list includes popular accounts belonging to journalists, writers, and podcasters. Among them are Ken Klippenstein of the Intercept, writer and podcaster Rob Rousseau, Texas Observer correspondent Steven Monacelli, the account for TrueAnon, a left-wing politics and news podcast, and a number of others. One thing the accounts have in common is recent criticisms of the Israeli government…
[…] The Republican maniacs in the House are at least predictable and are proving that it’s going to be as impossible for Mike Johnson to lead them as it was for Kevin McCarthy. Apparently, the maniacs wanted a speaker who would make the reality of a Democratic Senate majority and White House irrelevant. And given that he hasn’t been able to overrule Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and President Joe Biden, the right-wingers might be looking for the next guy. One “well-plugged-in House Republican” told Punchbowl News that the knives are coming out.
[…] Rep. Chip Roy of Texas seems to be leading the charge. The Freedom Caucus loudmouth went on CNN Monday to complain about Johnson and the deal he made with Schumer to keep the government open after the funding deadline on Jan. 19. “It’s just more of the same and, you know, I wish Speaker Johnson [wasn’t] doing this. I’m very disappointed and hopefully we can try to figure out what we can do to change it in the next few days,” Roy told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.
[…] That threat to Johnson’s speakership is very real simply by virtue of Republicans’ shrinking majority in the House. As of now, on paper, Johnson has a 220-213 majority. However, Majority Leader Steve Scalise is out for all of January for medical reasons, and on Jan. 21, GOP Rep. Bill Johnson of Ohio will resign to take a new job, meaning that for the end of this month, Republicans will have only 218 votes—a two-vote majority.
It’s bad enough that the House now has its least experienced speaker in 140 years, and worse that he inherited such chaos. But it’s made even worse by how much urgent business must soon be done—funding the government, sending aid to Ukraine, seeing our own country through an election in which democracy hangs in the balance. And the far-right House maniacs are once again toying with the idea of ousting him.
And yet the solution remains clear. This isn’t rocket science: If Johnson has any hope of succeeding as speaker—and keeping his job—he has to work with Democrats. That was true for McCarthy and would be true for any Republican speaker, but particularly this one.
Jesus will come to his rescue fer sher. Didn’t God want him in this position?
Seriously, there is no appeasing that freedumb caucus without destroying the entire government. So, he might “succeed” at keeping the gov open with Dems help, but then those folks will destroy him.
———————-
Possibly the deity “put” him in this position to teach him some humility? :-)
————————-
The 2-vote majority refers to only being able to lose 2 votes and still pass bills with just R votes. If they lose 2, they have 216-215. If they lose 3, they can’t pass bills unless some Ds vote yes.
——————————
I’m beginning to think that the reason Johnson was selected as Speaker, was not due to his political or legal skills, but rather because he was so deeply into the planning for J6 that his liability for that conspiracy guarantees he will fight tooth and nail to quash all investigations.
——————————-
Honeymoon over and he had better watch his back as Stefanik is about to take his job.
——————————–
Here we go again!! Food fight among the Republicans to do their job but the “Freedom caucus” is hell bent on tearing the system down by blocking funding for the government at every level.
During an end of the year MSNBC panel discussion, writer, actor, and comedian John Fugelsang gave his thoughts on what he hopes to “leave behind” in regards to 2024’s national discourse. Fugelsang proposed leaving “behind right-wing fundamentalists and Christian nationalists who use Jesus, whose birth we celebrate, as a prop while legislating and fighting against his actual teachings.”
He then deftly synthesized a common analysis among non-Christian conservatives: “Jesus is not an ally of the Republican Party. There is no overlap between Jesus and the policies of Donald Trump.” Fugelsang called out the evangelical-led, South Carolina “pro-life” bill that would subject people getting abortions to the death penalty. “We’re so pro-life, we’ll kill you,” Fugelsang joked.
The South Carolina bill, originally co-sponsored by 24 Republicans, turned out to be as politically disastrous as it sounded, with many Republican politicians fleeing like rats from a sinking ship in the weeks after its filing. This, however, did not change the inhumane consequences of another Republican and evangelical-led bill, “the Fetal Heartbeat and Protection from Abortion Act,” that made abortions illegal after six weeks, from becoming law. That bill, the legality of which was subsequently upheld by the all-male (and conservative) state Supreme Court, continues to shock even its pious supporters in how barbaric it is in practice.
Fugelsang […] then went on to enumerate the ways Republican policies fly in the face of Jesus’ teachings: “Jesus is not anti-immigrant. He commands people to welcome the stranger. He never mentions abortion. The Bible never condemns abortion. We’ve had two generations of Christians in this country who have been groomed to believe criminalizing abortion is something to do with what Jesus talked about.”
The final proof of how transparently hypocritical the Christian conservative ideology is, according to Fugelsang, can be seen in what they push for when it comes to the religious education of children. “Christ was a peaceful, radical, nonviolent revolutionary. Never mentioned gay people. He commanded you to pay your taxes, to welcome the stranger. Individuals and nations must care for the poor and sick, in Matthew 25. He who lives by the sword, must die by the sword, Luke 22. There’s a reason why these right-wingers never try to put the Sermon on the Mount on walls in classrooms.”
A man targeted by right-wing conspiracy theories about the U.S. Capitol riot was sentenced on Tuesday to a year of probation for joining the Jan. 6, 2021, attack by a mob of fellow Donald Trump supporters.
Ray Epps, a former Arizona resident who was driven into hiding by death threats, pleaded guilty in September to a misdemeanor charge. He received no jail time, and there were no restrictions placed on his travel during his probation, but he will have to serve 100 hours of community service…
Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) gave a somber quote Tuesday after he failed to attract a single would-be voter to his campaign event in Manchester, New Hampshire, reportedly telling journalists, “Sometimes if you build it, they don’t come.” …
whheydtsays
Re: Lynna, OM @ #87….
McCarthy might have survived if he hadn’t stabbed the Democrats in the back after every time he made an agreement with them. I don’t know if Johnson learned that particular lesson. IF (and only if) he keeps the deals he’s made, enough of the Democrats might vote to keep him on when (not if) the radical fringe right tries to oust him. If not…it’s his bed. He made, he gets to sleep in it.
One of three defendants has pleaded guilty to federal charges in connection with a series of drive-by shootings at the homes of state and local lawmakers in Albuquerque after the 2022 election, according to federal court filings made public Tuesday.
Jose Louise Trujillo pleaded guilty at a Monday hearing to charges of conspiracy, election interference, illegal use of a firearm and fentanyl possession with the intent to distribute. Federal and local prosecutors allege that the attacks were orchestrated by former Republican candidate Solomon Peña with the involvement of a third man. Peña maintains his innocence.
The attacks on the homes of four Democratic officials, including the current state House speaker, took place in December 2022 and January 2023 …
The Democrat-controlled Maine Legislature voted down a Republican effort to impeach the state’s chief election official for kicking former President Trump off the ballot for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack.
In an 80-60 party-line vote, the state House struck down the impeachment resolution going after Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows (D). She slammed the GOP effort last week as “political theater” while also promising to comply with any legal development connected to her historical decision to remove Trump from Maine’s March 5 primary…
whheydt @92: “McCarthy might have survived if he hadn’t stabbed the Democrats in the back after every time he made an agreement with them.”
Good point.
Reginald 289, seems like appropriate punishment. Because Ray Epps was not put in jail, I expect conspiracy theorists who claimed (wrongly) that he was an FBI agent are going to be very hot and bothered.
birgerjohanssonsays
(this news item by Sabine Hossenfelder does not seem controversial)
Prominent Muslim journalist Mehdi Hasan has decided to quit MSNBC rather than accept a demotion that saw him lose a regular Sunday night program on the network.”
”Hasan announced at the end of Sunday show that “I’ve decided to look for a new challenge. This is not just my final episode of ‘The Mehdi Hasan Show,’ it’s my last day at MSNBC.”
The network had announced in November that Hasan would lose his weekly show after three years but would remain as an analyst and fill-in anchor.”
In a study out this month, Swiss researchers say they genetically sequenced dozens of previously unknown bacterial species that were found in patient samples. While many of these novel bacteria might not harm humans, the team did identify several that likely can cause disease.
The research was conducted by scientists from the University of Basel and the University Hospital Basel in Switzerland. Since 2014, the team has been collecting blood or tissue samples from certain patients of theirs for a special project. Doctors will routinely test patient samples to find bacteria that might be a plausible cause of someone’s illness. The study authors devised an algorithm to identify samples where conventional testing methods had failed to turn up any known bacteria. Then they sequenced the entire genetic material found within these samples, hoping to find previously undiscovered bacteria species.
All in all, they found 61 bacteria species lurking within these mysterious samples. Of those, 35 appear to have never been documented until now. Some of the other “difficult-to-identify” bacteria were only recently discovered and named by other researchers. The team’s findings are published this month in the journal BMC Microbiology…
birgerjohanssonsays
God Awful Movies 438 E-motions 2.0
Noah and Eli torment Cara Santa Maria with a horrible “documentary” that provides an insight into a grifter operation using every alternative medicine trope in the book.
What’s sadder than sad? You know, aside from having the same name as one of the most beloved figures in American political history, because he was your father, and yet being one of the most laughed-at, beclowned men in the country, and one of its easiest marks?
What’s sadder than sad is throwing your own 70th birthday party on January 22 in Indian Wells, California — or having your super PAC do it for you, we guess for deniability purposes — and announcing the attendance of famous guests you absolutely know have not agreed to show up to your party.
What’s sadder than that? You are running for president, and your birthday party is also supposed to be a fundraiser for your presidential run, even though literally everybody hates you and makes fun of you behind your back and also to your face.
What’s even sadder than that? When Dionne Warwick is the first person to be like “LMAO, but no baby, I’m gonna Walk On By from that one. I’ll Say A Little Prayer For You, just kidding no I won’t. That’s What Friends Are For, but you ain’t got any!” (Not exact quote, but the exact quote was completely hilarious and shady.) [Dionne Warwick actually posted: “I don’t know anything about this event. I did not agree to it and I certainly won’t be there.”]
Then Martin Sheen noped out of the thing he wasn’t going to in the first place. […] Specifically, Sheen had his former “West Wing” co-stars Bradley Whitford and Janel Moloney post on Twitter for him:
There’s a story going around saying that Martin Sheen is supporting @RobertKennedyJr for president. The story is incorrect. Martin asked us to post this on his behalf. “I wholeheartedly support President Joe Biden and the democratic ticket in 2024. Sincerely, Martin Sheen”
Not only is he not coming to your birthday party, he is not personally replying to your rude non-invitation to your birthday party […]
Andrea Bocelli said fuck off, through his representatives, probably in some kind of operatic recitativo. Mike Tyson’s people said wait, we thought this was just a birthday party, not a fundraiser. Then they confirmed that regardless, he wasn’t coming. “Mr. Tyson was invited to RFK’s bday celebration, which he cannot attend, not a fundraiser,” said his people.
Fighting 4 One America, one of the PACs involved in putting on the event, tried to act cool and say Martin Sheen had actually confirmed he was coming, but it doesn’t matter anymore, because according to Page Six, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. does not want to go to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s birthday party anyway, fuck this entire school!
Here are some sad words:
On Friday a rep for the Kennedy campaign told us that the PAC was responsible for the bash and that the campaign had “no knowledge of who is attending and can’t confirm or deny anyone’s participation, either as entertainment or as a guest.”
Who’s coming? People. Maybe not people. Guests. Not guests. Impossible to say!
Meanwhile, on Monday the campaign told us: “Mr. Kennedy will not be attending the PAC event in Indian Wells on Jan 22.”
Other big plans? Or not other big plans?
When we asked on Monday if the event will be canceled, the PAC didn’t comment.
[…] This is what happens to people who aren’t wanted, on their 70th birthdays. Let this be a lesson.
In related news, Wonkette turned 20 years old last week. (Twenty!) As is customary, we will be celebrating this elegant birthday on January 22 with Dionne Warwick, Martin Sheen, Andrea Bocelli, and Mike Tyson in attendance, unless one of those fuckers refuses to accept our very kind invitation, which we guess is fine because we’re not a needy loser like RFK Jr. and also we’re not actually having a party.
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III has been hospitalized for the past week because of complications after he had prostate cancer surgery, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center said in a statement on Tuesday.
A hospital official said Mr. Austin was admitted on Jan. 1 with severe abdominal, hip and leg pain after he underwent a “minimally invasive surgical procedure” known as a prostatectomy the week before. The defense secretary, who had developed an infection, was put in intensive care, where excess abdominal fluid was drained.
Since then, “his infection has cleared,” according to the statement, from Dr. John Maddox and Dr. Gregory Chesnut at Walter Reed.
Mr. Austin’s prostate cancer was detected early and his prognosis was “excellent,” they said.
[…] The 70-year-old defense secretary is fiercely private and has been guarded about his medical issues, refusing to disclose for more than a week why he was in the hospital. The subject has been a topic of intense interest since Friday, when the Pentagon first publicly disclosed that he had been in the hospital for four days, following what a spokesman had described as elective surgery.
[…] The secrecy has prompted criticism, especially from lawmakers, who were not told until Friday.
Mr. Biden has said that he retains his faith in Mr. Austin.
But a top White House official ordered cabinet secretaries on Tuesday to keep his office informed when they may not be able to perform their duties. In a memo, Jeffrey D. Zients, the White House chief of staff, directed cabinet officers to evaluate their current policies for delegating authority when a secretary is incapacitated and to forward those procedures to the White House for review. Mr. Zients also made clear that White House officials expected to be kept up to date about developments like major medical issues. […]
Yep, this guy was photographed sitting next to George Santos many times? Buddies? Birds of a criminal feather?
An ethics complaint filed by the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan watchdog group, is calling for a federal investigation into Republican Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee. […]
Some of the questions brought up during the investigation include:
– Why did the Tennessee congressman lie repeatedly about his educational background, claiming he was an “economist” and allegedly lying about doing graduate work at prestigious business schools at universities like Vanderbilt and Dartmouth?
– What happened with the missing $23,575 he raised for a children’s burial garden back in 2014?
– What about the time he described himself as “a former member of law enforcement” who had done work “in international sex crimes, specifically child trafficking,” even though there is zero evidence in his résumé of any of those things?
[…] The CLC summarizes it best with the sentiment that “the similarities between Rep. Ogles and Rep. Santos should not be ignored.”
There are also questions about campaign finance violations because … of course there are.
John Moralessays
birgerjohansson @96, yes.
I note however that she mentions Moore’s Law, but (as is common) neglects its more relevant cousin, Koomey’s law which is more relevant to power dissipation. Which was Seymour Cray’s problem, back in the day.
The Securities and Exchange Commission said Tuesday afternoon that an announcement about bitcoin ETFs on social media was incorrect.
“The SEC’s @SECGov X/Twitter account has been compromised. The unauthorized tweet regarding bitcoin ETFs was not made by the SEC or its staff,” an SEC spokesperson told CNBC.
The false social media post said that the SEC had approved bitcoin ETFs for trading. The price of bitcoin briefly spiked after the initial post, but then quickly slid below $46,000…
It was only a matter of time before former President Donald Trump went birther on Nikki Haley.
After all, the former South Carolina governor and UN Ambassador is a pioneering candidate, the daughter of immigrants from India, and she’s rising in the polls. It’s not only concern about his electoral prospects that’s driving him; Trump’s massive yet fragile ego also feels threatened. So he reached for the most reflexive slur he could find via the far-right news site Gateway Pundit, reposting on Truth Social the false claim that Haley is not constitutionally eligible to be president because her parents were not US citizens when she was born in South Carolina. The Gateway Pundit post cited a legal analysis piece on the American Greatness site.
This specious claim flies in the face of the 14th amendment, which says people born in the US are automatically citizens. The requirement to be a “natural born” citizen to be eligible to run for president means being a citizen at birth rather than through naturalization later.
The claim about Haley is a lazy and xenophobic rehash of the so-called birther attacks Trump baselessly directed at President Barack Obama’s supposed ineligibility for office…
A federal judge in Nevada dismissed a ballot eligibility challenge against former President Trump on Tuesday, ruling the challenger does not have proper standing.
Federal Judge Gloria Navarro determined that the man who brought the challenge, long-shot GOP presidential candidate John Anthony Castro, didn’t have authentic standing to bring the suit, because he filed to run for president in order to manufacture legal standing…
KGsays
Regrettably, I must report that some morons showed up to heckle Biden during his speech. They chanted “cease fire now!” as if this were in any way an appropriate venue for their protest. – Lynna, OM quoting wonkette@80
I’d say any venue is appropriate for a protest against the enabling of genocide.
Note to PZ or anyone else with the keys to the blog: in the sidebar, the links to Coyot.es Network and Coyote Crossing are now redirected to Diario del Sur.
In early December Mangesh Kumar (name changed) was scrolling on Facebook when he came across a video from the “All India Pregnant Job Service” and decided to check it out.
The job sounded too good to be true: money – and lots of it – in return for getting a woman pregnant.
It was, of course, too good to be true. So far, the 33-year-old, who earns 15,000 rupees ($180; £142) per month working for a wedding party decoration company, has already lost 16,000 rupees to fraudsters – and they are asking for more.
But Mangesh, from the northern Indian state of Bihar, is not the only person to fall for the scam.
Deputy superintendent of police Kalyan Anand, who heads the cyber cell in Bihar’s Nawada district, told the BBC there were hundreds of victims of an elaborate con where gullible men were lured to part with their cash on the promise of a huge pay day, and a night in a hotel with a childless woman.
So far, his team have arrested eight men, seized nine mobile phones and a printer, and are still searching for 18 others…
birgerjohanssonsays
“Biden vs. Trump: Whose Economic Plan Is Better for You? | Robert Reich”
I’m just posing here to let everyone know that I’m going to be leaving the blog for an indefinite period. It’s nothing anyone said or did here. You’re all fine people, better than I’ll ever be. However, it’s obvious that my daily intake of political and religious news and opinion leaves me angry, terrified, and frustrated and, as many have witnessed here, I have a nasty habit of violent rage posting in response. I’ll rant and rave, coming to the most extreme opinions because “fuck those who disagree, I’M RIGHT!'” and I in my anger I consider “nuance” to be motivated obfuscation and an excuse for hypocrisy while “civility” and seeking “peace” is just cowardice in the face of pure evil which needs to be destroyed before it destroys me. I double, triple, quadruple-down until I rage quit or exhaust myself. Then, only after coming down for my furor do I look back on what I did and realize Yeah. I shouldn’t have done that.
It’s not just here, but other online forums as well. This isn’t the only blog where I unintentionally made a foolish spectacle of myself because I don’t know how keep my emotions in check and a part of me doesn’t want to because it thinks is makes me righteous and genuine as opposed to others who prefer a slow route to progress. It’s affected my work. It’s affected my social connections. It’s started to affect my overall health. While I might think I’m in the right, my behavior isn’t doing me any favors. Therefore, I’ve decided to avoid political and philosophical media and to stop posting on political and religious sites until such time that I can find a way to cope with my mental health issues and behave or the threat of American fascism somehow vanishes and I can approach politics and atheism from a place of safety rather than one of triggered panic.
Until then, I’ll see you all later.
redwoodsays
@116. Hang in there, Akira, and get yourself the way you need to be. We’re pulling for you.
Hunter Biden arrived on Capitol Hill on Wednesday morning to attend in person congressional committee meetings called to hold him in contempt of Congress — setting up an unprecedented standoff on live television between the son of the president and House Republicans who have long sought his testimony as part of their impeachment inquiry into his father…
The lead archaeologist on the expedition, Douglas Boin, Ph.D., announced the “monumental discovery” at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, according to a news release from St. Louis University, where Boin is a professor of history.
Boin said he and his team discovered “three walls of a monumental structure” that appears to have been a Roman temple from the Constantine era, which ranged from A.D. 280 to 337. During Emperor Constantine’s rule of the empire, he made the persecution of Christians illegal and bankrolled church-building projects, among other efforts, helping usher in the spread of the religion throughout the empire, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.
The temple was found in Spello, a medieval hilltop city about two and a half hours away from Rome and near the town of Assisi. A fourth-century letter from Constantine helped lead Boin and his team to the area, he said. The letter, found in the 18th century, allowed the people of the town to celebrate a religious festival rather than travel to another event, as long as they built a temple to what Constantine considered his “divine ancestors.”
Boin said that the discovery of the pagan temple shows that there were “continuities between the classical pagan world and early Christian Roman world that often get blurred out or written out of the sweeping historical narratives.”
“Things didn’t change overnight. Before our find, we never had a sense that there were actual physical, religious sites associated with this late ‘imperial cult practice,'” Boin continued. “But because of the inscription and its reference to a temple, Spello offered a very tantalizing potential for a major discovery of an Imperial cult underneath a Christian ruler.” …
Paul Ksays
Akira, @ 116: I hope the best for you. I, too, wonder sometimes whether my consumption of political news and commentary is good for me, and have occasionally pulled away for a while. I don’t often comment here for similar, deliberate reasons. But
I deeply value the insights I get here from other commenters, particularly on this thread, including yours. Take care!
Akira @116, your post demonstrates a lot of self awareness. Sounds like you have decided on a course that will be best for you. Take care.
birgerjohanssonsays
Good luck Akira, there has certainly been long periods when news had a bad effect on my mental condition.
I only hope 2025 will see the end of critters like SSAT and Boris Johnson.
.
Nobody understands law & order better than these FoxNews crime experts …
😊
.https://youtube.com/shorts/SzeVdRzd6es?si=D5J9ye-N91e4AmUq
Julie Chavez Rodriguez, President Joe Biden’s campaign manager:
Donald Trump should just say he doesn’t give a damn about people, because that’s exactly what he’s telling the American people when he says he hopes the economy crashes. In his relentless pursuit of power and retribution, Donald Trump is rooting for a reality where millions of Americans lose their jobs and live with the crushing anxiety of figuring out how to afford basic needs. […] The bottom line: President Biden wakes up every day working and rooting for the American people. Donald Trump spends every day worried about himself.
Yes, Trump did say that he hope the economy crashes, and he added: “I hope it’s going to be during this next 12 months, because I don’t want to be Herbert Hoover.”
Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened unrest if the criminal charges against him cause him to lose the 2024 election.
David Kurtz:
A simple, direct, and true lede that doesn’t obfuscate, excuse, or muddy the grim reality of what we’re up against.
Good segment from Chris Hayes last night:
So the official position of Donald Trump is that as long as he or any president can hold onto 35 votes in the Senate to avoid impeachment conviction…there can be no criminal accountability for anything he does, no matter how violent or evil.
“I believe people when they say that they want to hurt us or kill us. I don’t think they’re idle threats.”
—Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Jill Karofsky
Donald Trump won’t make his own closing argument in his New York civil business fraud trial after his lawyers objected to the judge’s insistence that the former president would stick to “relevant” matters. [Heh]
Judge Arthur Engoron rescinded permission on Wednesday, a day ahead of closing arguments in the trial.
The trial could cost Trump hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties and strip him of his ability to do business in New York. His lawyers had signaled Thursday that he planned to take the extraordinary step of delivering a summation personally, in addition to arguments from his legal team.
[…] It’s extremely unusual for people who have lawyers to give their own closing arguments. In an email exchange that happened over recent days and was filed in court Wednesday, Engoron initially approved the unusual request, saying he was “including to let everyone have his or her say.”
But he said Trump would have to limit his remarks to the boundaries that cover attorneys’ closing arguments: “commentary on the relevant, material facts that are in evidence, and application of the relevant law to those facts.”
He would not be allowed to introduce new evidence, “comment on irrelevant matters” or “deliver a campaign speech” — or impugn the judge, his staff, the attorney general, her lawyers or the court system, the judge wrote.
Trump attorney Christopher Kise responded that those limitations were unfair and said Trump could not agree to them.
President Biden has increased access and enrolment in the ACA.
Nearly 50% increase in HealthCare.gov signups since President Biden took office.
the Biden-Harris Administration announced that a record-breaking more than 16.3 million people have selected an Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplace health plan nationwide during the 2023 Marketplace Open Enrollment Period (OEP) that ran from November 1, 2022-January 15, 2023 for most Marketplaces.
President Biden promised to strengthen and build on the Affordable Care Act, and this year, the 10th year of ACA Open Enrollment, more Americans signed up for high-quality, affordable health insurance through the ACA Marketplaces than ever before.
Since President Biden took office, the number of people who have signed up for an affordable health care plan through HealthCare.gov has increased by nearly 50%. Because of the President’s plan, millions of working families saved an average of $800 on their health insurance premiums last year.
And that data is a year old!
As of this January, ACA enrollment is actually well over 22 million, and may end up as high as 23 million by the end of the month.
States taking advantage of that have been able to achieve (almost) universal health care. Something people didn’t predict was possible.
more people enjoy some financial protection against health care expenses than in any previous period in US history.
The country is inching toward universal coverage. If everybody who qualified for either the ACA’s financial assistance or its Medicaid expansion were successfully enrolled in the program, we would get closer still: More than half of the uninsured are technically eligible for government health care aid.
Particularly in the last few years, it has been the states, using the tools made available by them by the ACA, that have been chipping away most aggressively at the number of uninsured.
Is there still more work to be done? 100%! Lots more work. But Biden did more than many people guessed could be done. […]
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen announced that 100,000 businesses have joined a new database that collects “beneficial ownership” information on firms as part of a new government effort to unmask shell company owners…
Fox News floated the theory that Taylor Swift is a Pentagon asset.
[…] And let us never forget that for many of these people, the real problem is that Swift blocked their dreams that she was a secret Nazi when she started speaking out politically, and they will never get over it.
So anyway, Jesse Watters! [A host on Fox News]
He’s got a theory, and it’s that she’s a Pentagon asset, because here’s why. [video at the link]
JESSE WATTERS: Well, Taylor Swift’s the biggest star in the world. Sorry, Gutfeld.
Very sorry, Gutfeld.
She’s been blanketed across the sports-media entertainment atmosphere. The New York Times just speculated she’s a lesbian.
That is definitely what makes a person famous. (We didn’t read the op-ed in question, because whoa TL;DR, but Swift’s people seem creeped out by it and so do others. We’ll let you get your inhaler while you start processing that the New York Times might have published a giant piece of shit.)
And last year’s tour broke Ticketmaster. A tour that’s revenue tops the GDP of 50 countries.
Mediocre white gentleman needs to get to point.
I mean, I like her music, she’s alright …
Mediocre white gentleman does not have point, has opinion.
but have you ever wondered why or how she blew up like this?
Well, during the pandemic she released, back-to-back, two of the most brilliant albums of her career, right there in a moment when people were REALLY paying attention. That’s just one thing, but it’s the first thing that popped into our head. […]
Or Jesse Watters could just wildly speculate that she’s in the employ of the Pentagon and this is all a psy-op:
Well, around four years ago, the Pentagon Psychological Operations Unit floated turning Taylor Swift into an asset during a NATO meeting. What kind of asset? A psy-op for combatting online misinformation.
[…]
So now we are back to how truly inferior white conservative guys cannot handle the notion that Taylor Swift is the most powerful celebrity in the world on her own merit, because she’s a businessperson and also because gabillions of people truly love her.
No, there must be something nefarious afoot. Something that keeps them from having to reckon with how stunningly irrelevant this person’s success makes them feel. Not because of anything she did, mind you, but because of how self-conscious and hyper-sensitive they are to anything that knocks their already fragile masculinity down 1,000 more pegs.
[…] Media Matters points to a report from Mediaite, which shows that Jesse (SURPRISE) got it all wrong (NO WAY!) about the Pentagon’s secret Taylor Swift psy-ops unit to manipulate Americans into loving her instead of loving white MAGA conservative dudes. It’s absolutely a fake story, it wasn’t a Pentagon employee, it happened at a NATO conference on cyber conflict called CYCON. […]
Watters may have gotten the idea for the misleading segment from a three-minute snippet of the CYCON video that was shared on X/Twitter on Monday by former State Department official Mike Benz, who served under Donald Trump.
“Watch the incredible moment that a rep from the Pentagon’s psychological operations research firm pitched NATO’s military psyops center on turning Taylor Swift into an asset for the Western military alliance to stop ‘disinformation’ on the Internet,” Benz wrote.
A community note attached to the post notes that the claim is false and provides a link to the entire presentation. [Even X/Twitter found it false.]
The tweet was subsequently re-shared by Jeffrey Clark – the former Trump Justice Department lawyer who was indicted with Trump in Georgia over the president’s efforts to overturn the election in the state.
Jeffrey Clark. That guy is definitely hinged and full of good information […]
“Is Swift a front for a covert political agenda?” Jesse asked. “The pop star who endorsed Biden is urging millions of her followers to vote. She’s sharing links. And her boyfriend Travis Kelce, sponsored by Pfizer. And their relationship’s boosted the NFL ratings this season, bringing in a whole new demographic. So how’s the psy-op going?”
Later on, Jesse and his guest moaned that Taylor Swift posts voter registration links and her fans destroy the white fascist MAGA agenda by clicking them. In case you wondered if that’s also part of this, how Taylor Swift is ruining America by helping people who aren’t white conservative men vote.
Of course it’s possible Jesse knows the story is fake, and he’s just lying to his viewers because that’s what Fox News does. “That’s real,” said Jesse, echoing the way his timeslot predecessor Tucker Carlson would signal that he was about to knowingly lie.
[…] Republican governors in 15 states are now rejecting a new, federally funded summer program to give food assistance to hungry children. The program is expected to serve 21 million youngsters starting around June, providing $2.5 billion in relief across the country.
[…] Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) said she saw no need to add money to a program that helps food-insecure youths “when childhood obesity has become an epidemic.” Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen (R) said bluntly, “I don’t believe in welfare.”
[…] The summer food program was approved as part of a bipartisan budget agreement in 2022.
“It’s sad,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said, noting that the program has support from other states run by Republicans and Democrats. “There isn’t really a political reason for not doing this. This is unfortunate. I think governors may not have taken the time or made the effort to understand what this program is and what it isn’t.”
The U.S. Agriculture Department said Wednesday that 35 states, U.S. territories and Native American tribes indicated by the Jan. 1 deadline that they would be participating in the summer food assistance program. It will provide families with incomes below the poverty level who already get school lunches for a reduced price or free with $120 per child to buy food at grocery stores, farmers markets or other approved retailers. The USDA called it “a giant step forward” in meeting the needs of the country’s families in the summer months, when food assistance in schools is not available.
Those who work with families in states where the food money has been turned down said the impact will be devastating […] Hunger in the United States is on the rise […] with 17.3 percent of households with children lacking enough food, up from 12.5 percent in 2021, according to the USDA.
[…] “It’s just heartbreaking,” said Stacy Dykstra, chief executive of the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma, noting that 3 in 5 school-age children in her state who qualify for free or reduced-cost lunches at school would be eligible for the new program. “Many children this summer won’t have access to the food they need. It is really scary and gives me goose bumps just saying it out loud to you.”
Other states declining to participate are Alabama, Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont and Wyoming. Four of these states — Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Wyoming — are among the seven that have not fully extended Medicaid eligibility to low-income individuals.
[…] Studies of early pilot programs showed that summer grocery assistance helped decrease the percentage of children suffering from the most extreme hunger by one-third and also expanded access to healthier, more expensive options like fruits, vegetables and whole grains.
That is why many nutrition advocates were dismayed by Reynolds’s contention in a statement last week that Iowa was opting out of the summer program because it has “few restrictions on food purchases” and “does nothing to promote nutrition at a time when childhood obesity has become an epidemic.”
“There is no evidence that a program like this has anything to do with childhood obesity,” said Erica Kenney, an assistant professor at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health who studies childhood nutrition programs and their effects. “It’s absolutely true you can have obesity and be struggling to get food on the table for your family. It is not at all true that helping people who are struggling financially means they’re going to eat more and gain weight.”
Reynolds noted that the state served 1.6 million meals to Iowa’s children last summer at 500 meal sites […]
Nutrition advocates have long pushed for food assistance programs for the summer months that go beyond existing on-site meal programs that can be hard for parents to access, especially in rural areas. Only about 1 in 6 children eligible for summer feeding sites actually make it there because of transportation difficulties, according to the USDA. [Yep. That’s the reality.]
[…] Vilsack said the USDA is still talking to some states about the possibility of joining the program, either this year or in 2025.
And in Nebraska, a bipartisan group of state senators is filing legislation to force the state’s Department of Health and Human Services to opt in, according to state Sen. Jen Day (D) from Omaha.
Pillen, the Nebraska governor, said in a statement that the program is “unnecessary and is not adequate to meeting the needs of children […]
The United States and its allies are weighing how to shut down attacks by the Iranian-backed Houthi militia against commercial ships in the Red Sea, after American and British officials said on Tuesday that their warships had intercepted one of the largest barrages yet of drones and missiles fired from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen.
The Houthi attacks, in solidarity with Hamas in its war against Israel, have forced the world’s largest shipping companies to reroute vessels away from the Red Sea, creating delays and extra costs felt around the world through higher prices for oil and other imported goods. […]
On Tuesday, fighter jets from the aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower and four other warships intercepted “a complex attack” involving 18 drones, two anti-ship cruise missiles and one anti-ship ballistic missile, the U.S. military’s Central Command said in a statement. No injuries or damage were reported, the command said. […]
A United Nations helicopter carrying nine passengers was captured in Somalia on Wednesday by the terrorist group Al Shabab after making an emergency landing in an area controlled by the group, two Somali officials said.
Six of the passengers were captured, while two escaped and one was killed […] There were foreigners among the passengers, one of the officials said, though their nationalities were not known.
[…] It was not immediately clear why the helicopter had to land. The fates of the two passengers who fled were still unknown, one of the officials said.
The U.N. Support Office in Somalia […] provides logistical support to the over 19,000-member peacekeeping forces with the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia. That support includes ferrying food and fuel, providing land and air transportation as well as casualty evacuations. […]
Al Shabab, which means “The Youth” in Arabic, has wreaked havoc across Somalia for almost a decade and half, promising to topple the U.N.-backed federal government and to establish an Islamic state. The group commands between 7,000 and 12,000 fighters and makes about $120 million annually through extortion and taxation, according to U.S. and Somali officials. […]
Right-wing members of Israel’s coalition government are pushing proposals to relocate Palestinians to other countries, an act watchdogs say could be a war crime. Israel says the South African case is “atrocious and preposterous.”
Facing accusations of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, Israel is preparing to defend itself this week at the United Nations’ top court in a high-profile legal battle that comes at a decisive time during its military campaign after Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attacks.
The courtroom charge is led by South Africa, a staunch Israel critic, which has filed a case to be heard at the U.N.’s International Court of Justice starting Thursday and Friday.
Its 84-page legal filing accuses Israel of acting since Oct. 7 — killing, injuring and displacing Palestinian civilians, and denying them food, water and other essentials — in a way that’s “intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnic group.”
The court, known as the ICJ, is composed of 15 judges, who will hear oral arguments from lawyers representing South Africa and Israel. The hearings will be streamed live on the court’s website, and the room itself has space for around 30 journalists to attend in person.
The ICJ case has huge significance politically, legally and in the court of public opinion. Its rulings are binding under international law, and both Israel and South Africa are party to its decisions — but some countries, including Russia and indeed the United States, have ignored or rejected them in the past.
The court has no power to enforce the rulings, but it can deal a reputational blow.
The case “is also a battle on the historical narrative, which can shape views on the Israel-Palestinian conflict,” said Eliav Lieblich, an international law professor at Tel Aviv University.
[…] Netanyahu has distanced himself from these comments, saying he has no plans to stay in Gaza after the war. The Cabinet is discussing plans for who should run the enclave next, according to an Israeli official. And Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in an official proposal Thursday that neither Israel nor Hamas but Palestinian “bodies” would run the enclave — without going into detail. The proposal made no reference to displacement.
[…] politicians say any relocation of Palestinians would be voluntary. But “there is no such thing as ‘voluntary resettlement’ under conditions of duress,” Lieblich and other experts have pointed out. […]
Smotrich responded in a message by saying that “allowing those who wish to leave Gaza to leave is a humanitarian step.” He said that “Hamas has turned Gaza into a prison of terror” and “those who wish not to be in a prison … deserve to be helped.” […]
birgerjohanssonsays
.Rep. slams GOP for Hunter hearing with Hunter in attendance
Former President Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba defended the immunity argument on Sean Hannity’s Show brought by a Trump attorney during the Tuesday hearing, saying that Trump “didn’t kill anyone.” …
Habba, who very stupid but is a lawyer, should read up on teh concept of felony murder.
In response, Habba slammed the judge for throwing out “hypotheticals that do not currently exist” and that the team now needs to argue a “slippery slope” argument…
Did I mention that Habba is stupid? Of course a hypothetical is something that does not currently exist. They are brought in to elucidate principles and boundaries of claims that are being made.
Republican Rep. Nancy Mace said some incredibly dumb stuff, and then Democrats called her on it:
As the House Oversight Committee continued its debate over Republican efforts to hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress, the hearing has frequently disintegrated into incoherence. Part of that came from Republican Rep. Nancy Mace, who both insisted that the president’s son be immediately arrested and claimed Democrats were using “white privilege” to protect the president’s son.
Unfortunately for Mace, that claim got blasted by Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett, and when Mace tried to defend her statement, her claims were eviscerated by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Soon after Mace accused Democrats of “white privilege,” Crockett blasted her, saying that Mace had no place speaking about white privilege and that it was “a spit in the face” for Mace “to talk about what white privilege looks like.”
Mace took umbrage at being called out and defended herself by saying that she had served on the former Civil Rights Subcommittee. She followed that up with a textbook demonstration of being racially tone-deaf. [Video at the link]
First, Mace said that she can’t be accused of white privilege, because in her district, whites are privileged. “I take great pride as a white female Republican to address the inadequacies in our country,” she said. “I come from a district where rich and poor is literally Black and white, Black versus white.”
She went on to say that in the past two years, there have been “seven or eight” deaths in the largest jail in her district. Also, she noted that police kill Black men in her district. She argued that in her district, white people are richer and Black people get killed. Which doesn’t sound like a great reason not to accuse her of upholding white privilege. But she didn’t stop there.
“I come from a district where the … first Black man in the U.S. House of Representatives was Joseph P. Rainey [who] represented my district back in the 1800s,” she said, referring to Joseph H. Rainey, a Black representative first elected in 1870.
She continued: “In my district was Harriet Tubman, you can see in the movie ‘Harriet,’ who rescued more than 700 slaves in one night in Beaufort County, South Carolina.”
So there you have it. Mace can’t be accused of white privilege, because white people in her district are richer, Black people get killed, and Black people had some level of power there 150 years ago.
Thankfully, Ocasio-Cortez got a chance to reply. [video at the link]
“I’m just going to address briefly, quickly, that moment about privilege and all of this that we are seeing here,” Ocasio-Cortez began. “It was a very beautiful speech by the gentlelady who, as she mentioned, helped lead the now-majority side of the Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Subcommittee. But I think it’s so exemplary of the point that she also oversaw the elimination of the Civil Rights Subcommittee.”
“Which really kind of gives the whole game away,” the representative from New York continued. “We show up, we give speeches, we give flowery words, but, at the end of the day, participate in the structural erosion of the rights and representation of people that are marginalized.”
How are we even having this discussion? Oh, right: Bigots.
Just before Christmas, rightwing shit-stirrers (“Operatives”? “Activists”? Nah, too polite) got their wish and forced Claudine Gay to resign from her position as president of Harvard. It was ostensibly about “plagiarism” in her dissertation a million years ago. Of course, it wasn’t so much about plagiarism qua plagiarism; plagiarism was simply the crowbar by which rightwingers could force out a Black woman who was at the head of an elite institution, while lamenting that if it weren’t for “diversity” such a terrible lady never would have been in the job anyway.
No one really believed America’s Rightwing Shitstirring Apparatus gives even a nanofuck about the fine points of MLA or APA citation style, or about whether a paraphrase with a citation veers into plagiarism by using a few too many words from the source. In Gay’s case, the examples were almost all instances where she cited a source, but failed to use quotation marks or blockquoting to indicate the words were the source’s. That’s generally regarded as sloppy work, but a lesser academic sin than copying passages with no citation at all and presenting it as your own work. If you were really trying to pass off others’ writing as your own, you wouldn’t leave the breadcrumbs naming the source. The cure generally involves going back in and adding quotes, and getting the stinkeye from your prof or advisor. (When I taught first-year college writing, I never failed students who did that. I did fail students who never provided a hint of a citation.)
But if the American Right were sticklers for scrupulously avoiding misuse of others’ words, Melania Trump would have been brought up on charges for the large uncredited chunks of a Michelle Obama speech one of her aides added into her 2016 Republican Convention speech.
Ah, but we digress. Y’see, kids, one of the loudest screamers for the head of Claudine Gay was a billionaire hedge fund bozo named Bill Ackman, who fancies himself a great reformer of American higher education. After Gay stepped down as president, Ackman went on to call for her to be forced off the Harvard faculty altogether, for the good of the school and possibly because he’s a power-tripping asshole who gets his jollies from pretending he’s a watchdog of academic fucking integrity. (That’s our working hypothesis at least.)
Last week, Business Insider published a pair of stories in which it did its own computer-driven plagiarism check of the 2010 dissertation written by Ackman’s wife, Neri Oxman, a tenured prof at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In the first story, the paper found a whole buncha citation problems in which Oxman had lifted passages from other scholars and failed to use quotation marks or blockquoting to indicate she was using their exact words, although she did provide a citation. Another example included a full paragraph used without quotes or a citation.
The second story revealed that Oxman used text from “more than a dozen Wikipedia articles” without citation, and a whole bunch of other examples of text she incorporated into her writing without any citation or quotation at all. That’s a bad thing, especially the Very Idea Of Copying Fucking Wikipedia In Your Dissertation, Because Really, Wikipedia?
Ackman has responded to the Business Insider stories by having a rich-man’s how-dare-you hissy, accusing the newspaper not of writing anything inaccurate, but of unfairly attacking a private citizen (Dr. Oxman) because she’s his wife and also because she’s Israeli and how dare they. He also took to Twitter to declare war on everyone, as the New York Times reports:
In response, he wrote, he would begin a plagiarism review of all current M.I.T. faculty members; Sally Kornbluth, the president of M.I.T.; and the university’s governing body, and would share the results with the public. “This experience has inspired me to save all news organizations from the trouble of doing plagiarism reviews,” Mr. Ackman wrote.
He posted later on Friday that he would also review the work of reporters at Business Insider.
It was unclear whether he was targeting Dr. Kornbluth because his wife had received her Ph.D. at the university or because of what he considered Dr. Kornbluth’s inadequate denunciation of antisemitism at a congressional hearing last month.
Since then, Ackman has also twote that in his completely objective opinion, the things Dr. Oxman did weren’t even plagiarism at all, although they were pretty much what Gay had done, not that he acknowledged that.
Ackman also denied that borrowing stuff from Wikipedia without quotes or attribution is plagiarism necessarily, which … is a thing he said, all right. From the Independent:
The billionaire noted that 15 of the outlet’s 28 alleged discoveries of plagiarism “were definitions of words or terms that Neri may have used from Wikipedia.” To showcase the striking parallels, Business Insider showed side-by-side images of Dr Oxman’s writings and the Wikipedia definitions of terms like, “weaving” or “heat flux.”
“Is this plagiarism?” Mr Ackman asked on X. “Let’s assume that in writing her dissertation Neri used Wikipedia as a dictionary for these terms and it is deemed to be plagiarism, does it any way affect the quality and originality of the research in her dissertation? I think that’s worth an important discussion among the experts.”
He continued, “It does not strike me as plagiarism, nor do I think it takes anything away from her work.
“I am not sure who would even complain that they were not cited properly,” Mr Ackman added.
Oh dear. Wikipedia is a largely anonymous enterprise, so plagiarizing it is a victimless crime?
Ackman even wrote, insanely, that his attorneys looked up an old copy of MIT’s plagiarism policy from 2009 and found that the university didn’t even mention Wikipedia, so Ha Ha Herman, Charlie Brown, no plagiarism!
He went on, again with no apparent idea what plagiarism even is, asking
What are the chances that Business Insider examined the MIT handbook “as far back as 2007” and didn’t notice that there was no requirement to cite Wikipedia nor was it even mentioned until April 4, 2013 […]
Which is when MIT said Wikipedia wasn’t a reliable source. But honestly, that was pretty well known long before that, at least to us drones teaching first-year comp.
No, no, no. You have to show your sources, like how we have put the words from the newspapers in blockquotes here, and provided links. Even with Wikipedia. And nobody should be using Wikipedia, as a primary source anyway — I always told my students to read Wikipedia for background, and if something was good, then sure, go to the linked source and use it.
Also too, it’s pretty fucking rich for the New York Times to suddenly be worried that charges of plagiarism can be weaponized by political bad actors, after it published 62 goddamn articles on Gay’s alleged crimes.
For fuckssake, the end.
In order to be a billionaire, is it a requirement that one also be stupid/ignorant?
Launching his presidential campaign in June, Chris Christie positioned himself as the only candidate directly making the argument that former president Donald Trump is unfit for office. But on Wednesday, as calls to exit the race and consolidate support behind an anti-Trump alternative grew stronger, the former New Jersey governor announced he would suspend his long-shot bid for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, clearing a wider path in New Hampshire for former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley.
Christie has not had conversations with Haley about his decision, and he came to the conclusion he would not be able to win, according one person with direct knowledge who spoke the The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity. They said Christie feels that people have to see on their own that Haley won’t be able to defeat Trump, and that he does not want to be blamed for being a spoiler in the race.
In recent days, Christie had faced increasing pressure among Republicans and donors who do not support Trump to drop out, including New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, who endorsed Haley. Sununu, a longtime friend of Christie, told reporters in Rye, N.H. last week that Christie had a chance to “be the hero” and swing the state in Haley’s favor.
“While obviously the Trump people don’t care for Chris too much, I think the last thing Chris wants to do is upset everybody else,” Sununu said. “He has a chance to come in and be the hero, to put Nikki over the top, to give her, to deliver Trump that loss, Nikki that win.”He added that while he is “not telling Chris that he has to get out,” that Christie “is smart enough to see the writing on the wall.” [Sounds more like Sununu’s opinion, not Christie’s thinking.]
Christie for his part said Sununu has changed since he endorsed Haley, and had denounced him for suggesting he suspend his campaign as recently as Tuesday evening. [Yep.]
“Since Chris started to work for Nikki Haley and become an employee of Nikki Haley, it’s not the same Chris Sununu anymore,” Christie said on CNN’s “AC360” last week.“It pains me to say this, but Gov. Sununu is a liar,” Christie told WMUR just last night about pressure to end his campaign from the governor. “If he wants to say somethihng to me, he’s got my number.”
“If there came a moment in time where I felt I had no path to winning, I’ve said this since June, I would get out,” Christie added on Tuesday. “That has nothing to do with Nikki Haley or anyone else in the race.” […]
Nearly 2,000 asylum-seekers were bused to a Brooklyn high school to ride out the storm, drawing complaints from some parents, politicians and immigration advocates.
New York City’s decision to move nearly 2,000 migrants overnight from a tent shelter to a high school due to fears of an impending storm drew backlash Wednesday from parents of students at the school and others as the city struggles to house thousands of migrants seeking refuge.
The criticism included the city’s continued use of the tent shelter on a remote, abandoned airfield in an area of Brooklyn that is at risk of coastal flooding from storms.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams said Tuesday afternoon that with winds up to 70 mph expected, the city was proactively relocating the migrant families from the tent shelter at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn “out of an abundance of caution to ensure the well-being of those entrusted to our care.”
“While families are already in the process of temporarily being relocated, the city will ensure that essential services and the highest level of support are provided to all impacted by this decision,” Adams, a Democrat, said in a statement.
The shelter at Floyd Bennett Field is one of more than 200 sites New York City has established to house the surge of migrants arriving in the city since 2022 — largely as part of a busing campaign by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, who is seeking stricter security at the southern border. New York, which has a legal obligation to provide emergency housing to anyone who asks for it, has struggled to respond to the thousands of people arriving in the city.
Floyd Bennett Field has been widely regarded as a poor location for a shelter because it is far away from schools, transportation and other services and is vulnerable to the elements.
Images captured Tuesday night showed yellow school buses dropping off migrants holding young children and carrying bags with their belongings in the rain.
Students at James Madison High School in Brooklyn were informed Tuesday that classes would be conducted virtually on Wednesday because of the school’s use as a “temporary overnight respite center.”
[…] Alina, who did not share her last name, said she was “very angry” that the city “put our children last” and were instead “prioritizing the migrants.”
[…] “We have thousands of square feet of abandoned commercial property that we can use,” State Assemblyman Michael Novakhov said.
Zach Iscol, the commissioner of New York City Emergency Management, said at a briefing Wednesday that the school received hate calls and a bomb threat Wednesday morning. The bomb threat was cleared by police.
“These actions are not only deplorable, they’re also criminal offenses,” he said.
[…] The Legal Aid Society and the Coalition for the Homeless said Tuesday that the “last-minute evacuation further proves that Floyd Bennett Field — a facility mired in a flood zone, miles from schools and other services — has never and will never serve as an appropriate and safe place to shelter families with children.”
[…] Desiree Joy Frias, an organizer with South Bronx Mutual Aid, said outside the school that the city should focus on “moving people into permanent shelters so they can start getting jobs.”
“That is not the way we treat people. They’re not cattle. They’re not livestock. They are human beings with lives, with children, with human rights that are fundamental to them,” she said.
New York City has taken in approximately 170,000 asylum-seekers since April 2022 and currently has about 70,000 in its care, in addition to the homeless population, Iscol said at a briefing on Wednesday.
The city said that it projects to spend $4.7 billion to provide shelter, food and services to asylum-seekers in fiscal year 2024.
Iscol said at the briefing that “all of us understand in the city that Floyd Bennett Field is not an ideal place to be housing families with children.”
“The city has done a remarkable job making that place work,” he said.
Iscol said all of the migrant families were returned to the tent shelter overnight, beginning at around 1:30 a.m. Wednesday after getting the all-clear from the National Weather Service. Most people were transported out by bus from 3 a.m. to 4 a.m, he said. […]
Some reports claimed that there were no beds at the high school, and then the migrants were moved in the wee hours of the morning. Must have been exhausting for the families.
Violence erupted across Ecuador this week after a well-known gang leader disappeared from prison. Explosions, looting, gunfire and burning vehicles were reported, and there were uprisings in several prisons. In the largest city, Guayaquil, gunmen stormed a TV studio during a live broadcast on Tuesday. President Daniel Noboa declared a 60-day state of emergency, imposing a nationwide curfew and authorizing the military to patrol the streets and take control of prisons.
The Democrat-controlled Maine Legislature voted down a Republican effort to impeach the state’s chief election official for kicking former President Trump off the ballot for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack. In an 80-60 party-line vote, the state House struck down the impeachment resolution going after Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows (D).
Today is expected to be one of the chilliest days so far this winter, but meteorologists say Calgary will plunge even deeper into extreme cold this week.
Temperatures are expected to drop as low as –37 C on Friday, per Environment Canada forecasts, before the cold snap starts lifting…
I would cross out “Seems to” in that headline. Yes, Mush endorsed that racist comment.
Elon Musk endorsed a tweet Tuesday that suggested graduates from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have IQs approaching “borderline intellectual impairment.” This isn’t the first time the billionaire celebrated blatant bigotry on his platform in recent months. In November, Musk promoted a tweet that said Jews push “hatred against whites.”
This example deals with a United Airlines program announced in 2021 that gives students at three HBCUs the opportunity to interview with the company’s career development program for pilots. On X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, a popular user called @eyeslasho went online to argue the United program is dangerous because graduates from these colleges are unintelligent, and therefore unfit to fly a plane.
“The mean IQ of grads from two of those United Airline HBCU ‘partners’ is about 85 to 90, based on the average SATs at those schools. (The SAT correlates reasonably well with IQ.),” @eyeslasho wrote. “The HBCU IQ averages are within 10 points of the threshold for what is considered ‘borderline intellectual impairment.’”
The user went on to compare those numbers with typical IQ scores they claimed to have dug up for US Air Force Pilots and commercial airline pilots. […]
“It will take an airplane crashing and killing hundreds of people for them to change this crazy policy of DIE,” Musk responded, rearranging the letters of the acronym for Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, which encourage the participation of Black people, women, and other historically underrepresented groups in the workplace.
Musk has been fixated on race over the past few days. The CEO and his followers spent the last 24 hours on a tirade against both DEI programs and immigration, which Musk seems to think is part of a coordinated effort to commit election fraud on behalf of democrats. Like other fact-free arguments Musk recently countersigned, the ideas in this complaint against United Airlines fall apart after a few moments of scrutiny.
For one, there’s a mountain of evidence that demonstrates that the SAT mirrors and even encourages racial disparities in the United States. That’s been true since the test’s inception. Both the SAT and the IQ test were developed in part by eugenicists who were concerned that “racial mixture” would lead to the decline of the US, according to the National Education Association.
[snipped details from those studies]
[…] the comments about the HBCUs’ test scores are simply wrong. United Airlines’ program partners with Hampton University in Virginia, Elizabeth City State University in North Carolina, and Delaware State University. According to the College Board, Hampton University students’ average SAT scores range from 990–1170 and Elizabeth City State University’s range from 880–1060. The majority of students at these schools have scores that are at or just below the national average, which was 1028 last year. It’s also important to remember these are averages; some students score much higher, and others lower.
[…] “Even if you accept that SAT equals IQ, these averages are meaningless if you know how programs like United’s work,” Bello said. “Not every student will be accepted into this program, and not everyone who gets accepted to the program will be put in an airplane.” United’s partnership with HBCUs doesn’t guarantee admission to its flight school; it gives historically underrepresented students an opportunity for an interview.
[…] “The whole conversation is obviously racist on its face,” Bello said. “It specifically insults the intelligence of entire universities, picking and choosing statistics and ignoring facts to make the basic argument that if you’re Black, you’re unqualified.”
[snipped details showing Musk posted racist and anti-semitic tweets in the past.] […]
It’s called a fast radio burst (FRB), a fleeting blast of energy that can – for a few milliseconds – outshine an entire galaxy. Hundreds of FRBs have been detected over the past few years. They pop off all over the sky like camera flashes at a stadium event, but the sources behind these intense bursts of radiation remain uncertain.
This new FRB is particularly weird because it erupted halfway across the universe, making it the farthest and most powerful example detected to date.
And if that’s not strange enough, it just got weirder based on the follow-up Hubble observations made after its discovery. The FRB flashed in what seems like an unlikely place: a collection of galaxies that existed when the universe was only 5 billion years old. The large majority of previous FRBs have been found in isolated galaxies.
FRB 20220610A was first detected on June 10, 2022, by the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP)
radio telescope in Western Australia. The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile confirmed that the FRB came from a distant place. The FRB was four times more energetic than closer FRBs…
Voters decided to remove a small-town Nebraska school member from office after she tried to have dozens of books pulled from school libraries.
More than 1,600 Plattsmouth voters supported recalling Terri Cunningham-Swanson in a mail-in election this week. The Omaha World-Herald reported that about 1,000 people voted to keep her on the board she joined a year ago.
Cunningham-Swanson led an effort to have about 50 books removed from school libraries because of concerns about sexual content and adult themes in them. Some students protested and one librarian resigned after the books were pulled from library shelves while they were being reviewed…
Space Force Col. Bree Fram, a distinguished transgender service member, advocate, and rocket scientist, recently faced a barrage of online attacks following a derogatory post by Chaya Raichik’s Libs of TikTok account. Out of the blue, Fram became the subject of hateful, personal, and dehumanizing rhetoric after Raichik targeted her.
The post, which included a photo of Fram before her transition and text that misgendered and ridiculed her, sparked widespread online harassment. On X, formerly Twitter, right-wing transphobes and extremists became enraged about Fram’s existence. Yet it did little to deter Fram’s resolve and commitment to her role and advocacy.
Fram spoke with The Advocate about what happened and emphasized that her views do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Space Force or the Department of Defense.
“It was quite the weekend on social media,” Fram said.
Despite the online vitriol, she remained focused on the broader impact of her visibility. “If anything, if video and photos of me are shared, I see that as an opportunity for someone to see that LGBTQ people are successful wherever they are,” she said. Fram is stationed in the Pentagon, and she was promoted to colonel on December 29…
Backers of former President Donald Trump filed a petition Wednesday seeking to recall Wisconsin Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos from office, citing Vos’ opposition to Trump and his not moving forward with impeaching the state’s top elections official…
As liberals, we cringe at reductionist language like “axis of evil.” We hated it when former President George W. Bush used the phrase to justify his invasion of Iraq, and we cringe every time old-school neoconservatives utter one of its many variations.
Recent history shows, however, that there is indeed an axis of nations wishing ill upon the world. […] every dictatorial strongman in that axis—from Russia’s Vladimir Putin to North Korea’s Kim Jong Un—is rooting for Donald Trump to win.
International relations are a thorny and complicated matter. And while there are obviously many additional layers to this story, the fundamentals are clear. Forget the nonsense about the “global south” and BRICS—the geopolitical group consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates—as a counterpoint to Western hegemony. The real danger is in the new axis between Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China.
Russia has expansionist aspirations (with its invasion of Ukraine), as does North Korea (with its threats to South Korea), Iran (with proxy militias across the Middle East), and China (with its lusting after the former breakaway province now known as Taiwan). Those imperialistic tendencies are currently tempered by—kind of ironically—the formerly imperial powers of the West.
Because of this, the fault lines have erupted roughly between democratic countries and autocratic ones. That’s why BRICS isn’t a core part of this equation. Unlike partners China and Russia, key members Brazil, India, and South Africa are democracies and lack the same expansionist zeal of this new, expansionist axis. (And yes, we can argue India, Kashmir, and Pakistan, but like I noted, this is complicated, and I’d argue those conflicts are of a different nature.)
Beyond a disdain for democracy, this new axis lacks much ideological or cultural cohesiveness. Russia’s fundamentalist Orthodox Christianity bears little resemblance to Iran’s Shia Islamic fundamentalism. China is officially an atheist nation and one that brutally represses some religious and ethnic minorities, such as the Islamic Uyghurs. And North Korea’s state religion is the Kim family itself. And while autocratic in nature, the countries’ forms of government vary as well. Russia is ostensibly a republic but functionally a dictatorship and oligarchy, and China was a politburo (communist government by committee) before its leader Xi Jinping consolidated power in 2022. North Korea is, as mentioned, a cult of personality. Iran is a theocracy.
And yet these nations have realized that their global aspirations cannot be accomplished as long as a militarily and economically dominant West acts as a roadblock to their regional ambitions. Still, that doesn’t mean they aren’t trying. Take a look at the world’s war-ridden hotspots and you’ll see that virtually every one of them has at least one of these nation’s fingerprints on it.
In Ukraine, Russia launched a hot war and, having failed so far to conquer its neighbor, is increasingly relying on North Korean rockets and artillery shells and Iranian drones to strike Ukrainian targets. In return, Russia is providing Iran with advanced military technologies, and North Korea with desperately needed cash.
The Middle East has been on fire for decades, fueled in large part by Iran’s proxy militias. It built up both Hamas—enabling the current war in Israel and Gaza—and Hezbollah, which is bedeviling Israel on its border with Lebanon. Iran’s Houthi allies in Yemen have partly shut down shipping lanes in the Red Sea, forcing costly detours around South Africa that threaten to worsen inflation.
In Africa, Russia and China have provided diplomatic cover for coup-plotters. And in a particular masterstroke for Russia, its backing of a coup in Niger negated a $110 million drone base the U.S. built to combat ISIS in the region.
Things seem to have simmered down since I last wrote about the brewing conflict between Venezuela and Guyana, but who is the power behind the former’s autocratic leader Nicolás Maduro? Russia. (And China.)
In Asia, China’s belligerence toward its neighbors has intensified to the point that the Philippines invited American forces back after unceremoniously kicking them out in 1992. And, in a mind-blowing move, the U.S. and Vietnam have entered into a military cooperation agreement. Meanwhile, due to threats from China and North Korea, Japan has been taking incremental but steady steps to move beyond its post-World War II pacifist orientation. And in response to China’s growing power, Australia has been on a spending spree to upgrade its naval capabilities because, as an isolated island nation, it needs open shipping lanes to survive.
All of this is expensive and a boon to weapons manufacturers—and a detriment to those of us who wished a more peaceful world would negate the need for arms spending. Instead, we’re seeing just how dependent the free world is on American economic and military might.
Part of it is a legacy of WWII. Though post-war constitutions and norms in Germany and Japan called for pacifism, there was a fear of a future global conflict, and the reluctance to let those former Axis powers remilitarize was part of the justification for the U.S.’s historically astronomical defense budgets. It was a great deal for Japan and Germany, which, in a stunning success, each became democracies and among the world’s great economies! Plus, they got universal health care … and we did not.
But the current war in Ukraine has exposed the limits of that pacifism and our allies’ neglected militaries. While the U.S. has thousands of battle tanks and armored infantry vehicles in storage, Europe struggled to find tanks to send to Ukraine. Like many countries in Europe, Japan has little to give (in part because of its pacifist constitution), and South Korea is facing its own, closer-to-home threats (North Korea).
And while Europe has given Ukraine hundreds of billions, they just don’t have the weapon systems Ukraine so desperately needs. The U.S. has those, and now they’re blocked by a Republican Party that pretends to hate China and Iran but is happily doing the bidding of those countries’ biggest ally—Russia.
Ukraine is the front line of this new global struggle. You better believe that Russia’s allies are carefully tracking the Western response to Russia’s invasion. If Putin succeeds in even annexing part of Ukraine, it will be a rousing victory and a call to arms for this new axis. But if the West rallies, builds up its military arsenal, maintains and even strengthens its sanctions, the axis will likely determine that any military adventurism is too fraught with risk, and the status quo, however tense, will remain. The alternative—a hot war in the Korean peninsula, the Taiwan strait, or Europe—would be catastrophic both in terms of lives lost and to the global economy.
The bigger the cost to Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, the less likely a war between major powers becomes. The bigger Russia’s defeat, the greater the damage to Iran, North Korea, and maybe even China. (At the same time, China appears to be in a win-win scenario at Russia’s expense. If Russia wins, China has an emboldened ally that would almost assuredly aid in an invasion of Taiwan. And if Russia loses, China gains a new vassal state with the natural resources to feed its own machine.)
Ultimately, the West needs to do everything in its power to help Ukraine win—and do so as quickly as possible. We need the Republican Party to stop being Iran and China’s biggest international ally. (Their support of Putin is well past absurdity.)
Who believes any decision we make regarding warfare comes with no risk?
————————
President Biden has “saved” NATO weapons only until Ukraine demonstrated that it had the training and logistics to employ them.
Ukraine, in several respects, is a “thread the needle” problem, not a “bigger hammer” problem.
———————————–
I think, at this point, China almost certainly gets Russia as a vassal state, with access to its natural resources at a massive discount, regardless of how badly Russia loses in Ukraine.
Russia by itself is not a large economic power. However, it is sandwiched between China and the EU, and makes a living mainly through trade with these neighboring superpowers. By the way, it’s almost always been like this: mediaeval Rus was first formed to trade between the Black Sea / eastern Mediterranean and Baltic regions, and then, following the decline of the Byzantine Empire, joined with the Mongols to control the northern branches of the Silk Road.
The war in Ukraine has undermined Russia’s political and economic relations with Europe to the point that they are unlikely to recover for at least a generation, if not more, so what else is left besides China (plus a few smaller markets like India and Iran?)
The only way Russia avoids an unequal economic union with China at this point is if the Putin regime is replaced with a pro-Western one, which takes extraordinary actions to reestablish relations with the West, but while such a scenario is not completely impossible, it’s looking less likely every day. It would of course be great to have a Russia that’s less like North Korea and more like Norway or Finland […]
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The chance of Russia having a pro west regime is -0. That is simply not happening.
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Dictators are teaming up and they see Trump as a fellow emissary. It’s no wonder China was one of the nations piling in money towards his businesses; he’s an easy mark.
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[…] the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, DPRK for short […] prioritizes their military to an extremely detrimental extent for their economy, that leads to them being so destitute.
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The entire planet is essentially “winning” via Ukraine helping to suck the military life out of Russia and Putin. In the past 22+ months, 315,000 Russian troops have been killed and wounded, according to an assessment provided to US lawmakers. Prior to the invasion, Russia had a ground force strength of about 360,000. Russia has also sustained huge losses in equipment, with 2,200 tanks destroyed out of a force of 3,500 and one-third of its armored vehicles knocked out of action.
So, even without the Ukrainian liberation of all their captured territory, THIS level of depletion of Putin’s instruments of war criminality can be considered a “win.”
Ukraine is willing to spill their own blood in this process of weakening Russia’s ability to invade and destroy other parts of the world. All they are asking for is the financial and military hardware to do it. How the holy F can we stand by and do nothing while Ukraine fights to the death to defend themselves against one of the most evil forces the world has ever seen?
The answer of course is ONE word — Republicans, who actually are attracted to and feel kinship with evil.
[…] Politico EU reports that in a private meeting with EU officials held in 2020, Trump effectively guaranteed that the United States would renege on its NATO commitments if member states were attacked by Russia.
As reported by Politico EU’s Eddy Wax:
One of Europe’s most senior politicians recounted how former U.S. President Donald Trump privately warned that America would not come to the EU’s aid if it was attacked militarily.
“You need to understand that if Europe is under attack we will never come to help you and to support you,” Trump told European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in 2020, according to French European Commissioner Thierry Breton, who was also present at a meeting at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
“By the way, NATO is dead, and we will leave, we will quit NATO,” Trump also said, according to Breton. “And he added, ‘and by the way, you owe me $400 billion, because you didn’t pay, you Germans, what you had to pay for defense,'” Breton said about the tense meeting, where the EU’s then-trade chief Phil Hogan was also present.
As reported by Politico, President Biden’s campaign responded instantly to the report:
“The idea that he would abandon our allies if he doesn’t get his way underscores what we already know to be true about Donald Trump: The only person he cares about is himself,” Biden campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa told POLITICO in a statement.
It is perhaps unsurprising that someone utterly ignorant of U.S. history and the role American power has played in checking the encroachment of dictatorial states such as Putin’s Russia (the only country that stands any reasonable likelihood of attacking Europe) would make such statements. It’s also unsurprising that someone who may very well owe his narrow election victory in 2016 to the malign influence of Russian intelligence would make them. Trump’s admiration for Putin is as well-documented as his disdain for the sacrifices of American soldiers; it’s entirely possible that his words and actions have been influenced or guided by Putin or his agents.
But it’s hard not to believe that this outburst owes more to a petulant, infantile response by Trump to the Europeans’ failure to coddle and praise him in the manner Vladimir Putin certainly does. In a 2019 NATO gathering Trump was widely mocked not only in the press but by European leaders reacting to his clueless boorishness and generally ignorant behavior. It’s not difficult to envision how this criticism might have impacted someone with such an ingrained inferiority complex that manifests itself in grandiose notions of his own personal abilities.
[…] It’s generally accepted that the international community — Putin certainly included — understands Trump as essentially a loudmouthed, mercurial buffoon […] his ability to comprehend or appreciate strategic alliances such as NATO is — putting it mildly — highly suspect.
But regardless of motivation, the inescapable fact is that the type of blithe abandonment of NATO that Trump evidently espouses would cripple U.S. strategic interests worldwide.
As explained by Anne Applebaum, writing for the Atlantic:
That’s because NATO’s most important source of influence is not legal or institutional, but psychological: It creates an expectation of collective defense that exists in the mind of anyone who would threaten a member of the alliance. If the Soviet Union never attacked West Germany between 1949 and 1989, that was not because it feared a German response. If Russia has not attacked Poland, the Baltic states, or Romania over the past 18 months, that’s not because Russia fears Poland, the Baltic states, or Romania. The Soviet Union held back, and Russia continues to do so now, because of their firm belief in the American commitment to the defense of those countries.
[…] Deterrence comes from the Kremlin’s conviction that Americans really believe in collective defense, that the U.S. military really is prepared for collective defense, and that the U.S. president really is committed to act if collective security is challenged. […]
[…] As alliances disintegrate [so does] the entire idea of democratic representation […] the idea that people deserve a voice in their own government, would start to erode on a global scale. It wouldn’t happen quickly, as Applebaum notes, but “By the time people here realize how much has changed, it will be too late.“
[…] Contrary to Trump’s apparently crass and uninformed understanding, it has never been about altruism or providing some kind of free, unconditional “handout” to Europe, but about our own country’s future and its ability to survive in the world we are faced with. That’s what Donald Trump — by all appearances — seems perfectly willing to throw away.
Russian aviation struck the village of Vilkhuvatka, Kupyansk district, with guided bombs, the head of the Kharkiv regional military administration said. A 48-year-old woman was killed. 10 private houses and a shop were damaged. A school is on fire [image at the link]
[…] The cruelty is the point.
Ukraine’s kidnapped children: The fourth time brave 17-year-old Serhii Cherednichenko, tried to escape back to #Ukraine he was recaptured by Russian border guards. Upon finding out he was a footballer, they “hit my legs with a hammer & my ankles with a bolt… [photo of Seri at the link]
[…] RUSSIA DEEP FREEZE 2024: The trouble with monarchy (among other things) is that while occasionally you get Charlemagne, Marcus Aurelius or Louis XIV or some other allegedly enlightened king, you usually get Caligula, George III, Louis XVI or Nicholas II. [Tweet and images at the link: “Aleksandr Dugin, one of the ideologists of Putin’s regime, wrote that “liberal democracy does not exist in Russia. There is a monarchy and its leader. Whatever he wants, that’s how it will be.” He then begged “His Majesty” to help the people “freezing in the Moscow suburbs.”]
Russia promised to freeze Europe, but is now freezing itself.
Accidents at utility companies are systemic and the Russian authorities can’t handle them.
Residents of the Moscow Region city of Klimovsk (a microdistrict in Podolsk) have not had access to heat and hot water for the third day in 20-degree frost because of a rupture at a utility plant due to a break on the heating main on January 4. Residents are posting photos of burst heating radiators and pipes in their apartments and entrances, so, apparently, there is no talk of eliminating the consequences of the accident in the near future.
Maximum 12 degrees of heat in houses, burst heating radiators. Some people make fires in their yards at night to keep warm. The local authorities are inactive and instead of repairing utility systems they offer…drum roll…blankets to those who are freezing.
Regional Governor Andrey Vorobyov, who has not appeared in public at all for several days, is rumored to have celebrated New Year holidays outside Russia.
Reports of frozen apartments with corresponding photos quickly went viral on social networks. […]
[…] In the Vyborg district (Tsvelodubovo) of the Leningrad region, a 60-year-old naval captain died due to hypothermia in the SNT “Blokadnik” (gardening housing coop).
According to our information, Vladislav Shevashkevich died in his own home. Relatives believe that the reason for everything was a power outage, without which nothing works at all in the houses of this gardening community. The sister’s husband Oleg, who found the captain, told that the interruptions began on December 29. Then the resource supply company told the chairman of SNT that there was no electricity due to snow hanging on the wires. However, local residents knew that snow had not fallen in the area for several days.
[…] On the first of January, the man stopped communicating, and on the third, together with the district police officer, the relatives broke down the front door, where they found the frozen captain right on the threshold.
[…] According to the latest data, 215 apartment buildings, as well as 17 kindergartens, 8 schools, 4 clinics and a hospital were left without heat and water.
Massive electricity outage in Omsk, Russia (population over 1 million people). About half of the city has no electricity. According to the regional energy minister, an accident at Tavricheskaya substation caused the outage.
Russians are ready to freeze without electricity and heat but continue supporting Putin and the “special military operation”. [Tweet and video at the link]
Eventually something is going to have to be done about Iranian support for Russia.
Iran developed a new attack drone for Russia and appears close to providing them with surface-to-surface missiles. And to make it even worse. Iran has developed a new kamikaze UAV with an even larger operational range and payload possibilities.
Undergrad researchers at Columbia Engineering found that while the branching and endpoints in the fingerprint ridges might vary, the angles and curvature at the center of the fingerprint could be the same across an individual.
To determine this, the students used a deep contrastive network and a US government database of 60,000 fingerprints to study commonalities in fingerprints. They fed pairs of prints to a neural network, with some coming from the same person and others from different individuals.
The network eventually became able to identify if prints were from the same person to an accuracy of 77 percent. That accuracy increased when multiple pairs of prints were presented.
The team initially had no idea how the network was able to identify whether the prints belonged to the same person. To the human eye, the fingerprints certainly did not appear similar.
In order to understand that it was merely identifying the angles and starting points of the ridges, they had to study the AI system’s decision process. Thus, the team concluded that the AI was using an unexpected forensic marker…
KGsays
And Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in an official proposal Thursday that neither Israel nor Hamas but Palestinian “bodies” would run the enclave — without going into detail. Lynna, OM quoting nbcnews@137
And Israel is busy ensuring there will be a copious supply of Palestinian bodies!
It’s not exactly a secret that House Republicans are desperate to focus on the U.S./Mexico border, but last week, the White House took steps to “flip the script” on its GOP critics and make the case that Republicans bear at least some responsibility for the systemic troubles. […]
immigration policy can be incredibly complex, but the basic elements of the White House’s message are straightforward. Ahead of the House’s GOP visit to Texas last week, Team Biden presented a case built on a few basic details: (1) The president has backed a funding package that would invest in new border officials and improved border technology, but Republicans have so far rejected it; (2) Biden unveiled a comprehensive immigration reform blueprint three years ago that the GOP ignored; and (3) House Republicans endorsed spending cuts that would’ve significantly weakened Border Patrol.
“Actions speak louder than words,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a written statement. “House Republicans’ anti-border security record is defined by attempting to cut Customs and Border Protection personnel, opposing President Biden’s record-breaking border security funding, and refusing to take up the President’s supplemental funding request.”
To be sure, there’s plenty of room for debate about the efficacy of the administration’s border policies, and when it comes to overhauling the existing system, it’s fair to say that the status quo has few admirers.
[…] the White House’s case has merit. The proposed supplemental funding package really does include significant new investments that would likely make a difference at the border. What’s more, Biden really did endorse a compromise immigration framework […] that GOP lawmakers ignored.
As for White House claims about Republicans supporting budget cuts that would’ve undermined Border Patrol, it was just last year when the House GOP majority launched a debt ceiling crisis, and as part of their gambit, the party passed something called the “Limit, Save, Grow Act” that would’ve lowed funding for federal agencies to 2022 levels. The Department of Homeland Security and the Office of Management and Budget did analyses and found that these budget cuts, if applied, would lead to more than 2,000 layoffs for border personnel.
Republicans didn’t specifically try to cut those positions, but that would’ve been the consequence if the GOP’s spending cuts were implemented as designed.
I can appreciate why Republicans aren’t eager to brag about their plan now, but perhaps they should’ve thought of that before passing their far-right “Limit, Save, Grow Act.” Johnson can keep issuing memos if he’d like, but these details won’t change.
[Closing arguments were set] for today in the New York civil fraud trial against Donald Trump and his biz empire, law enforcement was dispatched to the Long Island home of the judge for a reported bomb threat.
NYT:
A spokesman for the Nassau County police department confirmed that there was an investigation at the house of the judge, Arthur F. Engoron, who in several hours is expected to hear closing arguments in Mr. Trump’s case. Two people with knowledge of the matter said that the threat involved a bomb and that the bomb squad came to the house.
The latest threat to public servants involved in Trump-related cases comes after swatting attempts at the homes of Special Prosecutor Jack Smith and U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan.
But it’s part of a larger pattern which reaches back years: Election administrators vilified and hounded from the their jobs over Trump’s false claims of election fraud; public health officials abused and threatened over COVID conspiracies and lies; law enforcement suddenly in the sights if they investigate Trump; librarians and school administrators targeted and ridiculed for doing their jobs.
Government employees have been on the front lines of this low-level conflict for literally years now. It is a hallmark of the Trump era. Their careers on the line. Their income in jeopardy. Their personal safety sometimes at risk. And, as we see this morning, in some cases their families and homes targeted.
[…] The promise of Trump II is retribution against government employees at every level. It’s a corrosive and toxic environment which erodes independence of thought and action, undermines the measured and regular administration of public functions, scares people out of the government workforce, and encourages the worst of the worst.
It’s not a sustainable situation for a open and free democracy.
DES MOINES, Iowa — Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis met one-on-one on the debate stage for the first time here Wednesday night, just five days before the Iowa caucuses. […]
Trump avoided this debate, hosted by CNN, as he had avoided the four prior clashes. He instead took part in a Fox News town hall elsewhere in Des Moines.
[…] DeSantis unfurled one of his best ripostes on a major point of substantive difference: the war in Ukraine. Haley is much more supportive than DeSantis of the need for continued U.S. aid for Ukraine. [That’s supposed to be “one of his best ripostes”? Sheesh.]
“You can take the ambassador out of the United Nations, but you can’t take the United Nations out of the ambassador,” DeSantis said.
[…] DeSantis still has a propensity to use overly wordy or rehearsed-sounding lines.
An attack on the “pale pastels of the warmed-over corporatism of people like Nikki Haley” was one stiff example Wednesday.
Another caveat is whether it’s possible that the aggressiveness of Wednesday’s debate could end up wounding both DeSantis and Haley, turning off caucusgoers.
[…] Haley at one point said the next president needed to bring “sanity” back to American life and implied that Trump had helped send the nation off the rails. She clearly acknowledged the reality that President Biden won the 2020 election.
DeSantis, in an unusually colorful phrase, noted that Trump “does word-vomit from time to time on social media.”
[…] the debate as a whole was dominated by the squabbling between DeSantis and Haley over each other’s record and character. [and repeatedly talking over each other]
The bottom line is, that helps Trump. […]
Boring and not worth watching in my opinion.
Trump, at his Fox town hall event tried to “make light of an earlier pledge to be motived by a desire for retribution,” but then he repeated his plan to be a dictator for one day.
Almost 10,000 coronavirus deaths were reported in December, and admissions to hospitals and intensive care units surged, World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said — with data indicating that holiday gatherings fueled increased transmission of the virus.
“Although covid-19 is no longer a global health emergency, the virus is still circulating, changing and killing,” Tedros said at a news conference in Geneva on Wednesday.
There was a 42 percent increase in hospitalizations and a 62 percent increase in ICU admissions from the previous month. Trends are based on data reported to the WHO from fewer than 50 countries, mostly in Europe and the Americas, said Tedros, who noted that this is not the full picture.
“It is certain that there are also increases in other countries that are not being reported,” he said. The WHO said in an email Thursday that Russia appears to be reporting the most cases to the health body but stressed that “many countries have reduced or stopped reporting, which is part of the problem.”
[…] The WHO is urging people to take precautions, including testing, vaccinating, wearing masks and ensuring indoor areas are well ventilated. “The vaccines may not stop you being infected, but the vaccines are certainly reducing significantly your chance of being hospitalized or dying,” Michael Ryan, head of emergencies at the WHO, said Wednesday.
Hospitalizations and coronavirus wastewater levels are rising across the United States, which is in the throes of another covid uptick as people resume work and school after the holidays. The CDC recommends getting an updated coronavirus vaccine to increase protection against JN.1. […]
So, we don’t really know the extent of the problem because people have stopped tracking and reporting … but we know enough to know that the situation is getting worse.
The two-year-old Affordable Connectivity Program, created as a part of the Democratic Party-led Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, looks like it will be coming to an end because of lack of funds. The program, which offers eligible households $30 per month toward their internet bills as well as small subsidies for laptops or tablets, has been in jeopardy since Republicans gained control in the House.
The Federal Communications Commission made the announcement on Monday, saying that it was starting to wind down the program earlier than previously expected because Congress is not providing necessary funds. This follows FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel’s repeated appeals and an additional request for $6 billion to keep the program running. According to the FCC, the program will run out of money by May.
In tandem with the FCC announcement, Rosenworcel sent a letter to members of Congress asking to fund the program that “now helps nearly 23 million households nationwide—in rural America, urban America, and everything in between—get online and stay online so that they have the high-speed internet service they need to fully participate in modern life.”
If Congress does not provide additional funding for the ACP in the near future, millions of households will lose the ACP benefit that they use to afford internet service. This also means that roughly 1,700 internet service providers will be affected by the termination of the ACP and may cut off service to households no longer supported by the program. Moreover, as the Administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration previously informed Congress, losing the ACP would undermine the historic $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program, for which the ACP supports a stable customer base to help incentivize deployment in rural areas.
Unfortunately for millions of Americans, the Republican Party, which struggles to do the bare minimum to keep the country running, has long been attacking the program, with prominent Republicans calling it a part of a “reckless spending spree.” Sens. John Thune and Ted Cruz, joined by Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Bob Latta, recently claimed that a large number of the households benefiting from the ACP were “households that already had broadband prior to the subsidy.”
Unsurprisingly, those Republicans forgot to mention that many of those households had signed up for internet access under the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program, which the ACP superseded.
Also not surprising is the fact that the same Republicans attacking the infrastructure program that helps tens of millions of Americans make no mention of the trillions of dollars that continue to be lost due to their Trump-era tax breaks for the rich.
[…] the previous Republican administration halted the expansion of broadband subsidies to low-income families.
There are fundamentally important differences between the two major political parties in our country and that fact bears repeating.
The last Republican debate before the Iowa caucuses took place in Des Moines on Wednesday evening, with just three candidates qualified to appear on the stage. However, only two candidates—former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis—showed up. As with the first four debates, Donald Trump was a no-show.
Instead, Trump was given a solo “town hall” on Fox News in which carefully vetted voters were allowed to express their adoration while Trump took questions alone at center stage. As an expression of just how much disdain both Fox and Trump have for the other Republican candidates, as well as for the traditional democratic process, it’s hard to do better than this.
Allowing Trump to brag about himself for better than an hour means listening to a lot of lies. But there was one moment in the Fox love fest where Trump told the absolute truth. “For 54 years, they were trying to get Roe v. Wade terminated,” said Trump. “And I did it. And I’m proud to have done it.” [video at the link]
“There would be no question,” said Trump. “No one else was going to get that done but me. And we did it. And we did something that was a miracle.”
Trump’s miracle is producing miraculous results. Like Kate Cox being hounded by the Texas attorney general, who threatened any hospital or doctor who tried to help her get an abortion for her nonviable, health-threatening pregnancy. A very Republican miracle.
However, just as he has in the past, Trump tried to weasel his way around defining his position on banning abortion. Because, as he’s admitted, saying that he wants to enact a national abortion ban is a losing issue at the polls.
“I understand where you’re coming from,” Trump told a woman at the town hall who asked him to define his position. Instead, he pointed out that Republicans who have taken hard-line positions on abortion “have just been decimated in the election.” So Trump bravely kept his plans for abortion secret, only to be revealed once he has the executive-order pen in hand.
However, that didn’t stop Trump from repeating the most hideous lie of his campaign by claiming that Democrats want to kill babies after they are born.
“They’re the radicals,” Trump said, “because they’re willing to kill the baby in eight months, nine months, or even after birth. If you remember the former governor of Virginia, where he said, ‘You kill the baby after the ninth month or even after its… You set the baby aside, and you have a conversation with the mother.’”
This is a claim Trump has made again. And again. And again. And again. [Embedded links within the article lead to reference material.] In fact, Trump couldn’t let it go by just telling this lie once during the Wednesday appearance on Fox. He told it twice. Naturally, no one on Fox pushed back against this disgusting lie.
When he wasn’t bragging about stripping away women’s rights and subjecting families to threats, humiliation, and torture, Trump was busy waving off the $7.8 million in money from foreign governments that he reportedly pocketed while in the White House.
“That’s a small amount of money,” Trump said. “You know, it sounds like a lot of money. That’s small.”
Could he please tell that to Rep. James Comer and the other Republicans who are going after President Joe Biden for loaning his son the downpayment on a pickup?
And as Trump explained, “I don’t get $8 million for doing nothing.” He got paid because … “I was doing services for them,” he said. That seems accurate.
Trump bragged about killing Roe and about getting paid for “doing services” for foreign governments while in the White House. Also, he would love to tell you that he’s going to institute a national ban on abortions, but he can’t because that might cost him the election. So America will just have to wait until he’s in the White House to watch him finish the job of taking away women’s rights.
If may seem unlikely that people will ignore these things going into the election, but they’ve done it before [video at the link]
birgerjohanssonsays
Research reveals mice without immune cells show no SARS-CoV-2 symptoms
This time, it’s the Arizona Court of Appeals, which on Wednesday declined Lake’s plea that she shouldn’t be held accountable for what comes out of her mouth.
Lake appealed to the court on Friday, asking the three-judge panel to overrule a trial judge’s refusal to throw out Maricopa County Stephen Richer’s defamation lawsuit against her.
It took only five days for the Court of Appeals to say no.
Iran has seized a tanker with Iraqi crude destined for Turkey in retaliation for the confiscation last year of the same vessel and its oil by the United States, Iranian state media reported, a move likely to stoke regional tensions.
“The Navy of the Islamic Republic of Iran seized an American oil tanker in the waters of the Gulf of Oman in accordance with a court order,” the state-run IRNA news agency said…
gijoelsays
Another Moms For Liberty school board member is cancelled by woke ideas about shoplifting.
Researchers believe they’ve found the oldest known fossilized skin, hidden away in a limestone cave system in Oklahoma. The skin sample dates to the early Permian Period, between 289 million years ago and 286 million years ago.
The skin belonged to an ancient reptile and is epidermis—the outer layer of skin in amniotes, a group that includes terrestrial reptiles, mammals, and birds. A study describing the skin as well as several other fossils found in the cave system is published today in Current Biology.
According to the research team, the recently discovered skin—smaller than a fingernail—is the first-known skin-cast fossil from the Paleozoic Era. The other fossils included skin compressions, skin bits from the ancient reptile Captorhinus aguti, and several scales of anamniotes—animals that reproduce in water. The bands of skin from the fossilized C. aguti came from just behind the animal’s head; the team was not able to associate all the amniote skin with specific ancient creatures…
The National Commissioner of the Icelandic Police has declared an uncertainty level of civil protection due to the glacial flood in Grímsvötn.
This is done in consultation with the police chief in South Iceland, as stated in a notice from the Civil Protection. It states that the Icelandic Met Office estimates that the maximum flow will not exceed 1,000 cubic meters per second, based on the amount of water that has been collected in Grímsvötn.
A petition to tourists east of Mt Grímsfjall
As mbl.is first reported this morning, a glacial outburst flood has started in Grímsvötn and a volcanic eruption is therefore considered likely.
Magnús Tumi Gudmundsson, professor of geophysics at the University of Iceland, told mbl.is earlier today that a volcanic eruption in Grímsvötn would be an explosive eruption, which would most likely disrupt air traffic.
The Icelandic Civil Protection says that travel routes east of Mt Grímsfjall can be very dangerous due to formation of fissures and craters. Therefore, they ask tourists to be careful in this area.
Flight color code turned yellow
The flight colour code above Grímsvötn had been raised to yellow due to the glacial outburst flood, meaning that the volcano shows signs of activity beyond normal.
This morning, the largest earthquake since the beginning of the measurements was detected in Grímsfjall, which measured 4.3 in magnitude.
A volcanic eruption is likely to occur within the next few hours or days, if it happens.
Grimsvotn is underneath an ice cap/glacier, so eruptions tend to throw a lot of ash in the air when the magma hits the ice.
[…] Trump told the judge presiding over his New York civil fraud trial that he is an “innocent man” and that the lawsuit brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James is “a fraud on me.”
Trump made the remarks after his attorney Chris Kise asked Judge Arthur Engoron if his client could speak for two to three minutes during closing arguments for the trial. “No one is more affected” in the case than him, Kise told the judge. The case, which Engoron has said he will decide in the coming weeks, could potentially cost Trump up to $370 million as well as his New York real estate empire.
Engoron rejected a similar request in an email Wednesday after Kise and Trump would not agree to refrain from personal attacks in his proposed closing statement. Engoron told Trump Thursday after his lawyers had finished their summations that he could speak for up to five minutes but to “focus on the facts” of the case. Trump immediately started talking without agreeing.
[Ha! Of course. It’s a mistake to let Trump speak.]
“We have a situation where I’m an innocent man,” Trump told the judge. “They should pay me for what I’ve gone through.”
“This is not consumer fraud,” Trump added. “This is no fraud. It is a fraud on me.”
Despite the judge’s warning, Trump did wrap in some insults against the judge and James. “I know this is boring to you. I know you have your own agenda,” Trump angrily told the judge at one point as he spoke while seated at the defense table. He also suggested James “hates Trump and doesn’t want him to get elected,” and called the case a “persecution,” leading Engoron to warn Kise to “please control your client.”
Kevin Wallace of the AG’s office said in his closing statement that Trump’s financial statements were “false every year” between 2011 and 2021 by “over a billion dollars.” Wallace said that “what the trial is all about is ‘what did the defendants know and when did they know it?’,” Wallace said. “Were they acting with intent when they manipulated their annual financial statements as part of a conspiracy … Did they know it? And the answer is yes.”
Another lawyer from the AG’s office, Andrew Amer, pointed to several examples of what he described as intentional fraud, including Trump valuing his Mar-a-Lago estate as a private residence despite an agreement it could only be used as a social club. Trump also claimed his Trump Tower triplex apartment was three times its size and estimated value, and Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg signed off on a financial statement that continued to value the apartment at over $300 million even after he’d been alerted it was 10,000 square feet instead of 30,000. “That screams of an intent to defraud,” Amer said.
Trump, Amer said, was the one responsible for the preparation of the documents “and the buck stops with him.”
The former president was not present for the AG’s closing argument. He held a press conference simultaneously at his nearby 40 Wall St. property — one of the key buildings in the attorney general’s case. He told reporters there that James is a “political hack” and “we’ve proven the case so conclusively.”
[…] James, whose office brought the case alleging Trump and his company had engaged in fraud by overstating the value of his assets and properties in financial documents spanning over a decade, was in the courtroom, as well.
Protesters gathered outside the courthouse Thursday morning ahead of the trial, chanting, “Thank you Tish!” and holding a banner that read, “No Dictators in the USA.”
Entrance to the courtroom was delayed Thursday morning after police responded to a bomb threat at Engoron’s home.
[…] Kise acknowledged there was one witness who testified that Trump knew he was committing fraud — his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen. But Kise ripped him as “a serial liar” who acknowledged on the witness stand that he’d lied under oath previously.
[…] Kise also minimized the overall importance of the financial statements, saying they had been prepared by Trump’s trusted accountants and had no impact on the favorable interest rates Trump was able to get from banks he was borrowing from. He said the banks knew Trump and “rolled out the red carpet” for him. He said the AG should be “praising President Trump as a business success.”
Kise was followed by Habba, who was representing the Trump Organization. She said the two Trump employees who were most responsible for the financial statements, former chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg and former senior vice president Jeff McConney, were not accountants and relied on the accounting firm they hired for guidance. […]
Her brief presentation was followed by attorney Cliff Robert, who’s representing Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., the Trump sons who are now running the company. He said there’s a “lack of evidence” for the AG when it comes to the pair. “There is no case. There’s nothing there,” Robert said. “There’s no there there.”
The AG is seeking to have both sons barred from the real estate industry in New York for five years. The ban on their father. Weisselberg and McConney that the AG is seeking would be a lifetime ban.
[…] James filed her $250 million suit against Trump, the Trump Organization and top executives, including Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., in 2022 after a yearslong investigation into their business practices. Engoron found before the trial that Trump and his executives had engaged in repeated and persistent fraud. Among the outstanding issues is whether they’d had an intent to defraud.
[…] The AG’s office has said the Trumps “reaped hundreds of millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains through their unlawful conduct” and should pay over $370 million. […]
The trial started Oct. 2, and testimony wrapped in mid-December. Engoron said he expects to issue his ruling by the end of the month.
FFS. Far rightwing doofuses threatening to shut down the government … again.
Report from NBC News:
Hard-right House Republicans on Thursday met with Speaker Mike Johnson and pressured him to renege on the spending deal he cut with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., just days ago.
Some conservatives left the meeting proclaiming that they were successful. But Johnson, R-La., told reporters shortly thereafter that he had made no commitments to back out of the deal.
[…] Members of the far-right Freedom Caucus and their allies are furious over the $1.66 trillion bipartisan spending deal he announced over the weekend that puts Congress on a path to avert a shutdown this month and finish its fiscal 2024 appropriations process. The conservative rabble-rousers used Thursday’s meeting to push the new speaker to reverse course and endorse a new strategy.
[…] Schumer said Thursday the upper chamber intends to follow through with the deal and pass a continuing resolution, or CR, to avert a shutdown in the meantime.
“Look, we have a top-line agreement. Everybody knows to get anything done, it has to be bipartisan,” he said. “So we’re going to continue to work to pass a CR and avoid a shutdown.”
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said if Johnson backs out, it would lead to a harmful government shutdown. Funding runs out for several federal agencies on Jan. 19.
“We have publicly and clearly and unequivocally reached an agreement on the top-line spending number. … There’s nothing more to discuss,” Jeffries said at his weekly news conference. “To the extent that House Republicans back away from an agreement that was just announced a few days ago, it will make clear that House Republicans are determined to shut down the government, crash the economy and hurt the American people.” […]
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, the panel’s vice chair, said she hopes that Johnson sticks to the agreement and that rumors of it falling apart aren’t true. “I certainly hope that’s not true,” she said. “Because it increases the chances of a government shutdown.”
The Biden administration is awarding $623 million in grants to help build an electric vehicle charging network across the nation. Grants being announced Thursday will fund 47 EV charging stations and related projects in 22 states and Puerto Rico, including 7,500 EV charging ports, officials said.
When Nevada’s Republican voters receive their sample ballots for the state’s presidential preference primary this month, the name of the party’s current frontrunner will be missing.
His absence has nothing to do with any legal challenges to former president Donald Trump’s eligibility to participate in the state’s primary…
No, Trump is ineligible for Nevada’s primary ballot because Trump’s campaign didn’t fill out an application to place him on Nevada’s primary ballot…
Tech billionaire Elon Musk drew a swift rebuke from two of the nation’s best known civil rights organizations Wednesday, after he criticized efforts by United Airlines and Boeing to hire nonwhite pilots and factory workers.
When taking stock of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ troubles, it’s easy to start with his faltering presidential campaign. Making matters worse, however, is the Florida Republican’s legal setbacks, which aren’t doing his candidacy any favors. The New York Times reported:
Dealing a blow to Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a federal court of appeals on Wednesday ruled that he had violated First Amendment protections when he suspended a progressive state prosecutor for political gain. The ruling, by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, undercut Mr. DeSantis on an episode he has made a key credential in his presidential campaign.
[…] The governor could’ve tried to help elect a rival candidate in the next election, but instead, DeSantis took it upon himself to suspend the prosecutor and install someone else that he preferred.
In effect, the Republican told Hillsborough County voters, “Sure, you may have chosen a state attorney through the democratic process, but I think I know better.”
Making matters worse, an earlier New York Times report noted while DeSantis said his move against Warren was necessary in the interests of “public safety,” the claim was completely baseless: “Mr. DeSantis and his advisers had failed to find a connection between Mr. Warren’s policies and public safety in his community.”
In fact, the Times added that the Republican’s lawyers lamented the fact that they couldn’t find anything in the local crime statistics to justify the local prosecutor’s suspension.
[…] DeSantis also lost when a court blocked Florida’s “Stop WOKE Act”; his anti-protest measure was also blocked by a federal judge; the Republican’s law to regulate social media companies was blocked by a different federal judge; and the cases brought by his elections police unit have largely fallen short.
All things considered, “Vote for me because judges rejected many of my favorite achievements” might not have been the pitch GOP primary voters and caucus-goers were looking for.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott appeared on right-wing gun fetishist Dana Loesch’s “The Dana Show,” recently to talk about his inhumane border policies.
When Loesch asked about the “maximum amount of pressure” he could apply in his border policy, Abbott responded, “We are using every tool that can be used from building a border wall to building these border barriers” to passing a law that makes it illegal for undocumented immigrants to enter the state. Abbott did note that the latter move was now the subject of a federal lawsuit from the Biden administration questioning a state’s right to make up immigration law.
Then the Texas governor added, “The only thing that we’re not doing is we’re not shooting people who come across the border because, of course, the Biden administration would charge us with murder.” [video at the link]
[…] Shooting unarmed people just because you are unhappy about their presence is murder. […]
Critics say Abbott’s hysterical rhetoric concerning immigrants and the border has inflamed violence against nonviolent migrants. It isn’t hard to see why Abbott is derided. After all, he did nothing when 19 young Texas children and two adults were gunned down by a AR-15-wielding dirtbag, and now he’s moaning about not being able to shoot unarmed folks wading across rivers and over rough terrain in search of a better life.
US and UK forces have begun air strikes against Houthi rebel targets in Yemen, US officials say.
&
‘Massive strike’ with ship-launched missiles and jets – AP report
US officials quoted by the Associated Press spoke of a massive retaliatory strike using warship-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles and fighter jets.
The Houthi targets included logistical hubs, air defence systems and arms depots, they said.
Then the Texas governor added, “The only thing that we’re not doing is we’re not shooting people who come across the border because, of course, the Biden administration would charge us with murder.”
So the reason Greg Abbott isn’t a murderer is becuase he fears he’d be caught and charged NOT because he thinks murder (of unarmed people who are no physical threat to him and haven’t done anything wrong) – is wrong?
This man just basically said he’d like to kill people if he can get away with it and he holds the highest office in Texas. Wow.
Will there be any politicla and legal consequences for that staggering admission? I wish I could say there will be. I wish there would be. I doubt it.
John Moralessays
Ah, yes… Tomahawks.
As per Wikipedia:
Unit cost
$1.87 million (FY2017) (Block IV)
$2 million (FY2022) (Block V)
Export cost: $4 million (FY2023)
A huge ancient city has been found in the Amazon, hidden for thousands of years by lush vegetation…
“This is older than any other site we know in the Amazon…”
The city was built around 2,500 years ago, and people lived there for up to 1,000 years, according to archaeologists.
It is difficult to accurately estimate how many people lived there at any one time, but scientists say it is certainly in the 10,000s if not 100,000s.
The archaeologists combined ground excavations with a survey of a 300 sq km (116 sq mile) area using laser sensors flown on a plane that could identify remains of the city beneath the dense plants and trees…
A Democratic military veteran is seeking North Dakota’s sole U.S. House seat, aiming for an upset in a state where Republicans hold every statewide and congressional office and Democrats haven’t won a statewide election since Heidi Heitkamp’s U.S. Senate victory in 2012.
“It is time to elect a pro-union, pro-choice, and pro-democracy leader to represent North Dakota in the U.S. House of Representatives,” Trygve Hammer, of Minot, said in announcing his candidacy on Wednesday. He’s challenging incumbent Republican Rep. Kelly Armstrong, an attorney and former state senator elected to the seat in 2018…
… In 2023, however, the Proud Boys appeared to be “circling the drain,” reports Tess Owen of Vice, who has covered the Proud Boys for years. While warning that the group is still a violent threat, especially to LGBTQ people, there is little doubt that they’ve seen a dramatic decline in activity. There were “just 36 uniformed appearances by one or more Proud Boys across 17 states last year, compared to the 63 appearances across 21 states that we logged in 2022,” Owens writes. The events they did have had relatively low turnout, as well.
There’s a few things going on. As Owens notes, it’s common for extremist groups to fall apart fairly quickly…
But there’s one big factor that cannot be overlooked that made 2023 very different from 2022: Proud Boys finally started going to prison for their role in January 6…
Streamed live on Jan 11, 2024
From Vladimir Putin’s forced deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia to the burning of Rohingya villages in Myanmar to the use of chemical weapons in Syria, war crimes shock the collective conscience, demanding a resolute response from the international community. Moreover, according to the United Nations, evidence of war crimes is emerging in real time in the latest outbreak of violence in Israel and Gaza.
But how exactly is a war crime defined, and how do states actually bring perpetrators of war crimes to account? What happens when governments are uncooperative or try to shield perpetrators of these crimes from prosecution? And what are the limitations of prosecution when it comes to holding perpetrators of war crimes accountable? Join the Council for a discussion of how international lawyers and human rights advocates investigate and prosecute war crimes, and the role of prosecution in securing justice for survivors.
A team of researchers at Cornell University has found a teeny-tiny bacterium called Vibrio natriegens, which weighs a trillionth of a gram and could process rare earth elements in an eco-friendly way.
The team genetically engineered the bacterium to enhance the effectiveness of purifying elements, largely present in various technologies like smartphones, computers, electric cars, and wind turbines…
The bacterium provides an environmentally friendly approach known as biosorption for extracting essential elements.
The team explained in their study that they created bacteria with improved metal binding capabilities and discovered 26 genes that might contribute to these changes.
Further analysis of these genes can help understand and enhance Vibrio natriegens’ biosorption capacity, with a focus on promising genes like bamC and PN96_12170…
@21. birgerjohansson : “To simplify watching, I have added times for significant moments. Thanks.
Peaceful, scientific exploration and boldly going into The Black and the binary world we are almost co-planets with but for a little more lunar mass. I love that and think it exemplifies what we do at our best as a species. I wish things had worked out better and peregrine 1 gone to plan.
@ 56. John Morales : Yeah. I followed that and, well, it sucks but Astrobotic are learning and trying and worth a go. Next time. Or the time after maybe. Eventually, if they keep going and keep learning anyhow. Example :SpaceX. It sometines takes a lotta tries..
@72. Lynna OM :
Republicans want to impeach:
President Biden
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin
Attorney General Merrick Garland
Vice President Kamala Harris
Secretary of State Antony Blinken
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg
Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona
FBI Director Chris Wray
Matthew Graves, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia
Where do they find the time?
Well, it does cut into their valuable watching Quanon*, PragerU-said-wha.. & various other extremistó’
de-la extremists fringe Conspiracists youtube clips watching and lobbyists order taking-time but, hey. its worth it ain’t it?
(Sarc tag really needed?)
I mean how else are they gunna waste their time and prove that Democracy and actually having govts govern is a terrible idea and convince their bat guano-addicted hyper-uber-mega-ultra partisan base that they can be voted in again to do ..the same crap again which is .. somehow..worthwhile?
StevoR @192: “This man just basically said he’d like to kill people if he can get away with it and he holds the highest office in Texas. Wow.”
Unfortunately, that’s correct. Unethical would be an understatement.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sparked a new controversy this week when he suggested during a primary debate that he would support the “mass removal of Palestinians” from Gaza if Israeli officials decide “they need to do that.”
Mass displacement and forced removals are often tactics used in ethnic cleansing, which a U.N. commission of experts has characterized as “a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas.”
[…] don’t let the flurry of Trump showmanship on the last day of the trial – making some of the closing argument himself, getting shut down after a few minutes by the judge, holding an impromptu news conference outside of the courtroom – obscure what’s happening here: Trump is about to lose and lose big.
[…] this was a judge-tried case, and the judge had already ruled against Trump on many key elements of New York Attorney General Letitia James’ case.
Trump is facing the very real prospect of hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties and being banned from the real estate business in New York for fraudulent business practices that went on for years. […]
The judge is no fool. He knows that he wasn’t the intended audience for Trump’s antics. […] Everything about Trump’s feral display yesterday was misdirection, sleight of hand, and distraction from the devastating blow his biz empire is about to take.
[…] Trump is cornered and desperate to look in charge even as control spins away from him.
Chris Hayes: “The banal, daily version of those politics is here already. It’s not a hypothetical. That version is: people that cross Donald Trump in pursuit of holding accountable law face constant threats of violence and intimidation and harassment, and sometimes actual violence.”
On Wednesday, Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema reached a new milestone in her turncoat Senate journey when she voted not to confirm U.S. District Judge S. Kato Crews to a Colorado seat. Luckily Crews received the support of every other Senate Democrat, a couple Republicans, and one independent not named Sinema and was confirmed by a 51-48 vote.
[…] While her team has quietly crafted a plan to show donors how she could win reelection, she has made no formal announcement about her 2024 plans. [I hope she decides not to run.]
This was the first time Sinema has voted against one of Biden’s judicial nominations, but not her first time voting against the Democratic Party. Since ascending to the Senate […], Sinema has quickly become something of a monster, turning her back on so many of the constituents who voted her into office. In her first year in office she voted against her then Democratic colleagues 27.5% of the time—second only to West Virginia’s most corrupt official, Sen. Joe Manchin.
Sinema’s crowning achievement was the derision she earned when she voted to tank the $15 minimum wage amendment to the American Rescue Plan, and made a big show of licking Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s boots to do it. Less than a year later, Sinema was announcing to everybody she was no longer a Democrat but an independent. […]
Sinema’s ever-increasing betrayal of her originally stated values has led virtually every former Democratic organization to endorse Rep. Ruben Gallego’s run for Senate in 2024. Sinema […] is untrustworthy [and] unpopular across the political spectrum.
In a big win for Bristol Bay, the Supreme Court has refused an appeal by Alaska and Pebble Limited Partnership seeking to overturn the EPA’s veto of Pebble Mine that was decided last January. The case, Alaska v United States, was a direct appeal to the high court, bypassing the lower courts. The decision was apparently unanimous, as there was no noted dissents in the decision.
To recap, last January the EPA shut down the proposed mine, under Section 404(C) of the Clean Water Act, which allows the agency to block areas from being used as disposal sites for tailings and other detritus from the mining process and operations, (in the case of Bristol Bay, the north and south forks of the Koktuli River and the surrounding watersheds).
While Alaska and Pebble Limited have vowed to keep fighting in court, their chances of success, given the Supreme Court refusing to hear it directly, is basically nonexistent. If the Court was wiling to to review and overturn that EPA decision, they would have accepted the appeal. […]
Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, who has been a vocal critic of former President Donald J. Trump, nonetheless committed on Wednesday to supporting him if he won the Republican nomination, even if he were convicted of a felony.
Mr. Sununu, a Republican who in December endorsed Nikki Haley, Mr. Trump’s rival and former United Nations ambassador, was asked by CNN whether he would hesitate to back Mr. Trump as the G.O.P. nominee should he be found guilty in any of the four criminal cases proceeding against him.
“Look, I think most of us are all going to support the Republican nominee,” Mr. Sununu said. “There’s no question.”
Mr. Sununu joins a long list of top Republicans who have resisted abandoning Mr. Trump, one that includes Ms. Haley and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, another opponent of Mr. Trump in the narrowing G.O.P. race. At the first Republican primary debate in August, all but two of Mr. Trump’s opponents raised their hands when asked if they would support the former president should he win the nomination and be convicted.
Americans are divided on how the U.S. Supreme Court should handle former President Donald Trump’s ballot access, but a majority in a new ABC News/Ipsos poll say they would support the court either barring Trump from presidential ballots nationally or letting states take that step individually.
The national poll finds a close division on state-level rulings barring Trump from the ballot in Colorado and Maine, 49-46%, support-oppose. On next steps, 56% are willing to see him disqualified in all or some states, including 30% who say the high court should bar him in all states and 26% who say it should let each state decide.
Thirty-nine percent back a third option, saying the court should keep Trump on the ballot in all states.
The survey, produced by Langer Research Associates with fieldwork by Ipsos Public Affairs, also finds substantial support for the leveling of criminal charges against Trump, 56-39 percent.
This is a very fascinating paper as far as the concepts go. I have not wrapped my brain around it because of other things but I want to. Single eyes becoming two eyes. Relevance to the pineal gland, a former eye. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7531155/
Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, one of the Republicans who served on the Jan. 6 committee, was asked on CNN whether he can imagine voting for President Joe Biden in general election. Apparently indifferent to party considerations, he didn’t hesitate.
“Over Donald Trump? In a heartbeat,” the former GOP congressman said. “I mean, to me, that’s not even a question I would have to wrestle with. … It is literally a decision, at that moment, between do you believe in a functioning democracy? Or do you not? And I think that’s the only thing on the ballot. I think that is the only thing.”
It was a straightforward answer that much of Kinzinger’s party rejects. Take New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, for example. The New York Times reported:
Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, who has been a vocal critic of former President Donald J. Trump, nonetheless committed on Wednesday to supporting him if he won the Republican nomination, even if he were convicted of a felony.
To be sure, the Republican governor doesn’t currently support Trump. On the contrary, Sununu has endorsed former Ambassador Nikki Haley and is going out of his way to try to help her win the GOP nomination. He even stars in a campaign ad in which he describes Haley as “a new generation of conservative leadership, who can help leave behind the chaos and the drama of the past.”
But the question Sununu received on CNN was whether he was prepared to ultimately support Trump in a general election, even if the former president were convicted of felonies before Election Day.
“Look, I think most of us are all going to support the Republican nominee,” Sununu said. “There’s no question.”
To be sure, the governor doesn’t appear to hold Trump in high regard. In fact, the feeling is mutual: The former president has repeatedly condemned Sununu in recent months.
[…] This reminded me of a story from two years ago.
In early 2022, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell sat down with reporter Jonathan Swan, who asked whether there were any “moral red lines” that would lead the Kentucky senator to withhold his support from a Trump-led ticket.
“As a Republican leader of the Senate, it should not be a front-page headline that I will support the Republican nominee for president,” McConnell replied, adding, “I think I have an obligation to support the nominee of my party, and I will.”
When Swan pressed on, asking if there’s anything Trump could possibly do that would be a bridge too far, McConnell appeared visibly frustrated. “I don’t get to pick the Republican nominee for president,” the GOP’s Senate leader replied. “They’re elected by the Republican voters.”
In other words, asked about his “moral red lines,” the Kentuckian conceded that such lines effectively do not exist, at least insofar as electoral politics is concerned.
A year later, after Trump targeted McConnell’s own wife with racist taunts, the Senate minority leader again said he’d support his party’s nominee, “no matter who that may be.”
The senator’s list of concerns starts and ends with the Republican Party’s pursuit of power.
Sununu appears to be in the same boat. The New Hampshire governor is no fool. He’s supporting Haley in part because he doesn’t want Trump to prevail. But when push comes to shove, Sununu shares McConnell’s priorities: On the list of what matters, partisan control is at the top of an otherwise empty list.
For Kinzinger, belief in a functioning democracy is paramount. It’s no wonder he’s found himself persona non grata in GOP circles.
Republicans are all about states controlling their elections. That’s how they justify purging eligible Democratic voters from the rolls in Georgia or removing polling stations from Black neighborhoods in Texas. State control of elections is always good so long as those states are doing things right. As in extreme right.
But when states weigh the law and make a decision that is more concerned about following the Constitution than pleasing the Heritage Foundation, Republicans know what to do: Get the Supreme Court to put a big federal boot down on uppity states.
Now that Donald Trump has been removed from the ballot in Colorado and Maine, Republicans are incensed. They don’t just want the court to rule that those states must put Trump back on the ballot; they’re also introducing legislation to ensure that more states don’t try to apply the 14th Amendment—by making the Supreme Court the only arbiter of what constitutes an insurrection.
As USA Today reports, Sen. Thom Tillis is hoping to stop other states from disqualifying Trump. To that end, he has introduced a bill to punish states that “misuse” the 14th Amendment by taking away federal election funding. Tillis’ explanation of his action includes all the buzzwords you might expect.
“Regardless of whether you support or oppose former President Donald Trump,” Tillis wrote in a press release Tuesday, “it is outrageous to see left-wing activists make a mockery of our political system by scheming with partisan state officials and pressuring judges to remove him from the ballot.”
The case in Colorado was primarily brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, one of the most effective watchdog organizations for … responsibility and ethics. Understandably, Tillis would see that as left-wing, as neither of those principles have much support on the right.
Tillis’ bill hopes to amend the Help America Vote Act by adding language that awards the Supreme Court with “sole jurisdiction to decide claims arising out of section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.”
Clearly, Tillis would not make this move unless he was sure this court would determine that the events that made him flee the Senate chambers on Jan. 6, 2021, were not an insurrection, but just a bit of misguided frivolity. Considering the role that the wife of one of the justices played in those events, that’s probably not a bad bet.
And there’s always the chance that Republicans could use this bill to do more than simply keep Trump on the ballot. Republicans like Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft have threatened to remove President Joe Biden from the ballot, saying that Vice President Kamala Harris supporting those who protested the police murder of George Floyd, or Biden allowing “an invasion” at the southern border, could classify as insurrections.
It seems unlikely that even this court would give the insurrection stamp to actions clearly within normal boundaries. But then … this court has made some novel decisions.
However, before the Supreme Court can take over the role of insurrection-spotter, Tillis’s legislation has to pass in time to make a difference. This seems very unlikely, considering that Tillis has just five Republican co-sponsors and hasn’t yet made the official text available. The odds of his bill escaping the Senate are low, especially with Democrats, who control the Senate, unlikely to hand even more power to the deeply conservative court.
Even if it somehow passed, it’s unclear how Congress could carve away responsibilities that belong to the states, and hand them over to the Supreme Court without requiring a constitutional amendment. […]
Whew, things are heating up down in Texas, forcing the United States government on Thursday night to file a motion with the Supreme Court notifying it that the Texas National Guard has “deployed armed soldiers and vehicles to block federal gov from accessing the river” in Eagle Pass, a town along the Rio Grande. Seems bad!
Can sumter be done about it?
This particular face-off is taking place in Shelby Park, a public park in Eagle Pass that fronts the Rio Grande. The federal government had sued Texas for slapping up concertina wire and other barriers in the area, but a court allowed Texas to keep going so long as the Border Patrol still had access to the river and roads on both sides of the new fencing so it could do its job of spotting migrants, rescuing them in case they were bleeding out all over Texas’ beloved razor-wire buoys, and then taking them into custody.
To which Texas apparently said fuck ‘em:
That fencing further restricts Border Patrol’s ability to reach the river in particular areas. The relevant stretch includes the area of Shelby Park, which contains the boat ramp from which Border Patrol routinely launches the patrol boats it uses on this stretch of the Rio Grande[…]. It also includes the staging area that Border Patrol has used to evaluate and begin inspecting migrants that it has apprehended along this stretch of the border.
Thursday night’s filing includes an affidavit from the area’s Chief Patrol Agent describing just how much harder this action by the National Guard has made the Border Patrol’s job. Which of course is the point:
A TNG Major walked up to the agents and Texas DPS personnel and informed them that TNG would no longer allow anyone, to include Texas DPS, to drop off or turn over subjects at that location. The TNG Major further informed the Border Patrol agents that TNG would not allow any transport units to pick up the subjects under the port of entry, and that the agents would have to walk the migrants to Loop 480 to transport them outside of Shelby Park for further processing. Loop 480 is a two-way industrial highway, where there is not a lot of space to safely intake migrants.
Of course all of this is fine with Greg Abbott, the elderly Draco Malfoy cosplayer currently d/b/a the governor of Texas, because Abbott has yet to meet a migrant he felt like treating as a human being and not a silhouette on a shooting range.
Abbott was being interviewed by legendary mouth Dana Loesch about what all he done to keep Texas and America safe from the scourge of desperate migrants hoovering up all of America’s strategic baby formula reserves. And what all he’s done is everything short of flat-out gunning unarmed people down, for which the governor expressed grave regret:
“We are using every tool that can be used, from building a border wall to building these border barriers, to passing this law that I signed that led to another lawsuit by the Biden administration, where I signed a law making it illegal for somebody to enter Texas from another country. And they’re subject to arrest and subject to deportation.
“So, we are deploying every tool and strategy that we possibly can. The only thing that we’re not doing is we’re not shooting people who come across the border, because of course, the Biden administration would charge us with murder.”
Yes, the Biden administration would charge you with murder BECAUSE YOU WOULD BE COMMITTING MURDER […]
Maybe Abbott remembers when Trump suggested shooting migrants in the legs to slow them down and thought he’d one-up the former president to prove a point […]
Not many governors would go on record as saying how disappointed they are that they cannot legally murder people. But not many governors are bloodthirsty [doofuses] who probably think “Walker, Texas Ranger” was a documentary.
A judge in New York has ordered former President Donald Trump to pay nearly $400,000 to cover The New York Times’ legal fees from a now-dismissed lawsuit he brought against the paper, three of its reporters and his niece.
Trump sued the New York Times in 2021, accusing the paper of conspiring with his estranged niece, Mary Trump, to obtain and publish his tax records. New York Judge Robert Reed dismissed the lawsuit against with the Times and its reporters in May 2023, ruling that they were protected under the First Amendment and ordering Trump to cover their legal fees.
On Friday, Reed determined that $392,638.69 was “a reasonable value for the legal services rendered,” given the complexity of the case and the attorneys involved. (A portion of the lawsuit against Mary Trump was allowed to proceed, and her request to be reimbursed for legal fees was denied in June.)…
Now is an excellent time to federalize the entire Texas National Guard and deploy them to get to know our newest NATO ally, Finland. If the Guard wants to defend a border […]
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Or maybe they can set up a post on an isolate Aleutian island with no water or electric services. Tell them they are watching out for undocumented Siberians crossing the Bering Sea [….]
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Like it says in the Bible, “For I was a stranger and you fatally shot me” /s
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“The DOJ has filed a new complaint in the Texas case—arguing that armed officials, at the direction of Greg Abbott, have physically blocked border patrol from doing their jobs at the border.
Greg Abbott spending billions of taxpayer money to *weaken* border security.”
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Maybe Old Handsome Joe needs to declare an emergency and call up the Texas National Guard? The National Guard was called up to help CPB at the border in June, but not the Texas National Guard who are participating in Operation Lone Star. It sounds like they need to be put under federal command and authority, however.
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Hey, the press, you care to both sides this shit right here?
You should be asking EVERY Republican if they also want to shoot hispanic people, Constantly. Non stop. no matter what the presser is about.
You should not stop asking this question.
You know, like you would do if a Democrat had said something even remotely this insane
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That would be rude.
A Maryland elections official resigned Thursday after being arrested Tuesday on charges that he breached the U.S. Capitol in a riot on January 6, 2021.
Carlos Ayala, a Republican member of the Maryland State Board of Elections, was arrested on multiple charges on Tuesday, according to federal court records…
MyPillow, the bedding company founded by conservative activist Mike Lindell, has long been a prominent sponsor for Fox News, its commercials woven into the fabric of the network’s programming over the past decade.
But the partnership appears to have hit a wall. On Friday, Lindell announced on Stephen K. Bannon’s podcast that his company’s media-buying agency was told this week that the network would no longer accept MyPillow advertisements.
Lindell told The Washington Post they got no explanation for the decision, but he thinks it’s connected to his hiring of former Fox host Lou Dobbs to anchor shows on his website FrankSpeech.com. Dobbs’s first guest, on Monday, was former president Donald Trump.
But a person with knowledge of the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment said the partnership has not been canceled but rather has been paused because Lindell has failed to pay for his ads since August.
[…] The person with knowledge of the situation said that Lindell’s December payment was for ads that aired in June and July.
[…] MyPillow’s advertising spots were particularly vital in supporting Tucker Carlson’s since-canceled Fox News show after the host lost dozens of large corporate sponsors because of his 2018 comments about immigrants. “When other companies would be afraid to advertise there or boycott them, we didn’t change,” Lindell said.
Emails released as part of Dominion Voting Systems’ lawsuit against Fox showed the importance that the network has placed on maintaining a good relationship with Lindell, even as a producer for Sean Hannity’s show described him as “nuts!” in a text message.
Lindell framed the network’s current prohibition as indicative of cancel culture. “It’s disgusting. I’m beside myself,” he said, adding that “it should be almost illegal that you don’t accept money to buy ads when you’ve been doing it this long.” (He said that MyPillow spends $1 million to $2 million per week on Fox advertisements.)
[…] When Scott [Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott] in December 2020 pressed her advertising chief on Lindell’s claim that Fox wouldn’t run his ads promoting his book, Collins said it was not rejected, but that MyPillow would need to pay Fox’s price for political advertising “since the ad looked more like a Trump campaign ad than a book ad.”
[…] You may have seen the tins that contain 15 little white rectangles that look like the desiccant packs labeled “Do Not Eat.” Zyns are filled with nicotine and are meant to be placed under your lip like tobacco dip. No spitting is required, so nicotine pouches are even less visible than vaping. Zyns come in two strengths in the United States, three and six milligrams. A single six-milligram pouch is a dose so high that first-time users on TikTok have said it caused them to vomit or pass out. And while Zyns are presented as a healthier, smoke-free alternative to cigarettes, they are still addictive, according to Robert Jackler, a professor emeritus at the Stanford University School of Medicine who has studied nicotine industry marketing. And dentists are already reporting seeing gum injuries in patients who use pouches.
So how are kids learning about these little pouches? Greyson Imm, an 18-year-old high school student in Prairie Village, Kan., said he was 17 when Zyn videos started appearing on his TikTok feed. The videos multiplied through the spring, when they were appearing almost daily. “Nobody had heard about Zyn until very early 2023,” he said. Now a “lot of high schoolers have been using Zyn. It’s really taken off, at least in our community.”
[…] was stunned by the vast forces that are influencing teenagers. These forces operate largely unhampered by a regulatory system that seems to always be a step behind when it comes to how children can and are being harmed on social media.
Parents need to know that when children go online, they are entering a world of influencers, many of whom are hoping to make money by pushing dangerous products. It’s a world that’s invisible to us, because when we log on to our social media, we don’t see what they see. Thanks to algorithms and ad targeting, I see videos about the best lawn fertilizer and wrinkle laser masks, while Ian is being fed reviews of flavored vape pens and beautiful women livestreaming themselves gambling crypto and urging him to gamble, too.
[…] The whole issue of influencer marketing to youth, even for addictive products regulated by the government, falls into a legal and technical canyon so vast the next generation is being lost in it.
[…] First, a quick note about Zyn: A spokesman for its parent company said that while Zyn does contain nicotine, which is addictive, it’s intended as a smoke-free alternative for those already using tobacco or nicotine products and its marketing is directed to adults 21 and older. [balderdash]
Another thing to know about Zyn? The tobacco conglomerate Philip Morris International acquired the Zyn maker Swedish Match in 2022 as part of a strategic push into smokeless products, a category it projects in the United States could help drive an expected $2 billion in revenue in 2024. P.M.I. is also a company that has long denied it markets tobacco products to minors despite decades of research accusing it of just that. […]
It’s conventional wisdom in the advertising world that the younger you get consumers hooked on a brand, the more likely you’ll have them for life. Yet the internet has changed how minors and young adults learn about those products.
[…] Let’s start with influencers. They aren’t traditional pitch people. Think of them more like the coolest kids on the block. They establish a following thanks to their personality, experience or expertise. They share how they’re feeling, they share what they’re thinking about, they share stuff they like — and sometimes they’re paid by the company behind a product and sometimes they’re not. They’re incentivized to increase their following and, in turn, often their bank accounts. Young people are particularly susceptible to this kind of promotion because their relationship with influencers is akin to the intimacy of a close friend.
With ruthless efficiency, social media can deliver unlimited amounts of the content that influencers create or inspire. That makes the combination of influencers and social-media algorithms perhaps the most powerful form of advertising ever invented. [Image at the link: Moments from a video featuring Tucker Carlson greeting an enormous can of Zyn. The video was uploaded by the Nelk Boys, young male influencers with eight million followers on YouTube alone.]
Enter Tucker Carlson. Mr. Carlson, the former Fox News megastar who recently started his own subscription streaming service, has become a big Zyn influencer. He’s mentioned his love of Zyn in enough podcasts and interviews that he’s earned the nickname Tucker CarlZyn.
[…] California forbids any tobacco billboards near the middle school by my house in San Francisco, but that law does not prevent unsponsored #Zynbabwe videos from showing up in those students’ feeds at recess.
Facebook, Instagram and TikTok all have guidelines that prohibit tobacco ads and sponsored, endorsed or partnership-based content that promotes tobacco products. Holding them accountable for maintaining those standards is a bigger question.
[…] We need a new definition of advertising that takes into account how the internet actually works. I’d go so far as proposing the courts broaden the definition of advertising to include all influencer promotion. For a product as dangerous as nicotine, I’d put the bar to be considered an influencer as low as 1,000 followers on a social-media account, and maybe if a video from someone with less of a following goes viral under certain legal definitions, it would become influencer promotion.
[…] I refuse to believe there aren’t ways to write laws and regulations that can address these difficult questions over tech company liability and free speech, that there aren’t ways to hold platforms more accountable for advertising that might endanger kids. Let’s stop treating the internet like a monster we created but can’t control. We built it. We foisted it upon our children. We better try to protect them from its potential harms as best we can. […]
Synagogue tunnels discovered in NY (antisemites freak out) , Pope calls to ban surrogacy and much more.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=2gSkfX3cIuQ&si=d8qwogS-AIVsaSQO
Sooo … we have discovered the tunnel network where ze joos are hiding all that gold they are hoarding… or has the Bilderberg Group made off with it?
Birger, be aware that stupid title or not, clickbait or not, I shan’t be clicking on those links where you include the parameters about who, from which page, and how the link was shared; I really dislike providing my personal info to the engines beyond what I must. Not gonna bother to explain why, but it should be obvious.
Told you already — but again: the si parameter is purely for tracking and for analytics.
BTW
The cancer link is about a certain transposon, whose products show up in half of all cancers. Legit science.
birgerjohanssonsays
Apostate prophet has a fun podcast: social media claimed aliens with cloaking devices were attacking a mall, then religious nuts like Ali Dawa got on the bandwagon and claimed it was djinn! It is the muslim analog of “alien abductions are really demons!”
It is like one of the better episodes of God Awful Movies.
Myself, @ 233
Hey muslims, leave alien mischief alone. The Christians called dibs!
birgerjohanssonsays
With all this shit going down ‘reptilian’ David Icke is looking better.
Not because he is less deranged or bigoted but because the rest of the world is chucking up worse people.
Maybe I should go with the flow and become an omni-bigot*. Or do a Qanon thing and out-crazy everyone.
Like, the slow mail deliveries are caused by the evil spirits trapped underneath the volcanos by galactic warlords. I am practically in the running for a post in the Michigan GOP.
The world falling apart? It’s not the Jews. Its the eskimos!
President Joe Biden announced Friday that federal student debt will be wiped out for certain borrowers who took out relatively small loans and have been in repayment for the past decade.
Borrowers who received less than $12,000 in federal loans and have been paying off their balances for at least 10 years ‘will get their remaining student debt cancelled immediately’ in February, Biden said in a statement.
He said that the move comes “nearly six months ahead of schedule” and that it applies to borrowers enrolled in the new income-driven repayment plan known as SAVE, which administration officials touted in recent months as a way to help lower their monthly payments.
While 30 million people are eligible for the SAVE plan, Biden said Friday that 6.9 million are currently enrolled. It was not immediately clear how many borrowers would be affected by the cancellation effort.
“This action will particularly help community college borrowers, low-income borrowers, and those struggling to repay their loans,” Biden said in his statement.
Many borrowers began repaying federal student loans in October after a pause of more than three years.
The Supreme Court last year rejected Biden’s pandemic-era debt relief plan, which aimed to erase up to $20,000 in student debt for about 43 million borrowers.
In his statement, Biden highlighted efforts by the administration to “pursue an alternative path” that he said had already canceled student debt for 3.6 million people.
Friday’s announcement follows similar actions in recent months to reduce student loan debt.
Shortly after loan repayments restarted in October, Biden approved $9 billion in student loan debt forgiveness for 125,000 people, including 53,000 beneficiaries of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.
Later that month, the Education Department released a proposal that it said would target providing debt relief to four categories of borrowers, including those whose outstanding federal student loan balances exceed the amounts they initially borrowed.
House Speaker Mike Johnson insisted Friday he is sticking with the bipartisan spending deal he struck with the other congressional leaders, but offered no clear path for overcoming hard-right opposition within his own party to prevent a partial government shutdown next week.
Almost from the moment it was liberated during the Kharkiv counteroffensive in the fall of 2022, Russia has been trying to recapture the city of Kupyansk. In August, CNN reported that evacuations were being ordered as the city became the “epicenter” of a Russian advance that included 100,000 troops. In September, The Wall Street Journal wrote about the “besieged city” being devastated by daily barrages. In October, The Washington Post reported that Kupyansk was the site of “furious attacks” and Russian artillery was “pummeling” the area.
It’s now January. Ukraine still holds Kupyansk.
Most of Russia’s efforts to take the city have come no closer than the town of Synkivka, 7 kilometers to the northeast. It’s at this location that Ukraine has repeatedly pushed back Russian attempts to advance, with a combination of artillery and drones doing to Russian convoys in this area what they’ve been doing to Russian convoys everywhere else.
But this week, Ukraine stopped just butting heads at Synkivka and hit the Russian lines at a place they haven’t visited in months. [map at the link]
On Thursday, Ukraine took a small area just north of the road to the Russian-occupied town of Orlianka. Within a few hours, they made a second push, extending this area to about 2 square kilometers.
In the winter of 2022, as Ukraine was still pressing forward following the rapid advance of the Kharkiv counteroffensive, it largely bypassed this area to move forces south toward Svatove. It seems unlikely that Ukraine is looking to make a serious advance in this direction now—though if it turns out to be relatively uncontested, they are very unlikely to stop. Instead, it seems likely Ukraine is taking this position to keep Russia from continuing to accumulate forces near Kupyansk. There’s a lot of line out there, and Ukraine seems pretty good at finding spots where they can, at least temporarily, advance and force Russia to shift positions.
How many forces Russia currently has near Kupyansk isn’t clear. But they seem less ready to advance on the city than they did back in August. Hopefully, this small gain by Ukraine has them scrambling.
While making this advance, Ukrainian forces reportedly repelled another six attacks from the area of Synkivka. Well to the south, Ukraine also repelled a handful of additional attacks from the area around Kreminna. The same goes for the area just south of Bakhmut, where positions around Klishchiivka seem fairly static, despite Russian efforts to retake the town. [map at the link]
In Avdiivka, which has now been the subject of a major Russian push for months and where estimates of the number of Russian forces killed topped 13,000 in mid-December, Russia made another attempt to cut through the salient from the north.
Russia claimed to take the village in November—and probably did—but since then Ukraine has booted them from the blasted remains and eliminated every Russian force that has crossed the rail lines in an effort to capture Stepove. The level of destruction in this single area is remarkable.
Surely, by now, any Russian soldier has to quake at the whole idea of being sent toward Stepove. [tweet and video at the link]
ussia continues to mass forces at Krasnohorivka, east of Stepove and then sends them across in convoys. Ukraine continues to pulverize those convoys, generating absolutely incredible casualties.
There’s no better example of the absolute disdain Russia holds for its own forces than the way they have been treated, and are still being treated, at Stepove. At this point, it’s not clear Russia would know what to do if some of their forces actually reached the village.
Finally, far to the west on the banks of the Dnipro River, heavy fighting continues in the area of Krynky. [map at the link]
In the past week, Ukraine has managed to scrape out a few more blocks along the main street. They’ve also held up against multiple Russian attempts to break this foothold on the left bank of the river. It hasn’t worked. Ukraine fought off eight attacks on Friday. [tweet and video at the link]
But any gain in this area certainly hasn’t come without a bloody cost. Look at this list of losses from earlier in the week. [List of losses]
This is a compilation from across Ukraine, but you can bet all those boats at the bottom are near Krynky. With Ukraine being forced to continually resupply this one area on the east side, Russian forces are pretty clear about where Ukrainian boats will be landing. And even though there have been reports that electronic warfare is interfering with Russian drone use in the area, it’s obviously not interfering enough. That list shows nine lost boats, probably in a single night, with eight of them taken out by FPV drones equipped with night vision. Each of those boats likely contained several Ukrainian soldiers, along with supplies and equipment for the Krynky bridgehead. think about those poor men in those small boats, crossing a kilometer-wide river in the darkness, and nearing their landing position only to hear the buzz of a drone coming down on them from the black sky.
It’s not known how many such drones Russia has. Let’s hope the answer is “not a lot.”
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CNN reports that the United States is working with G7 countries to take frozen Russian assets and hand them over to Ukraine.
Potential numbers as high as $300 billion are being reported, but only about $5 billion is in the United States. President Joe Biden would like to transfer that money to Ukrainian accounts, but to make it happen, Congress to pass the “Repo Act,” and then Biden will need to shepherd the process past allies.
It seems like it would be hard for Republicans to defend keeping this money from Ukraine even as Russia blasts away at their country. But Republicans … always seem to find a way to be a-holes at the worst possible time.
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Bradley IFV of the 47th Brigade of Ukraine engages in a battle with Russian T-90M, Avdiivka front. (Bradley is in foreground while T-90M is in the middle of the village). At the end of the video it’s visible that tank most likely received significant damage as the crew cannot control the turret rotation. [tweet and video at the link]
It’s weird to watch a wounded tank lumber around like that.
[…] when it comes to the Supreme Court tackling the question of whether Trump can be barred from ballots under the 14th Amendment, 30% said the high court should remove him from all ballots, while 26% said the court should let states decide Trump’s fate. Just 39% said Trump should be kept on the ballot in all states—a remarkably low percentage for a major-party presidential front-runner. […]
41% strongly support charging Trump, while just 26% strongly support opening an impeachment inquiry into Biden.
That means House Republicans are fixated on devoting a bunch of time and energy during a presidential cycle to a matter that only a quarter of voters feel passionately […]
The additional round of strikes aimed to further degrade the Houthis’ ability to carry out more attacks in the Red Sea, according to two American officials.
Two U.S. officials said on Friday night that American forces had carried out another round of strikes against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, bombing a radar facility there.
[…] “We’re not interested in a war with Yemen,” said the spokesman, John F. Kirby. “We’re not interested in a conflict of any kind. In fact everything the president has been doing has been trying to prevent any escalation of conflict, including the strikes last night.”
President Biden, however, made it clear later on Friday that the United States was prepared to strike Yemen again if the Houthi rebel group did not relent in its attacks on shipping. During a visit to Pennsylvania, he said the United States and its allies would “make sure that we respond to the Houthis if they continue with this outrageous behavior.”
The Houthi response to the first round of strikes was limited: Just a single anti-ship missile was lobbed harmlessly into the Red Sea, far from any passing vessel, according to Lt. Gen. Douglas Sims, the director of the U.S. military’s Joint Staff.
The additional U.S. strikes reported on Friday evening came as part of an effort that Pentagon planners hoped would further degrade the Iran-backed group’s ability to attack ships in the Red Sea.
[…] Oman, a U.S. ally that has mediated talks with the Houthis, criticized the strikes and expressed its “deep concern.”
[…] Since the Houthis began their attacks in November, global shipping lines that use the Red Sea and the Suez Canal have diverted hundreds of vessels around Africa, routes that take far longer and add costs to cargo deliveries.
[…] The first round of U.S.-led strikes in Yemen hit radars, missile- and drone-launch sites, and weapons storage areas, according to two American officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Biden administration officials said those strikes were intended to hinder the Houthis’ ability to strike Red Sea targets, rather than to kill leaders and Iranian trainers, which could be viewed as more escalatory. A Houthi spokesman said at least five of its fighters were killed. […]
Longtime Slashdot reader Plugh shares a report from Daily Security Review:
A Ukrainian hacker group […] carried out a destructive attack on the servers of a Moscow-based internet provider to take revenge for Kyivstar cyberattack. The group, known as Blackjack, successfully hacked into the systems of M9com, causing extensive damage by deleting terabytes of data. Numerous residents in Moscow experienced disruptions in their internet and television services. Additionally, the Blackjack hacker group has issued a warning of a potentially larger attack in the near future…
Here are the “shadow aliens” BS that got conspiracy nutters fired up.
“Rumors of ‘shadow aliens’ at Bayside Marketplace go viral”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ek_8t1sdvGc
[…] When voters want something done on an issue and their elected officials fail to act, they may turn to citizen initiatives to pursue their goals instead […] citizens collect signatures to have an issue put directly on the ballot for the voters to voice their preferences. Nearly half the states, 24 of them, allow citizen initiatives.
These measures, also called “ballot initiatives,” often focus on the controversial issues of the day. Citizen initiatives on same-sex marriage and marijuana legalization have been on many state ballots through the years. Abortion rights have repeatedly been on the ballot since 2022 […]
it is becoming increasingly common for lawmakers across the country to not only ignore the will of the people, but also actively work against it. [Photo: Maine Gov. Paul LePage refused to expand Medicaid in his state after voters in 2018 passed an initiative authorizing it.]
Invalidate, weaken, repeal
[snipped other examples]
In 2016, voters in South Dakota supported an initiative to revise campaign finance and lobbying laws and create an ethics commission. Governor Dennis Daugaard signed a law repealing the initiative in February 2017.
Revise and amend
• Ohioans voted in favor of legalizing marijuana in November 2023. In that initiative, part of the tax revenue from marijuana sales would go to a financial assistance program for those who show “social and economic disadvantage.” The Ohio Senate passed a bill the following month that would instead use the tax revenue to fund jails and law enforcement.
• Massachusetts voters passed recreational marijuana legalization in 2016. In 2017, the Legislature passed a bill to increase the excise tax on marijuana from the 3.75% set in the citizens’ initiative to 10.75%.
• In 2018, Utah voters made adults with income up to 138% of the federal poverty level eligible for Medicaid – a federal-state health insurance program for low-income individuals and those with disabilities. The state Legislature applied to the federal government for waivers to lower the income limit to 100% of the federal poverty level, which curtailed the expansion voters approved.
• Arizona voters approved a tax increase on the wealthy to fund the state’s schools in 2020. In 2021, the Legislature responded by exempting business earnings from the tax. There was an attempt by citizen initiative later that year to repeal the legislature’s law exempting business earnings, but it did not gather enough signatures from citizens to make it to the ballot.
Governors object
In some cases, it is not the legislature that opposes the will of the voters, but the governor. In recent years, several Republican governors have refused to implement Medicaid expansions passed by voter initiatives.
[snipped example from Maine]
• Missouri Governor Mike Parson said he would not move forward with the 2020 voter-passed Medicaid expansion because it would not pay for itself. In 2021, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled the initiative valid and Medicaid expansion moved forward.
Why they do it
Lawmakers who rewrite or overturn ballot initiatives sometimes argue that voters do not understand what they are supporting. Lawmakers, unlike citizens, have to balance state budgets every year, and they often raise questions about how to pay for the policies or programs passed by initiative.
[…] That only half of states permit citizen initiatives suggests that political elites are not always supportive of a process that limits their own power. Historically, though, legislators have respected the results. Some lawmakers, including Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, state they will continue to “accept” the will of the people. To do otherwise undermines democracy.
The IRS says it has collected an additional $360 million in overdue taxes from delinquent millionaires as the agency’s leadership tries to promote the latest work it has done to modernize the agency with Inflation Reduction Act funding that Republicans are threatening to chip away.
Leadership from the federal tax collector held a call with reporters Thursday to give updates on how the agency has used a portion of the tens of billions of dollars allocated to the agency through Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law in August 2022.
Along with the $122 million collected from delinquent millionaires last October, now nearly half a billion dollars in back taxes from rich tax cheats has been recouped, IRS leaders say.
The announcement comes as the IRS braces for a more severe round of funding cuts.
The agency cuts previously agreed upon by the White House and congressional Republicans in the debt ceiling and budget cuts package passed by Congress last year — which included $20 billion rescinded from the IRS over two years — would be frontloaded as part of the overall spending package for the current fiscal year that could help avoid a partial government shutdown later this month.
IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel said that “the impact of the rescission that’s being discussed as part of the current budget will not impact our efforts until the later years.”
He said the agency would still spend its now-$60 billion allocation over the next 10 years and spread the need for more funding into later years.
“Our intent is to spend the money to have maximum impact in helping taxpayers,” he said, “to have maximum impact now and in the immediate future.”
“My hope is that as we demonstrate the positive impact that IRA funding is having for all taxpayers, that there will be a need and a desire amongst policymakers at that time to restore IRS funding so that we can continue the momentum that’s having a very positive impact,” Werfel said.
As of December, the IRS says it opened 76 examinations into the largest partnerships in the U.S. that include hedge funds, real estate investment partnerships and large law firms.
“It’s clear the Inflation Reduction Act funding is making a difference for taxpayers,” Werfel said. “For progress to continue we must maintain a reliable, consistent annual appropriations for our agency.”
The 2024 tax season begins on Jan. 29, the IRS says.
birgerjohanssonsays
The aliens turn up 48 seconds in, delivering well-deserved mockery
“Trump Blurts out his Biggest Wish, Congress Collapses in Chaos” | Alien Super Show
(the intern only got a 2D office)
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=zFTtOnafygY
Not just keep it the way it is, expand their powers to go after cheats who stash money of shore through shell companies.
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What the IRS claims to have recovered is mere pocket change for Bezos and Musk.
It’s not unreasonable to speculate that the cash they’ squirreled away in the Caymans, Switzerland, Deutsch Bank and other places to escape Federal tax liability could add up […] All perfectly legal, of course, thanks to United States wealth policies favoring the financial elite.
A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out.
CLAIM: A secret underground tunnel found connected to the Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters, a historic synagogue in Brooklyn that serves as the center of an influential Hasidic Jewish movement, was used for child sex trafficking or other illicit activities.
THE FACTS: The claims are unfounded, hinting at long-standing antisemitic tropes and more recent baseless conspiracy theories about child trafficking rings run by elite public figures, including government officials. News of a brawl between police and worshippers that broke out over the tunnel on Monday at Chabad’s headquarters led to such baseless allegations spreading quickly on social media. The exact purpose and provenance of the tunnel remains the subject of some debate, but there is no credible evidence it was used for the nefarious purposes social media users are falsely connecting it to. […] Rabbi Motti Seligson, a spokesperson for Chabad, characterized the construction as a rogue act of vandalism committed by a group of misguided young men, calling them “extremists” who were attempting to “preserve their unauthorized access” to the synagogue. Those who supported the tunnel, however, said they were carrying out an “expansion” plan long envisioned by Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the former head of the Chabad movement. Also known as the Seventh Rebbe, Schneerson led the Chabad-Lubavitch movement for more than four decades before his death in 1994, reinvigorating a small religious community that had been devastated by the Holocaust. Many supporters of the tunnel’s construction believe Schneerson is still alive and that he is the Messiah. This idea is largely rejected by Chabad and has created a schism within the movement. […]
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CLAIM: A video clip shows liberals dressing up as supporters of former President Donald Trump before taking part in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, proving the riot was an inside job.
THE FACTS: The clip was filmed by comedian Walter Masterson and content creator Peter Scattini, who posed as Trump-friendly reporters on Jan. 6, 2021, to interview people at the “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the Capitol attack. Both men posted videos showing extensive footage from the day’s events, which include the shot of them donning Trump paraphernalia and patriotic garb in an effort to blend in with the crowds. They explain in the videos that they went to the rally to make comedic content and express disbelief about what happened. […] Although the two men are indeed disguising themselves as Trump supporters, they are not doing so to attack the Capitol, as federal agents or otherwise. Masterson, the man on camera, and Scattini, who filmed the clip, pretended to be Trump-friendly reporters at the “Stop the Steal” rally to interview protestors for comedy videos. […] “I thought we were going to be there shooting comedy videos all day, but it’s a lot harder for me to laugh at everything now. It’s way harder having seen it up close. […] Masterson similarly states in both videos: “We make comedy, we’re actors. We were going there to like, make a funny.”
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CLAIM: A 44-year-old migrant named Sahil Omar was identified as the suspect of an explosion at a historic hotel in Fort Worth, Texas, on Monday.
THE FACTS: No suspect is being sought in relation to the massive explosion at the Sandman Signature Hotel in downtown Fort Worth […] Authorities say the blast “has the characteristics of a natural gas explosion,” but that the cause is still under investigation. […] Following the blast, social media users began falsely pinning it on a 44-year-old migrant. […] authorities are characterizing the blast as a natural gas explosion. “We are working with officials to confirm the cause of the explosion,” the Fort Worth Fire Department wrote in a Facebook post. “We have stated that it has the characteristics of a natural gas explosion and continue to state that until a confirmation of cause can be determined.” […] Social media users also falsely blamed a shooting at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, last month on a 44-year-old migrant named Sahil Omar. The actual suspect, who died in a shootout with law enforcement, was identified by police as Anthony Polito, a longtime business professor who had unsuccessfully applied for several jobs at various colleges and universities in Nevada.
In a new twist to the fight over abortion access, congressional Republicans are trying to block a Biden administration spending rule that they say will cut off millions of dollars to anti-abortion counseling centers.
The rule would prohibit states from sending federal funds earmarked for needy Americans to so-called “crisis pregnancy centers,” which counsel against abortions. At stake are millions of dollars in federal funds that currently flow to the organizations through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, a block grant program created in 1996 to give cash assistance to poor children and prevent out-of-wedlock pregnancies…
Donald Trump has to pay The New York Times $400,000 in legal fees over their story about his wealth and taxes
“Today’s decision shows that the state’s newly amended anti-SLAPP statute can be a powerful force for protecting press freedom,” Times spokesperson Danielle Rhoads Ha said, referring to a New York law that bars baseless lawsuits designed to silence critics. Such lawsuits are known as SLAPPs or strategic lawsuits against public participation.
What is he now zero for a hundred, a thousand?
hahahahahahaha.
Slapp-Slapp-Slapp heh.
Posted by readers of the article:
The Times and their employees have been dropped from the suit, but Mary Trump has not; that part of the case will go forward.
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Dr. Mary Trump has dragged Donald Trump over the coals for years. This will be good due to discovery for the Dr., very bad news for Donald Trump.
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With ALL of these financial losses, does anyone keep track of how much the defendants have actually received? Dominion from Fox? NYT? Jean Carrol? Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman?
Not the lawyers, though they need money. But my feeling is a financial fine or whatever against the uber rich is much like their tax bill — tiny pennies against the dollars owed.
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I suspect you’re right to be suspicious regarding how much vindicated plaintiffs can get from stinkers like t**mp. I know Ghouliani filed for bankruptcy, but how much does that really protect the filer from debts owed via court order? And how much do plaintiff attorneys collect from the court-awarded fines, after all the assumed appeals, etc.?
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They hire specialists in ‘enforcement of judgements’ who then record liens against real and personal property. When those items are sold the proceeds satisfy the judgment creditors first. The priority of creditors can be complicated, but do not get between lawyers and a pile of money.
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Attorneys for tfg need to be labeled “lawyers”…….no half-way decent lawyer will work for the angry orangutan
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That was the Orange Vomit suing the NYT for “beeelyons and beeelyons” because they were UNFAIR to him.
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Maybe the Times can use that cash infusion to hire some reporters to and headline writers who will stop the both-siderism bullshit.
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Here’s one that Dump sleazed out of: the fine for Trump University:
The settlement was paid not by Trump but by his Las Vegas hotel business partner, billionaire Phil Ruffin. In February 2019, during a meeting of the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Reform, Representative Jackie Speier suggested “a Kansan”, later revealed to be Ruffin, had paid $25 million to satisfy Trump’s liability in the Trump University judgment. Ruffin admitted to paying Trump $28 million in 2018, but claimed it was for “back-fees” related to Trump International Hotel Las Vegas and unrelated to the Trump University case.
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What frustrates me is that the BBC headline for this was, “Trump asked to pay NY Times $392,000 in legal costs”
Asked? The article itself says “ordered,” which is of course more accurate. When situations are minimized, it affects perception.
Former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly was a rather staunch supporter of Florida’s book ban laws enacted by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). That is until two of his own books were temporarily removed from the Escambia County School District — pending further investigation.
“It’s absurd. Preposterous,” the disgraced conservative pundit told Newsweek on Friday, adding that he’ll “find out exactly who made the decisions … [and] put their pictures on television and on my website … and I’m going to ask them for a detailed explanation of why they did that.”
His “Killing Jesus: A History” and “Killing Reagan: The Violent Assault That Changed a Presidency” were reportedly among 1,600 titles pulled to adhere to Florida’s HB 1069 bill. Enacted in July, it purportedly aims to restrict sexual content from being taught in schools…
Reginald @257, those “crisis pregnancy centers” are a religious/rightwing/patriarchal scam. “Crisis Pregnancy Centers” harm women. The Biden administration is right to cut off their funding.
In August 2022, Kansans decisively voted to protect reproductive rights, rejecting a proposed constitutional amendment from pro-life groups that said there was no right to abortion in the state. Fifty-nine percent of Kansans voted to safeguard access to abortion, providing an early sign of the unpopularity of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, even in many red states.
But Kansas Republicans are now trying to overturn the will of the state’s voters. Eight Kansas House Republicans introduced a bill this week that would ban all abortions except those necessary to save the patient’s life, forbid the distribution of drugs that end pregnancies, and allow individuals to file suits against doctors or anyone who helps someone get an abortion.
The legislation seems to be in direct conflict with rulings by the state supreme court, which held in 2019 that access to abortion is a “fundamental” right in the state. Kansas Republicans have repeatedly tried to override the 2022 vote that affirmed the state supreme court’s finding, with Solicitor General Tony Powell telling the court’s justices in March 2023 that the August vote “doesn’t matter.” A majority of the justices expressed skepticism of that position.
[…] Kansas is just one example of how Republicans across the country are trying to short-circuit the democratic process to restrict abortion rights. Last August, Ohio Republicans tried to make it much harder to pass ballot initiatives in the state. GOP Secretary of State Frank LaRose admitted it was “100% about keeping a radical pro-abortion amendment out of our constitution.” […]
Heads of state don’t normally invite people who’ve called for their country to be conquered to come hang out.
Sure, Trump infamously laid out the welcome mat to the Taliban for a makeshift Legion of Doom sleepover at Camp David shortly before the 20th anniversary of 9/11. […] but the proposed playdate was called off last minute after the Taliban claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed an American soldier. […]
So it’s weird as hell Danielle Smith, the premier of the province of Alberta, would agree to a public sit-down with disgraced talking head Tucker Carlson later this month after he called for Canada to be freed from the tyranny of a functioning democracy.
“Why should we let it become Cuba? Why don’t we liberate it?” he shrieked on his show last February. “We’re spending all this money to liberate Ukraine from the Russians, why are we not sending an armed force north to liberate Canada from Trudeau?” He then added “I’m serious” in case viewers didn’t think he was seriously being serious. [OMFG!!]
It’s an embarrassing but accurate cliché Canadians get overly excited whenever major American news outlets notice us, even if it’s Fox News. […] But this one hit a nerve since there wouldn’t be much we could do if our vast oil fields, freshwater reserves, or precious NHL teams drew the interest of a Republican administration somewhere down the line. It’s not like we’re in a position to march south and burn the White House down. Again.
[…] If there’s anywhere in Canada this treasonous, testicle-tanning troglodyte is going to feel at home, it’s Alberta, even if it’s more of a bolo than bow tie kind of place. Being the unfortunate birthplace of Ted Cruz is very much on-brand, and the landlocked western province is basically Canada’s version of Texas. Smith won the job last year in no small part because her United Conservative Party predecessor, Jason Kenney, had a full Dukakis-in-the-tank moment showing him not knowing how to fill up his ginormous pick-up truck, a cardinal sin in Oil Country. She’s also on record comparing vaccinated Canadians to Nazi supporters who were simply “charmed by a tyrant” and is clearly dying to try out the slogan “Make Alberta Great Again.” […]
But there is a more sinister side to Alberta hosting the newly unemployed white supremacist’s debut in the Great White North. What sparked Tucker’s tantrum was Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s belated response to the so-called Freedom Convoy that took over Ottawa for two weeks, but a smaller, less sensational protest took place at the same time blockading the busy Coutts border crossing with Montana. Four people were eventually charged with conspiring to murder Mounties monitoring the mayhem, which is a hell of a lot more serious than blasting air horns at sleep-deprived city dwellers.
There’s a certain irony to inviting a man who has called for America to invade Canada in the very part of the country where the RCMP were founded two centuries ago in part to prevent Americans from invading the territory and messing with the lucrative fur trade. But maybe the real reason he wants to come stir shit up while making a few bucks is just an excuse to stock up on some Cuban cigars, which are still forbidden in the land of the free.
birgerjohanssonsays
Congressman Jared Moskowitz is incredibly cool. Why did I overlook this when it came out four days ago?
No one doubts that wind turbines do indeed kill at least some birds. But a new analysis of American data, published in Environmental Science & Technology, suggests the numbers are negligible, and have little impact on bird populations…
Dr Katovich assumed, reasonably, that if wind turbines harmed bird populations, then the numbers seen in the Christmas Bird Count would drop in places where new turbines had been built. He combined bird population and species maps with the locations and construction dates of all wind turbines in the United States, with the exceptions of Alaska and Hawaii, between 2000 and 2020. He found that building turbines had no discernible effect on bird populations…
But Dr Katovich did not confine his analysis to wind power alone. He also examined oil-and-gas extraction…
Comparing bird populations to the locations of new gas wells revealed an average 15% drop in bird numbers when new wells were drilled, probably due to a combination of noise, air pollution and the disturbance of rivers and ponds that many birds rely upon. When drilling happens in places designated by the National Audubon Society as “important bird areas”, bird numbers instead dropped by 25%. Such places are typically migration hubs, feeding grounds or breeding locations…
Millionaires who were behind on their taxes have already paid a half-billion dollars to get current with the IRS as the agency ratchets up high-level tax compliance.
On Friday, the IRS unveiled new numbers on the amount of back taxes paid by millionaire households ever since a 2022 upgrade brought tougher IRS enforcement on businesses and superwealthy tax delinquents and dodgers…
Vladimir Putin’s reelection campaign has hit a snag: hot-water pipes that explode, resulting in tens of thousands of people without heat in Russian winter.
In “First It Was Eggs. Now Exploding Hot-Water Pipes. The Domestic Headaches Overshadowing Putin’s Reelection Messaging”, RFE/RL’s Mike Eckel reports that on Thursday:
n Siberia’s Novosibirsk, Russia’s third-largest city, a major hot-water main burst, sending cascades of steaming water rushing through frozen streets and cutting off heating to scores of buildings — and thousands of people — amid Arctic temperatures.
This is not an isolated incident. Many Russian cities use heating plants that provide hot water to radiators in residential buildings, and these systems are becoming increasingly dilapidated as the Russian war machine drains resources from Russian infrastructure.
Eckels reports similar disasters in Vladivostok, and — more importantly for Putin — in Moscow suburbs where heat to more than 150,000 people has been cut off. Although the Kremlin initially blamed its Moscow problems on “anomalous” cold weather, after many complaints from shivering residents Russian officials eventually responded by arresting executives of the local heating plant. These executives were reportedly former Putin bodyguard Igor Rudyka and former FSB (Russian secret police) officer Igor Kushnikov.
As Eckels writes:
The plant’s owners, meanwhile, include a Russian-Mexican crime boss as well as the state industrial conglomerate Rostec, according to Systema, RFE/RL’s Russian investigative unit. Rostec’s chief executive officer is Sergei Chemezov, who served with Putin when the two were KGB agents stationed in East Germany.
[Sheesh. How many layers of corrupt bosses are there?]
At last report these bigwigs were still free and Moscow-area residents were still shivering.
So there you have it! Infrastructure, Putin style! […]
The past half century has brought a collapse in Americans’ trust in one another and their government. In 1972, more than 45 percent of Americans said that most people are trustworthy. Since 2006, the number has been barely more than 30 percent. Young respondents are particularly mistrustful: In 2019, 73 percent of those under 30 agreed that “most of the time, people just look out for themselves,” and almost as many said, “Most people would take advantage of you if they got the chance.”
Commentary and more Britton-Purdy quotes from Wonkette:
[…] Oh boy! I wonder if some things happened that might have led to that? Like, oh, I don’t know … an entire decade in which the nation was led by poor-people-hating union busters who actively encouraged everyone to be entirely out for themselves, for fear that otherwise communism would take hold? Oh! Or being lied to by both the government and legacy media in order to force public support for a very stupid and irresponsible war?
Trust in government has taken an even greater hit. In 1964, 77 percent of Americans trusted the federal government to do the right thing most or all of the time. In 2022, that number was 22 percent, and it has been languishing in that neighborhood since 2010. In 1973, amid riots, domestic terrorism, the Watergate scandal, and clashes over the Vietnam War, majorities trusted Congress, the presidency, and the Supreme Court. Majorities (in many cases substantial ones) mistrust all of those institutions now. Trust in newspapers and public schools has traveled the same trajectory.
Yes, people didn’t like the Vietnam War — but they were largely upset about their friends and family members being killed in a war that was becoming increasingly unwinnable. But Robert McNamara didn’t come out with the information that the government had actively lied to them about the Gulf of Tonkin incident until the 2003 documentary The Fog of War.
As for Watergate, the assumption there was that Nixon was an aberration and that he was caught due to the checks and balances provided by the Fourth Estate. Slightly different from The New York Times beating the weapons of mass destruction drum, no?
Britton-Purdy, unsurprisingly, also dips his toe into the “Wasn’t it great when we all got all of our information from Walter Cronkite?” pool.
The sun rose every day, the trains ran on time, and Walter Cronkite came on at 6:30.
That complacency was the privilege of an invisible consensus, in which most people’s trust was, so to speak, facing in the same direction. Those who believe Trump’s stolen-election fables or anti-vax theories are not refusing to trust: They are trusting some other mix of reporting, research, teaching, and gossip. The polls showing collapsing trust in “newspapers” or “television news” don’t really show a decline in trust; they show a fragmentation, trust displaced. But from the perspective of a democracy that relies on a common set of facts, acute fragmentation might as well be a collapse.
I get it, but it’s also worth noting that during this idyllic time of “everyone listened to one guy and believed all of the same things were true” (that I’m not actually certain ever really existed), there were a whole lot of things that were true that were ignored — partly due to ignorance, but also partly due to a desire to maintain social harmony.
I would also argue that this idea that we all had the same understanding of the world around us is, in part, what has led to the Right going right off the deep end. How many times have we heard that they thought that issues like racism and sexism were solved forever and that no one had to ever speak of them again? The assumption that things like giving women the vote or passing the Civil Rights Act actually solved everything is directly tied both to trust in the government at that time and to not necessarily hearing about all of the bad stuff, except as aberrations — as things done by bad people who were not them. This is why they were completely broken by concepts like white privilege, male privilege, rape culture, and systemic racism that held nearly all of us to account for our participation in injustice.
Given that we are dealing with a tome the size of Moby Dick, Britton-Purdy is not entirely wrong about everything. He does correctly note that economic inequality leads to people thinking that they live in a world that is built to benefit the rich. This is entirely reasonable, given that they absolutely do live in a world that is built to benefit the rich.
The workplace is a microcosm of an economy where workers and many middle-class families have seen stagnation and increasing insecurity for 50 years, and fewer parents are optimistic about their children’s prospects. Economic stress is an important reason that Trump might win reelection. [The idea that Trump can solve problems of economic stress is laughable!! Also, people that believe Trump can solve that problem are deluded!!] Beyond 2024, it’s also a lesson that the country is set up to benefit other people who don’t care about you. Countries with lower levels of economic inequality tend to have higher levels of social trust, and individuals with less money tend to be less trusting. Rebuilding a middle-class economy is a way to buttress democratic trust.
Or, rather, being trustworthy is a good way to earn trust.
The fact is, “economic stress” (or anxiety) is a feature of the American economy, not a bug. In no other country on earth do people have to worry that they could be fired at any time for no reason — at-will employment is largely unique to us. Workers are purposely kept afraid so that they do not ask for more. Unlike other countries, we do not have universal health care. People have to worry that if they or their children get sick that they could lose everything, and they know that if they do lose everything, there will not be much of a social safety net to catch them when they fall. Their health care is, also, attached to their job, which makes the prospect of losing that job even more terrifying. Workers are also told that if they don’t put up with the scraps they are served, that their jobs will be given to robots or to people in countries with even fewer labor regulations. Scared workers are diligent workers who don’t ask for time off, don’t ask for raises and don’t make waves, for sure, but to ask for that and their trust as well is too big of an ask.
Being that this is The Atlantic, Britton-Purdy also spends no small amount of time pining for a world in which the political isn’t quite so personal:
What are steps toward healthier trust? Americans need ways to see one another more charitably and also to see politics more clearly. Every partisan knows the sense of threat that today’s political environment can trigger—seeing a car with a bumper sticker from the other side cut in front of you in traffic, stopping for gas somewhere you suspect everyone is on the hostile team, feeling your way through a first conversation with a dozen political trip wires. Ironically, it is impossible to practice politics if we reduce one another to our partisan identities. We need to practice nondefensively meeting serious disagreement—and proceeding to the rest of the human being.
There are a lot of people who like the idea of politics being more like rooting for different teams, though these are largely people for whom the political is not ever going to be all that personal. That is not a luxury that is available to all of us. Someone sporting an anti-abortion bumper sticker may be, for Jedediah Britton-Purdy, simply a person who disagrees with him on a matter of policy, but that is a policy that involves my personal uterus and therefore I have somewhat stronger feelings about that than he might.
Another distinction between personal and political trust that we need to learn involves living with sharp moral disagreement. In our own lives, we may refuse to enter close and lasting relationships with people who, say, disagree with us about questions as fundamental as how we should raise our children or what gender roles mean in our family. (I don’t mean that this is necessarily the right approach, and we may lose something when we cut ourselves off from challenge in this way, but the decision is an intelligible one.)
I promise you, Jedediah — I am losing absolutely nothing by not entering into close and lasting relationships with people who “disagree” with me about what my “gender role” is supposed to be. Except possibly time spent vacuuming. [LOL]
But politics is about coexistence with disagreement around issues as fundamental as these, such as abortion. If we treat moral disagreement as proof of moral badness and as a reason, effectively, to cut off civic as well as personal relationships, then politics is done. Politics is a relationship we cannot escape, for better or worse. We can poison it, though, and confusing it with personal relationships that we can refuse or leave is one way of poisoning it.
People are welcome to not like abortion. Once they try to take away my right to it, I think I am free to think that they are a bad person. I would, in fact, argue that it is worse to take away someone’s reproductive rights than it is to think that the person doing that is “morally bad.” [Good point]
Political feelings about issues like civil rights and LGBTQ rights do not exist in a vacuum either, for those affected by them.
Much of the gist of this polemic seems to be that the Right is wrong for trusting the wrong sources, but that the Left is equally wrong for not tolerating intolerance for the sake of social harmony. It’s nothing we haven’t heard before, but the fact that we have to keep hearing it over and over again is, itself, noteworthy.
I will say again that trust has to be earned. People have no reason to trust governments that lie to them, media outlets that further those lies or to trust individual people who would be more than happy to see their rights taken away. The issue isn’t people not trusting enough but people and institutions not being trustworthy enough. [Correct.]
Once that happens, then maybe we can start getting our magnanimity on.
Navy SEALs missing at sea after ship-boarding mission off Somalia
A search-and-rescue operation was underway Saturday after two U.S. Navy SEALs fell into the ocean while attempting to board a ship off the coast of Somalia, according to current and former officials familiar with the matter.
The incident occurred in the Gulf of Aden on Thursday. The operators were preparing to board in rough seas when one of them slipped from a ladder, these people said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing operation.
The missing personnel have not been identified, and it was not immediately clear what vessel they were attempting to board, or why. U.S. forces routinely partner with other nations as part of a counter-piracy task that operates in the Gulf of Aden. Those missions sometimes include boarding vessels to ensure they have proper credentials or are not transporting illicit material.
One U.S. official with knowledge of the incident said it was unrelated to the recent U.S.-led strikes in nearby Yemen and the broader international mission to protect commercial vessels from militant attacks originating there. It was also unrelated to the Iranian seizure of a Marshall Islands-flagged tanker, the official said.
U.S. Central Command, which coordinates military activities in the region, said the missing service members were Navy sailors and declined to provide additional information “until the personnel recovery operation is complete.”
Special Operations forces in the region have faced difficult counterterror missions and other difficult operations. In November, five crew members of an elite aviation unit were killed during a refueling accident off the coast of Cyprus.
Some parts of the federal government were set to run out of money on Jan. 19.
House and Senate leaders have reached an agreement on a short-term spending deal that would avert a government shutdown in the next few weeks, three sources familiar with the matter told NBC News.
The deal would keep the government funded until March, buying legislators more time to craft longer-term, agency-specific spending bills, following the agreement last weekend to set the overall spending level for fiscal year 2024 at $1.59 trillion.
The new agreement moves upcoming government funding deadlines for different departments from Jan. 19 and Feb. 2 to March 1 and March 8.
The short-term bill, known as a continuing resolution or “CR,” will need to pass both the House and Senate before Friday at 11:59 p.m. to avoid a partial government shutdown.
Speaker Mike Johnson is set to hold a call with fellow House Republicans at 8 p.m. Sunday to discuss spending negotiations. Several hard-right Republicans have objected to the top-line spending deal he previously cut with Senate Democrats and have urged Johnson to go back on it, though he said Friday that the agreement remains intact.
[…] congressional Democrats praised the top-line spending agreement after it was announced last weekend, even as they acknowledged that a short-term bill would be needed to buy more time to negotiate.
“The bipartisan topline appropriations agreement clears the way for Congress to act over the next few weeks in order to maintain important funding priorities for the American people and avoid a government shutdown,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both New York Democrats, said in a statement at the time.
Meanwhile, Marjorie Taylor Greene and other rightwing fanatics are threatening to oust Mike Johnson simply because he made an agreement.
The Buffalo Bills and Pittsburgh Steelers’ playoff game has been postponed until Monday afternoon due to winter weather, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Saturday.
Dangerously cold wind, freezing rain and heavy snow are predicted for much of the U.S. this weekend and into next week. Near-record lows are expected in the Midwest, subzero temperatures in the Deep South, and wind chills of up to minus 65 degrees in Montana and the western Dakotas.
At least two deaths have been connected to the severe weather — a man whose truck went through the ice on a Minnesota lake and a skier who was caught in an avalanche in Idaho.
Tonight’s game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Miami Dolphins is expected to be one of the coldest NFL playoff games in history, with a minus-23 wind chill.
I am in the 20 below zero wind-chill area of the country. It feels dangerously cold. My furnace is working hard. Long may it live.
More details:
More than 456,000 customers across the U.S. are without power. As of 4 p.m., Michigan had the highest number of outages with 155,054, according to poweroutage.us.
Oregon was at 126,435 and Wisconsin at 71,184 customers who are living without power.
In Pennsylvania, nearly 30,000 customers were in the dark. New York, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia and New Hampshire also had significant outages.
Travel in Western New York is expected to be “impossible and dangerous” once the storm hits, Gov. Kathy Hochul said at a news briefing today, urging residents to stay home.
In Erie County, a full travel ban for passenger vehicles is in effect beginning at 9 p.m. ET. The ban will be reassessed Sunday at 6 a.m., the governor’s office said.
“Forecasts predict the most dangerous winter storm conditions since the Christmas Blizzard of 2022,” Gov. Hochul said in a statement. “Working closely with County and City leaders, we are instituting a 9:00 p.m. travel ban that takes effect tonight to keep motorists safe.”
Commercial traffic is also banned on all state, county and local roads in Erie County and on the New York State Thruway. That ban will remain in effect indefinitely, according to the governor. […]
At least 65 million people around the world have long COVID, a condition where they continue to experience COVID-19 symptoms for months after their symptoms originally start.
The most common symptoms of long COVID are fatigue, dizziness, mobility issues, sleep problems, cognitive impairment, and brain fog or inability to concentrate…
Now researchers from the Amsterdam University Medical Center are helping to provide some answers with their new study — recently published in the journal Nature Communications — that found the fatigue experienced by those with long COVID has a physical cause…
For this study, Prof. van Vugt and her team recruited 25 people with long COVID and 21 healthy control participants. They were all asked to take a cycling test for approximately 15 minutes, that was designed to push them to maximum exertion.
According to researchers, the cycling test caused a worsening of symptoms in the participants with long COVID, known as post-exertional malaise (PEM), resulting in worsening of fatigue for up to 7 days after.
Scientists examined blood and muscle tissue samples from all participants both one week before the cycling test and one day after.
They found various abnormalities in the muscle tissue of the participants with long COVID, including lowered functioning of the mitochondria of the muscle. Known as the “powerhouse of the cell,” mitochondria are responsible for making the energy needed to power the body’s cells…
birgerjohanssonsays
Trump’s past: Three sexual predators in the same photo.
“Trump’s Horrific Past is Back to Haunt Him”
birgerjohanssonsays
Goddammit! I forgot to make sure the link would not do that. It is soon two in the morning, sorry.
Headline : TB Joshua exposé: How the disgraced pastor faked his miracles
But Joshua, who died in 2021 aged 57, was a fraud. The BBC’s investigation, involving more than 25 church insiders from the UK, Nigeria, Ghana, the US, South Africa and Germany, unpicks six ways in which he tricked worshippers. …(Snip!)..In the 1990s when HIV/Aids had reached epidemic levels across parts of sub-Saharan Africa, Joshua told visitors to stop taking their antiretroviral medication when they returned home.
“I know people died because they didn’t take their medicine, and it’s difficult to live with that,” admits a former disciple, who asked not to be named.
Plus :
The former disciple told the BBC that after being screened, the chosen followers would be told to “exaggerate their problems so that God can heal you and exaggerate your healing”.
“The people, themselves, are clearly being manipulated,” she says.
The church had a ready supply of wheelchairs which followers were coaxed to use. They were warned they would not be healed unless they sat in one when they met Joshua.
“We are telling them: ‘If you come out there, and walk with your legs, Papa will not pray for you. You need to shout: “Man of God, help me, I cannot walk,”‘” says Mr Paul.
In addition to :
In 2000 Nigerian journalist Adejuwon Soyinka reported that these medical certificates were fake, but Joshua quashed his investigation and it went nowhere. To this day some people believe they were healed, but insiders say it was all a performance on the late preacher’s part. “The whole thing is stage-managed and faked. It’s faked,” says Mr Paul, describing Joshua as an “evil genius”. There was nothing that took place in the compound that Joshua did not know about, he explains.
On one level I have to say “of course” because, well, of course but, OTOH, still how fucking awful. Also how many other televangelists and “miracle-workers” elsewhere are using the same techniques and how likely is that they’ll eventually be exposed and revealed for the evil, manipulative frauds they are?
StevoRsays
A good conclusion & thoughtful article on homelessness inthe USA here via a passing 2024 timepoint in the alternative history now that is Star Trek : Deep Space 9 :
The disabling of over 20 missiles with the help of “active countermeasures by means of electronic warfare” may be a turning point in Ukraine’s electronic warfare capabilities.
Source: Institute for the Study of War (ISW)
Details: Military analysts say Ukrainian EW assets were usually credited with disabling Russian drones but not missile systems…
Ukrainian saboteurs who are alleged to have poisoned and killed 46 Russian soldiers are on the run in annexed Crimea after a shoot-out with police, a local report says.
Two young saboteurs who had poisoned members of the Russian military in Simferopol and Bakhchisarai fled when authorities attempted to detain them in Crimea, Telegram channel Kremlin Snuffbox said on Tuesday.
The police went to apprehend the female suspects at a private house in Yalta but were surprised to find them “well armed” and “well prepared,” the post said.
The saboteurs opened fire and fled the scene in a car, and authorities do not know their current whereabouts…
A northern Virginia county is acknowledging that it underreported President Joe Biden’s margin of victory over Donald Trump there in the 2020 presidential election by about 4,000 votes, the first detailed accounting of errors that came to light in 2022 as part of a criminal case.
The admission Thursday from the Prince William County Office of Elections comes a week after prosecutors from the Virginia Attorney General’s office dropped charges against the county’s former registrar, Michele White.
Counts were also off in races for the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives, though by lesser margins.
In a statement, the county’s current registrar, Eric Olsen, emphasized that the mistakes did not come close to affecting the outcome of any race and “did not consistently favor one party or candidate but were likely due to a lack of proper planning, a difficult election environment, and human error.”
In the presidential race, the county mistakenly shorted Biden by 1,648 votes, and overreported Trump’s count by 2,327 votes. The 3,975-vote error in the margin of victory was immaterial in a contest that Biden won by 450,000 votes in Virginia and by more than 60,000 votes in Prince William County…
Politicians claim the move could provide vital minerals for the green transition. Critics say opening up exploration creates geopolitical headaches and is environmentally unsound.
The Norwegian Parliament voted this week to allow companies to scour its territorial waters for mining opportunities. The decision is a historic event: While some exploration has taken place in international waters in the Pacific, Norway is the first country to open its continental shelf up to deep-sea mining. Environmental advocates say it will lead to irreparable harm to oceanic biodiversity.
[…] Norway’s government argues that deep-sea mining is crucial for the world’s energy transition, as it could dramatically increase the supply of critical minerals needed for the shift toward electrification, such as cobalt and copper. Environmentalists say this argument is greenwashing, because deep-sea mining would be not only extractive and unsustainable, but would take attention away from recycling existing available minerals.
Anne-Sophie Roux, an activist who leads the campaign in Europe against deep-sea mining for the NGO the Sustainable Ocean Alliance, called the outcome of the vote a “half victory.” The decision does not give a go-ahead for exploitation activities; it for now only opens up a path to exploration, which is by nature less intrusive.
Companies can apply for exploration licenses, but the Norwegian government will still need approval from parliament once again to authorize any exploitation plans. […]
Still, the move to open up 281,200 square kilometers—an area the size of Ecuador—to prospectors could set a precedent. The decision may tend to legitimize the deep-sea mining industry […]
The Norwegian government recognizes that it can’t be sure any mining would be sustainable—it’s not been able to determine the likely environmental impact of extracting minerals in its waters, nor exactly what minerals are there to be found. “We do not currently have the knowledge needed to extract minerals from the seabed in the manner required,” says Næss.
This lack of certainty about potential environmental consequences has riled Norway’s Environment Agency and its Institute of Marine Research. They argue that the environmental assessment conducted before the decision was insufficient for the legislation to be passed. […]
If the government wants to be believed when it says that it will take environmental considerations seriously, “bulldozing over their own environmental experts” should not be its first step, says Kaja Lønne Fjærtoft of the Worldwide Fund for Nature.
In a memo published in November 2023, Norwegian law firm Wilkborg Rein said that passing the bill with an inadequate environmental assessment could violate not only the country’s own laws on environmental protection, but also European and international laws. Local communities or NGOs could therefore sue, says Elise Johansen, a partner at the firm who led the memo.
Yet with parliament having made its decision, the time for a comprehensive study of environmental impacts has likely now passed, says Johansen. With the legislation now in place, only assessments on specific projects will be required, so large-scale, regional environmental effects will likely go uninvestigated.
Scientists believe the impacts of mining could reach far beyond where it takes place. Disturbing the seafloor could lead to plumes of sediment rising through the water column, which could disturb sea life for hundreds of kilometers, impacting Norway’s neighbors—such as Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroe Islands—as well as the Arctic more broadly.
The type of mining Norway is looking to do will be more invasive than what is underway in the Pacific, which involves hoovering up metal-rich nodules that sit on the seafloor.
Norway is instead looking to exploit the cobalt-rich crusts and polymetallic sulfides on its seabed. Extracting the former would likely look similar to land-based mining—just a few thousand meters below the ocean surface.
Polymetallic sulfides might prove tricker to exploit. These are found in so-called black smokers: deep-sea vents that spurge water full of minerals from beneath the Earth’s crust. […]
The Norwegian decision doesn’t allow for mining on active smokers, but scientists say it is hard to draw a distinction on which ones are active […]
There will likely be negative geostrategic fallout from the move, says Elizabeth Buchanan of the Modern War Institute at the US’s West Point Military Academy. The decision means “states like Russia and China have both precedent and intent to point to in establishing their own deep-sea mining practices,” she says.
Plus, about one-third of the area Norway has opened up overlaps with the continental shelf and fishery protection zone around the Svalbard archipelago. These Arctic islands, which sit to the north of Norway, are governed by a 1920s agreement that calls for non-discrimination among the 46 parties that signed it, who include France, Italy, Japan, and the US. “All citizens and companies of signatories have equal rights” to fishing and any type of maritime activity, says Soltvedt Hvinden.
There’s already disagreement between the signatories as to how to interpret the scope and application of the treaty. Norway claims it only extends to the Svalbard territorial waters, 12 nautical miles off the islands’ coasts, whereas others, such as the Netherlands, maintain the treaty should cover the archipelago’s exclusive economic zone, which is 200 nautical miles off its coast […] Iceland and Russia have already signaled such a view.
Any impact on fishing stocks is also yet to be determined. The Norwegian Fishermen’s Association was consulted but ultimately “not listened to,” […]
As Norway opens the doors to prospectors, pressure on the nascent deep-sea mining industry is mounting globally. A total of 24 countries—including France, Germany, and the UK—have called for a moratorium on deep-sea mining until further research is conducted. Roughly 120 members of the EU Parliament signed a letter last November denouncing Norway’s projected decision to open up its seabed.
[…] Big companies like Microsoft and Ford have also forged a stance, saying they will not be using raw materials mined from the deep sea.
[…] WWF’s Fjærtoft is as much perplexed as she is hopeful. It’s difficult to say whether Norway’s decision will lead to more opposition, she says. But the one thing it has done is “raised the awareness globally about deep-sea mining, and the threat that it poses to our upcoming future.”
Since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 2021, the terror group Islamic State Khorasan Province, or ISIS-K, has sought to internationalize its operational and recruitment campaign. Utilizing a sweeping propaganda campaign to appeal to audiences across South and Central Asia, the group has tried to position itself as the dominant regional challenger to what it perceives to be repressive regimes.
On Jan. 3, 2024, ISIS-K demonstrated just how far it had progressed toward these goals. In a brutal demonstration of its capability to align actions with extreme rhetoric, ISIS-K claimed responsibility for a bomb attack in Kerman, Iran, which resulted in the deaths of over 100 people.
The blast, which was reportedly carried out by two Tajik ISIS-K members, occurred during a memorial service for Qassem Soleimani, a Lieutenant General in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2020. ISIS-K claimed the attack as an act of revenge against Soleimani, who spearheaded Iran’s fight against the Islamic State group and its affiliates prior to his death.
As experts in ISIS-K and Iran, we believe the attack highlights the success of ISIS-K’s recruitment strategies and its growing ability to strike declared enemies and undermine regional stability.
[…] despite setbacks, including the loss of key personnel, ISIS-K was expanding and intensifying its regional influence. It was achieving this by leveraging its ethnically and nationally diverse membership base and ties to other militant groups.
The Kerman blast follows two other recent attacks on the Shahcheragh shrine in Shiraz, Iran, in October 2022 and August 2023 – both purportedly involving Tajik perpetrators.
The involvement of Tajik nationals in the Kerman attack underscores Iran’s long-standing concerns over ISIS-K’s recruitment strategies, which have seen the group swell its members by reaching out to discontented Muslim populations across South and Central Asian countries and consolidating diverse grievances into a single narrative.
This strategy of “internationalizing” ISIS-K’s agenda – its aim is the establishment of an Islamic caliphate in Central and South Asia – has been pursued with renewed vigor since 2021. […]
Meanwhile, strikes against Iran have long been foreshadowed in ISIS-K propaganda.
[…] ISIS-K is attempting to capture the South and Central Asian militant market for itself. By utilizing fighters representative of regional religious and ethnic populations and publicizing their attacks, ISIS-K is signaling its commitment to a comprehensive jihadist agenda.
[…] Concerns around Tajik nationals’ recruitment into ISIS-K have existed for a while, with the Taliban’s draconian treatment of Afghanistan’s minorities, including Tajiks, likely creating an unwitting recruitment boon for the terror group.
Several Tajik nationals were arrested in relation to a plot against U.S. and NATO targets in Germany in April 2020. More Tajik ISIS-K members were arrested by German and Dutch authorities in July 2023 as part of an operation to disrupt a plot and ISIS-K fundraising.
[…] A deadly attack against Iran, a formidable Shia state, lends ideological credence to ISIS-K’s words in the eyes of its followers. […]
ISIS-K is uniquely positioned to exploit the vestiges of the deeply embedded, decades-old Sunni-Shia divide in the region.
[…] Iran’s strategic interest in Afghanistan is also reflected in the career trajectories of the Quds Force’s top brass. Soleimani was the chief architect behind Iran’s network of proxies, some of which were leveraged against ISIS.
His successor, Brigadier General Esmail Qaani, spent part of his career managing proxies in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia.
Iran’s recruitment and encouragement of Shia proxies has exacerbated tensions with ISIS-K.
[…] Improving relations between the Taliban and Tehran suggests that a collaborative stance against ISIS-K may be possible, driven by a mutual desire for stability.
But intervention in Afghanistan, or Iranian deployment of proxy militant forces in the region, could have widespread security repercussions, the type of which we have seen play out in the Iranian attack.
[…] For the U.S., Iran’s increased involvement in Afghanistan and the violent attack by ISIS-K likewise poses a strategic concern. It risks destabilizing the region and undermining efforts to constrain transnational terrorism.
The New York Times has a stable of regular opinion writers to present a range of views. This not unreasonable in normal times […] That is no longer the case in America where one party has essentially given up on being for anything and has pitted itself against everyone “who is not for them.” It’s abandoning long-held principles to aggressively pursue an anti-democracy agency while claiming victimhood. Its members increasingly live in a world of alternative facts and a media bubble. The party doesn’t solve problems — it exploits them.
So, what happens when pundits who are supposed to provide perspective on that party and its views seem to have trouble rationalizing what’s going on here for the rest of us? Here’s my very opinionated look at recent offerings from three of them.
Ross Douthat […] “Why January 6 wasn’t an insurrection.” (I’m not going to waste a gift link on this excrescence or the others below.) Douthat is, to make a long story short, claiming the 14th Amendment can’t bar Trump from the ballot because January 6 doesn’t meet his definition of an insurrection. Here’s how he begins:
I’ve written several times about the case for disqualifying Donald Trump via the 14th Amendment, arguing that it fails tests of political prudence and constitutional plausibility alike. But the debate keeps going, and the proponents of disqualification have dug into the position that whatever the prudential concerns about the amendment’s application, the events of Jan. 6, 2021, obviously amounted to an insurrection in the sense intended by the Constitution, and saying otherwise is just evasion or denial.
emphasis added
So how does he describe what happened on January 6?
…Note, first, that the 14th Amendment disqualifies anyone who engaged “in insurrection or rebellion against the same” — with “the same” referring back to “the Constitution of the United States” in the prior clause. This wording tracks with my own understanding: What transforms a political event from a violent riot or lawless mob (which Jan. 6 plainly was) to a genuinely insurrectionary event is the outright denial of the authority of the existing political order and the attempt to establish some alternative order in its place….
…Had there been — had, say, one of Trump’s aides rushed to the Capitol and announced that Congress was disbanded and that President Trump was declaring a state of emergency and would henceforth be ruling by fiat — then the riot would have been transformed into an insurrectionary coup d’état. But nothing like that happened: The riot did not culminate in an attempt to depose the Congress; it dissolved before lawful authority instead, remaining a mob until the end…
Uh, Ross — what do you think would have happened if Trump hadn’t been blocked from going to the Capitol by the Secret Service?
Why did so many Republican members of Congress refuse to give testimony or turn over records of their cell phone conversations on that day? What were they planning to do if Trump had walked into the Capitol with the mob at his back?
What about all the evidence that what happened on January 6 was not some spontaneous event, but the result of weeks of planning and coordination all the way up to Trump, to overturn the election?
Douthat pulls up some examples from history of what he considers ‘real’ insurrection, and interprets them in such a way as to argue January 6 doesn’t meet the test of an insurrection as he sees it.
In case Douthat has forgotten, people died during this “not an insurrection.” The mob came very close to capturing members of Congress, and they had a gallows waiting outside.
Consider again this from Douthat:
…What transforms a political event from a violent riot or lawless mob (which Jan. 6 plainly was) to a genuinely insurrectionary event is the outright denial of the authority of the existing political order and the attempt to establish some alternative order in its place.
That’s pretty much a running theme in Trump speeches, from before January 6 to now. (Everything is rigged — we’re going to overthrow the Deep State) It’s also the agenda of conservatism in this country — see Project 2025. The insurrection didn’t end on January 6.
Douthat may not be openly endorsing Trump, but it is really hard to believe he wouldn’t welcome Trump or someone like him overturning the current order of things that conflict with his view of the ideal world. Douthat considers Trumpism to be a form of populism — meaning things that would be popular with Douthat. A majority of Americans reject them.
Openly MAGA types are preferable to barely closeted authoritarians like Douthat. He has never accepted the Age of Enlightenment — so gather darkness and abandon Reason for Faith. This revisionist trope of the ‘non-insurrection’ is all of a piece with the desperation on the part of conservatives to revise history, rather than confront how many times conservatism has failed and continues to fail.
[…] Lest you think Ross is making a case for Florida Man Ron, he concludes with this:
If a majority or plurality of Republican voters really just wanted a form of Trumpism free of Trump’s roiling personal drama, a version of his administration’s policies without the chaos and constant ammunition given to his enemies, the indictments were the ideal opportunity to break decisively for DeSantis — a figure who, whatever his other faults, seems very unlikely to stuff classified documents in his bathroom or pay hush money to a porn star.
But it doesn’t feel at all surprising that, instead, voters seem ready to break decisively for Trump. The prosecutions created an irresistible drama, a theatrical landscape of persecution rather than a quotidian competition between policy positions, a gripping narrative to join rather than a mere list of promises to back. And irresistible theater, not a more effective but lower-drama alternative, appears to be the revealed preference of the Republican coalition, the thing its voters really want.
emphasis added
So Republicans essentially want bread and circuses, eh Ross? SMH. What happened to all that talk about “family values” and “respect for institutions”? So much for conservatism these days.
—————————–
If you’re a real glutton for punishment, compare and contrast with Bret Stephens from a few days ago: The Case for Trump … by Someone Who Wants Him to Lose. The short version is that Bret is terrified of all the things that might put Trump back in the Oval Office — while being completely oblivious to the way his own efforts over the years have helped make that possible. Reflex disparagement of Democrats and government, knee-jerk libertarianism, reflex hawkism — that’s been his schtick for ages.
He’s screaming for Democrats to dump Biden and find someone, anyone who can beat Trump. In other words, he wants Democrats to save him from himself. It’s a tell that he isn’t applying the same pressure to the Republican Party. He knows it would go nowhere. Bret avers he’s been opposing Trump all along and promises to redouble his efforts — but he’s still living in a world of alternative facts and a skewed world view. […]
[…] brokenness has become the defining feature of much of American life: broken families, broken public schools, broken small towns and inner cities, broken universities, broken health care, broken media, broken churches, broken borders, broken government. At best, they have become shells of their former selves. And there’s a palpable sense that the autopilot that America’s institutions and their leaders are on — brain-dead and smug — can’t continue.
Uh Bret — you’re really channeling the Fox News view of America there. […]
————————————
And don’t even ask what’s up with David Brooks. He apparently thinks Biden has had nothing to say to America during his time in office. Maybe it would have helped if the media had given Biden even half the attention they gave to every tweet the former guy spewed in the middle of the night. […]
Today Brooks is all about that authoritarian ideal — the strong leader. What Makes Nikki Haley Tougher Than the Rest starts out looking like a Haley puff piece. Brooks goes into Haley’s background, her story of always having to fight and claw for respect, battle against the ‘good old boys’, etc. He hands out gems like:
…Tim Alberta quotes a former South Carolina Republican Party chair: “Listen, man. She will cut you to pieces. Nikki Haley has a memory. She has a memory. She will remember who was with her and who was against her. And she won’t give a second chance to anyone who she thinks did her wrong.”
…Haley entered politics as a Tea Party maverick. As Hanna Rosin noted in The Atlantic in 2011, the Tea Party was female-led, and most of its supporters were right-wing women who, among other things, wanted to take on the Republican old boys network. Women like Haley and Sarah Palin presented themselves as whistle-blowers, taking down corruption.
I hope you weren’t drinking anything when you read that.
[…] He’s essentially saying the G.O.P. establishment is broken, and what remains is looking for a strong leader who will strike back against its enemies. That it has abandoned classic conservative values and is acting almost like a wounded animal — or rabid.
[…] But — Haley isn’t going to go the distance because she doesn’t have the right enemies to appeal to the base. Trump:
…is reviled by the coastal professional classes. That’s a sacred bond with working-class and rural voters who feel similarly slighted and unseen. The connection between working-class voters and a shady real estate billionaire is a complex psychological phenomenon that historians will have to unpack. But it’s a bond no amount of Nikki Haley toughness can break.
The thing that is disturbing about this is the detached serenity that Brooks appears to display contemplating the descent of the Republican Party into the abyss.
Stepping back and take a longer look at this, it’s instructive to look at how the Reagan Revolution has turned out. Where once the Republican Party was all about America as “the shining city on a hill”, America is now a dystopian hell hole according to them — and it’s all the fault of liberals with BLM, DEI, etc.. Conservatives were once celebrating the end of Big Government and the fall of the Berlin Wall, were celebrating the end of the Evil Empire and looking forward to a New American Century, where the U.S. would dominate the world and democracy would just expand like magic — well what happened?
Now? Mass shootings seem like a daily event — but Republicans insist we need more guns, everywhere. A pandemic kills millions — and Republicans embrace anti-vaxx conspiracy theories and attack people for wearing masks. Government aid during the pandemic lifts kids out of poverty — and Republicans refuse to extend it. The pandemic showed how critical access to health care is — and Republicans still refuse to expand Medicaid, fight bringing down drug costs, still want to repeal ObamaCare.
Women and doctors risk going to jail if they try to get what should be normal health care, […] conservative think tanks are drawing up plans to totally capture the Federal government for a permanent lock on power. […] They are pushing a religious agenda Ayatollahs would envy.
And always, always more tax cuts for the rich. […]
[…] MAGA cultist and crackpot bigot Laura Loomer claims that the major winter event hitting Iowa is all the doing of Nikki Haley, who apparently has access to a Cobra-designed Weather Dominator.
Is the Deep State activating HAARP to disrupt the Iowa Caucus?
We all know @NikkiHaley has a lot of friends in the defense industry and Military industrial complex. She’s losing in Iowa, and now Iowa is set to get hit with a ONCE IN A DECADE blizzard as Donald Trump is set to dominate the Iowa Caucus.
Is the Deep State using HAARP to rig the Iowa Caucus?
Looks like weather manipulation to me.
Take a look at this weather radar below and how the incoming snow storm accelerated out of nowhere. 👇🏻
On the upside, Loomer seems to believe humans can cause climate change — just in a very dumb, sci-fi B-movie way.
Back in reality, this horrible weather is likely to only further benefit Trump, who already has what seems like an insurmountable lead. That might discourage Haley and DeSantis supporters from risking hypothermia to caucus if they consider the outcome a foregone conclusion. However, the MAGA cult would probably willingly freeze solid in tribute to their mad king.
The frigid temperatures are already keeping folks away from DeSantis events — not that the frigid candidate himself is any more inviting. [video at the link]
Haley cancelled an event on Friday because of the blizzard, but she begged supporters at her telephone town call to show up for her on Monday.
“I know it’s asking a lot of you to go out and caucus, but I also know we have a country to save and I will be out there in the cold.” […] “Please wear layers of clothes, just in case there are lines so that you are staying safe.”
She couldn’t even follow her own damn advice in this video she shared Saturday on social media. The woman’s not wearing a hat, gloves, or thick-ass “Doctor Who” scarf and just has her “this jacket completes my indoor outfit” on instead of a real coat. Every grandmother in South Carolina is shaking their heads right now. [video at the link]
And this morning The New York Times is featuring an article titled “How College-Educated Republicans Learned to Love Trump Again.”
Excerpt:
Many were incredulous over what they described as excessive and unfair legal investigations targeting the former president. Others said they were underwhelmed by Mr. DeSantis and viewed Mr. Trump as more likely to win than former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina. Several saw Mr. Trump as a more palatable option because they wanted to prioritize domestic problems over foreign relations and were frustrated with high interest rates.
[…] “Look at Biden and what he has done to this country. Trump can beat him, and he can fix this country.”
JFC
In fairness, the article focuses mostly on why some Republican voters have rejected DeSantis and Haley, and have therefore come back around to being Trump voters. Still an article full of alarming bullshit, with no factchecking of the bullshit.
I want to flag this post from Barak Ravid, writing in Axios. Much of it is important detail on a general story you know if you’ve been following things: The Biden White House is out of patience with Benjamin Netanyahu. While Biden’s steadfast support for Israel has been transformative within the broader Israeli body politic, Netanyahu himself is still the same man: taking everything offered with pro forma gratitude and stiffing most things, if not everything, asked in return.
This is anything but surprising. We’d be wrong to imagine the White House is terribly surprised either. Joe Biden knows this man. What is always important to remember is that almost everyone working these questions in the Biden White House was working them, usually one or two rungs down, in the bad old Obama days when Netanyahu notoriously plotted with the president’s domestic political enemies but added the deeper indignity of doing it publicly, not even doing him the courtesy of concealment. They all know this guy.
One thing we learn is that Netanyahu and Biden haven’t spoken in almost three weeks, the last time being on December 23rd when Biden cut off the conversation and hung up on him.
None of this is surprising. It was baked into the situation when the original October 7th massacres happened with Netanyahu as prime minister. The fact the event itself thoroughly discredited him in Israel just added to the uncanniness of it. To no one’s surprise he continues to put his personal freedom and political survival before all other priorities. It’s time for Biden to make publicly clear that his support for Israel is not support for Netanyahu and that the latter is not only an obstacle to U.S. interests but Israeli ones as well.
Let me go back to things I was writing here at TPM during the Obama years and saying in conversations with people in the Israeli political and defense worlds at the time. […] I refer back to it because it sheds light on the layers of acrimony between Netanyahu’s Israel and many of its erstwhile U.S. defenders.
It was galling to many American Jews to see Netanyahu plotting against a president they supported, not to mention the offense of any foreign leader so brazenly meddling in domestic U.S. politics. I’ve mentioned a number of times since October 7th that it is hard to overestimate the damage caused by having a generation of Americans learn about Israel through the prism of a long-serving Israeli prime minister plotting against a U.S. president they not only supported but viewed as central to their aspirations about America’s future. But beyond the anger over Netanyahu’s open alliance with the U.S. Republican Party was an additional point: do you not realize the folly of staking the U.S.-Israel alliance on the most rapidly declining political demographic in American society? How does that work out exactly?
Of course, from the perspective of 2024 it’s not like it’s Democratic majorities as far as the eye can see. But the same gist still applies. At the most basic level, many of us predicted in 2014 precisely the dynamic of of the politics of 2024 — young voters, especially progressive voters and people of color, seeing Israel through a much different and less forgiving prism than their parents’ generation. You’re sowing the seeds of your own undoing and, what’s worse, you’re going to come crying to us for help when you reap this harvest and we’re not going to be able to provide much. And here we are.
birgerjohanssonsays
What Actually Happens to Your Cat on Catnip
(catnip, silver vine and valerian are ‘cat attractants’ )
wzrd1says
Reginald Selkirk @ 279, likely they interfered with the missiles by either jamming or hijacking GLONASS signaling.
EW isn’t only jamming, it’s hijacking, corrupting and everything in between. Unlikely that they hacked 20 missiles or more, not at even cruise missile speeds, but overcoming the old Soviet GLONASS signaling and possibly, encryption is possible.
OT a little, considering @ 287, it was windy yesterday during the rain, 35 MPH gusts and all. Today, we’ve got even higher winds and it’s sunny, given the whitecaps I’m seeing on two foot waves, I’d put the winds at 35 – 45 MPH. My normally windproof windows are wolf whistling at me.
Gonna have to buy my windows glasses.
They’re talking an inch of snow Tuesday, Monday night half to an inch, so it’s just broom sweeping away snow. Why, one would almost think it’s winter!
As for the idiot and HAARP, that was transferred to the University of Alaska decades ago, so I guess it’s Alaska trying to push their Democratic Party agenda – both Democrats… After all, anyone not MAGA is a Democrat to them. She’ll probably next claim Haley and DeSantis are really partners with Biden.
birgerjohanssonsays
Re.@ 290
More cheerful animals – I will be more careful about the link this time. Fur farm rescue foxes.
“Ruby Fox the hair stylist”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=WlKeY6YshhA
.
Lynna, OM @ 287
Nikki Haley is fucking up our weather in northern Sweden as well!
Maybe the Repubs can pay ze joos to warm the the land, you know, lasers.
Me @ 292
Ruby Fox yelps louder than a MAGAhead that sees a brown-skinned immigrant with a well-paid job!
birgerjohanssonsays
Whheydt @ 293
When a lava stream is near the sea or other sources of water they can pump water through fire hoses to spray the lava and slow it down a bit. Sadly Grindavik seems geographically challenged in terms of water.
whheydtsays
Re: birgerjohansson @ #295…
You’re thinking about what Iceland did to the eruption at in the Westman Islands, which resulted in not only saving the port, but actually improving it. Grindavik has plenty of sea water. It’s a fishing port. It’s just that the fissure eruption started something like 100m from the nearest house, and with very fluid lava. Really wasn’t time to implement a water cooling solution.
birgerjohanssonsays
Whheydt @ 296
Thanks for the info!
.
Britain: You will be aghast to learn that a regressive monster with blood on her hands may have lied!
“Priti Patel’s Post Office Publicity Stunt” #shorts
.https://youtube.com/shorts/-op1F7BjD18
birgerjohanssonsays
The people coming to the Iowa caucus will crowd indoors to escape the cold. It would be very bad if someone carrying an easily transmitted disease- say, dengue fever- was to attend the event, hint, hint.
A fun thing about dengue fever – if you get one variant, you will not be immune to the other variants. Too bad if the congressmen lose their majority at critical moments because of repeated infections.
This could be prevented by face masks but True Believers know that is just a commie ruse.
Amid war with Hamas, a hostage crisis, the devastation of Gaza, and Israel’s splintering identity, the Prime Minister seems unable to distinguish between his own interests and his country’s.
Excerpts from a longer article by David Remnick:
To be vigilant—to live without illusions about the ever-present threat of annihilation—was a primary value at No. 4 Haportzim Street, once the Jerusalem address of the Netanyahu family. This wariness had ancient roots. In the Passover Haggadah, the passage beginning “Vehi Sheamda” reminds everyone at the Seder table that in each generation an enemy “rises up to destroy” the Jewish people. “But the Holy One, Blessed be He, delivers us from their hands,” the Haggadah continues. Benzion Netanyahu, the family patriarch and a historian of the Spanish Inquisition, was a secular man. For deliverance, he looked not to faith but to the renunciation of naïveté and the strength of arms. This creed became his middle son’s inheritance, the core of his self-conception as the […] defender of the State of Israel.
That son, Benjamin Netanyahu, is now in his sixth term as Prime Minister. Not even the state’s founder, David Ben-Gurion, held power longer. But Netanyahu’s standing in the polls is dismal. Now seventy-four, he always campaigned on security, presenting himself as the one statesman and patriot who saw through the malign intentions of Israel’s enemies. Yet with the Hamas massacre of some twelve hundred people in southern Israel, on October 7th, he had presided over an unprecedented collapse of state security.
“Historically, Netanyahu will go down in history as the worst Jewish leader ever,” Avraham Burg, a former speaker of the Knesset who long ago left the Labor Party and joined the leftist Hadash Party, told me. The fury at Netanyahu among centrists and many conservatives is scarcely less intense. […]
Since first gaining the Prime Minister’s office, in 1996, Bibi, as everyone has called him since childhood, has been dismissive of any talk about the influence of his family—“psychobabble,” [snipped details of Bibi often referring to his father’s advice.]
Benzion was an acolyte of Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the leader of the branch of right-wing Zionism known as Revisionism […] Benzion wrote in a Revisionist publication. “That end is an Arab state in the land of Israel.” His view of the enemy did not admit much humanity. “The tendency to conflict is in the essence of the Arab,” he told a reporter in 2009. “The goal of the Arabs of Israel is destruction. They do not deny that they want to destroy us.”
Any departure from territorial maximalism was anathema […] Ben-Gurion’s acceptance of the U.N. partition plan, in 1947, dividing the land between the Jews and the Arabs, was intolerable. […] The Oslo Accords, signed in the nineties by Yitzhak Rabin, were also an act of pathetic credulity. […]
When I visited Israel late last month, the first thing I noticed was that the surface hustle of daily life was back. In the first few weeks after October 7th, during my previous visit, Israel was all but shut down; as hundreds of thousands of reservists left work and home to report for duty, schools and businesses closed, and the roads were empty. Now everything is open and the roads are full.
But nothing is normal. […] People are quick to recount the nightmare they’d just had or the day’s gnawing anxiety. […]
The news on television carries panel discussions with generals, intelligence officers, government officials. Are Netanyahu and President Biden starting to diverge? And what the hell is happening on American campuses?
Netanyahu usually works out of a surprisingly shabby office complex in central Jerusalem, but these days he is mostly holed up in the Kirya, a defense compound in Tel Aviv, where he leads a five-member war council. […]
Netanyahu and Dermer are comfortable in the folkways of American Republicanism. Dermer is sometimes known as “Netanyahu’s brain” and, like his patron, believes that American Presidents (Barack Obama perhaps most of all) tend to be mistily deluded about the intentions of Palestinians, Hezbollah, and, crucially, the Iranians. Biden, like so many of his predecessors, has a tortured history with Netanyahu, whom he has sometimes found to be self-righteous, condescending, and deceptive. Although Biden initially embraced Netanyahu after October 7th […] Netanyahu has since shown cavalier disdain for American efforts to minimize the horrific bloodshed and destruction throughout Gaza, prevent a second front in the north, and convey support for the prospect of two states.
At the Kirya, Netanyahu daily confronts the subject of the hostages in Gaza. […]
What is not especially visible on Israeli television is the unrelenting horror of Palestinian suffering in Gaza, where more than twenty-three thousand people have been killed in three months, and an estimated 1.9 million have been displaced. Only rarely do Israelis see what the rest of the world sees: the corpses of Palestinian children wrapped in sheets by a mass grave; widespread hunger and disease; schools and houses, apartment blocks and mosques, reduced to rubble; people fleeing from one place to the next, on foot, on donkey carts, three to a bicycle, all the time knowing that there is no real refuge from mortal danger. […]
A disregard for the suffering in Gaza is hardly limited to reactionary ministers or far-right commentators. Ben Caspit, the author of a biography critical of Netanyahu, recently posted that he felt no compunction about concentrating on the home front. “Why should we turn our attention [to Gaza]?” he wrote. “They’ve earned that hell fairly, and I don’t have a milligram of empathy.” […]
“You do see Gaza on TV, but not enough,” Ilana Dayan, the longtime host of “Uvda” (“Fact”), a kind of Israeli “60 Minutes,” told me one evening over coffee in Tel Aviv. Dayan, who has aired countless reports critical of the Israeli government and military, allowed that a patriotic tone has overtaken much of what appears on the air. “[…] As a reporter, I feel that we have to tell Israelis about the price being paid in Gaza.”
[…] “Palestinians are so dehumanized. They are not people. There is no sense of what it means that twenty thousand are dead, half of them kids. It’s only ‘We have to get Hamas.’ My neighbors in Haifa don’t see or comprehend what is being done in their name.”
Palestinian citizens of Israel are required to negotiate an enormously complicated identity. They are physicians, nurses, teachers, and workers who speak Hebrew as well as Arabic and are integrated into Israeli life, and yet they also live among ghosts, villages and towns that were once Palestinian and are now Israeli. In times of crisis, Jewish Israelis often regard them with suspicion. […]
One statistic that disturbs many Jewish Israelis appeared in a recent survey conducted by Khalil Shikaki, the head of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. His poll found that seventy-two per cent of respondents in the West Bank and Gaza believe that Hamas was “correct” to launch its terror attack. Just ten per cent said that Hamas had committed war crimes. The majority said they had not seen videos of Hamas fighters on their rampage—the very sort of evidence of shooting, looting, and butchery ubiquitous in the Israeli media and in social-media feeds.
[…] Hamas’s eliminationist ideology and Israel’s irreconcilable condition of being both an occupier and a democratic state—cannot be taken in all at once. To deal with every historical episode and contradiction, every cruelty, would be to complicate one’s loyalties to the breaking point.
[…] Hadas Ziv, the director of ethics and policy at Physicians for Human Rights Israel, has worked for years defending Palestinians in Israel and in the West Bank and Gaza. She advocates for the rights of migrants, asylum seekers, and prison detainees. Lately, she has been involved in gathering publicly available testimony and forensic evidence about the sexual assaults committed by Hamas, and says that the evidence points to rape, in this instance, being “a weapon of war.” […] She has been condemned by Palestinians online who find her latest work to be excessively “pro-Israeli.”
[…] Yarden Roman-Gat, from Kibbutz Be’eri, whose family was being pursued by Hamas soldiers and had to make an excruciating choice: she handed her three-year-old daughter, Geffen, to her husband, Alon, because he was the better runner. Alon sprinted off carrying Geffen and eventually hid in a ditch, for eight and a half hours. Yarden, who was running alone, grew exhausted after a while, fell to the ground, and tried to fool the Hamas terrorists who found her by playing dead. They picked her up, threw her in a car, and took her to Gaza, where she was a hostage for fifty-four days. She was released in November. […]
[Snipped details of the hostage crisis in June 27, 1976, an event that helped to propel Netanyahu to power.]
Eventually, the family collected Yoni’s [Yoni was Bibi’s brother. Yoni was killed during the rescue. letters and published them as a book that became a talisman of national valor. Yoni came to represent the highest level of sacrifice, and the family name became ubiquitous in Israel. […] Netanyahu has written. “He saw it also as a political and moral struggle between civilization and barbarism. I now devoted myself to this battle.”
In 1978, when he was twenty-eight, Netanyahu appeared on Boston public television […]Netanyahu made the customary right-wing arguments of the time: There already was a Palestinian state—the Kingdom of Jordan. […]
After moving back to Israel, in the late seventies, the Netanyahus began a forum for antiterrorism studies in Yoni’s name, the Jonathan Institute. As the leader of the enterprise, Bibi befriended an array of wealthy donors, conservative intellectuals, and sympathetic politicians, from Norman Podhoretz to Henry Jackson. As a young politician, he moved rapidly up the ranks of the Likud Party, first serving, in the mid-eighties, as a diplomat at the U.N.—one with a particular gift for getting out the government’s distinctly conservative message, particularly for foreign consumption—and then as a shrewd party politician in the Knesset.
In 1996, following the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, Netanyahu won a term as Prime Minister, which lasted three years. […]
Even before October 7th, the Shalit [prisoner]exchange had come under intense criticism; many thought that Netanyahu had done it to get out of a political jam, at a time when hundreds of thousands of Israelis had taken to the streets to protest a contracting economy. […]
In 2021, Netanyahu was voted out as Prime Minister after a dozen years; over time, his divisive rhetoric and ever-expanding arrogance alienated even some of his most loyal aides and ministers. And so he decided that he would write a memoir […] Even when he appeared amenable to compromise—as when he delivered a speech at Bar-Ilan University, in 2009, that conveyed a wary and highly conditional openness to a Palestinian state—he did so tactically, to ease pressure from internal political currents and, more often, to get American Presidents off his back. In this instance, Barack Obama.
Most of his American interlocutors long ago came to understand the dodge. “The Bar-Ilan speech was part of his bullshit,” Martin Indyk, a former U.S. Ambassador to Israel, told me. “We met a day or two after the speech. He was all puffed up and he said to me, ‘All right, I said it, now can we get on to dealing with Iran?’ ”
[…] What Netanyahu scarcely acknowledges in his memoir is the security policy in which Israel allowed Qatar to bankroll Hamas, figuring that it would forgo the ecstasies of armed resistance and embrace the burdens of governance. In the meantime, Netanyahu could concentrate on subduing the restive West Bank and on weakening the Palestinian Authority, which struggled to administer it. This dual-track policy was also intended to muzzle any coherent demands for negotiations.
[…] Three years ago, as Netanyahu was writing his book and serving as the leader of the opposition, he seemed as if he might ease into a well-upholstered retirement. His highest priority, it appeared, was to shake free of a series of criminal corruption indictments […] For a while, it seemed possible that he might accept a plea bargain in which he would not face jail time but instead pay a fine and agree to stay out of politics. […]
In time, the plea-bargain talks collapsed, a new attorney general came on the scene, and Netanyahu reclaimed the one position that provided refuge from prosecution—his old job. At the end of 2022, he forged a hard-right coalition that allowed him to return as Prime Minister. He brought into the fold a raft of reactionaries, including his national-security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and his finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, both of whom endorse the full annexation of the West Bank and have recently called for the expulsion of Gaza’s population. Netanyahu also pushed a wildly contentious “judicial reform” law; its opponents—perhaps more than half the country, some surveys suggested—feared that it would undermine the Supreme Court, the balance of powers, and democracy itself. […]
It wasn’t just the Tel Aviv left that had come to view Netanyahu as a threat to the state. Even old allies on the right could no longer ignore the spectacle of his narcissism and self-dealing. […] Netanyahu’s ideology is now “personal political survival,” adding that his coalition partners “don’t represent the vast majority of the Israeli people” and are “so messianic that they believe in Jewish supremacy—‘Mein Kampf’ in the opposite direction. […]
Meanwhile, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, and the head of the military wing, Mohammed Deif, appear to have seen what Gallant saw: that Israel was consumed with its own divisions; that the state, including the Israel Defense Forces, was overstretched, distracted, and dysfunctional. The security establishment was reportedly receiving information about a potentially colossal disaster. Officers in Unit 8200, an intelligence group in the I.D.F., provided senior officers with detailed and alarming information about Hamas training exercises inside Gaza in which combatants practiced raids on mocked-up kibbutzim much like the ones just over the fence in southern Israel. […]
[…] the enemy saw Israel’s chaos and vulnerability as “the practical fulfillment of their basic world view—Israel is a foreign implant, a weak, divided society that will ultimately disappear.”
[…] Sinwar made little secret of his ultimate intentions. “We will come to you, God willing, in a roaring flood,” he said in a speech in December, 2022. “We will come to you with endless rockets, we will come to you in a limitless flood of soldiers, we will come to you with millions of our people, like the repeating tide.” Netanyahu’s attention was elsewhere.
[…] [snipped one man’s detailed account of the Hamas attack]
Initially, the kids seemed fine. They talked about the card game they’d devised while in Gaza. They played with all the new toys they were given after they were released. But there were long sleepless nights to come. For the children, Brodutch said, a dark room or being separated from Hagar or even just a loud noise could “reignite the trauma.”
[…] The war went on, brutally. The Israeli air strikes aimed at Hamas commanders and fighters, tunnels and munitions supplies, were killing civilians, dozens at a time. With no warning, on October 31st, the Israelis, according to the Times, dropped two-thousand-pound bombs on the Jabalia refugee camp, one of the most densely populated precincts of Gaza, killing at least a hundred and twenty-six people, many of them children. An I.D.F. spokesman said the mission had succeeded in killing Ibrahim Biari, a leader of the October 7th attack. The spokesman also issued the by now familiar regrets for civilian losses, pointing out that Hamas used civilians as “human shields.”
[…] Mustafa Barghouti, the independent politician in the West Bank, compared the devastation in Gaza to that of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and told me the war being waged now was a “genocide.”
[…] Ami Ayalon, the former head of Shin Bet, told me that on October 7th Sinwar chose a “Samson option.” The plan was “diabolical,” Ayalon said, “but he brought the house down.” A conventional military defeat will not be important to Sinwar. “He will be rooted in the hearts of the Palestinians. And the only way for him to be defeated is to present a better idea, meaning a political horizon for two states.
[…] Today, the prospect of two states for two people has never seemed more necessary or more distant. Fury and trauma dominate. The absolutists reign.
[…] The Palestinians have been on the receiving end of brutality for a hundred years, and now was their chance to show they could do this. And it’s important to note that almost no Palestinians stood against it, except some N.G.O.s, which get Western money. […] This runs deep inside the Palestinian psyche, this very act. It borders on the Biblical. It has nothing to do with politics or the interaction of the two peoples. It’s revenge. It comes out of a feud festering over decades, even centuries. […] The I.D.F. cannot kill Hamas. It’s everywhere.
[…] It is folly to guess what Sinwar, the presumed mastermind of Al-Aqsa Flood, thought would happen in every detail when he unleashed his rampage. But it is not unreasonable to infer that he hoped to ignite an all-out regional uprising against Israel, with Hezbollah in the lead. Many of the tactics and instruments of Al-Aqsa Flood were devised years ago by Hezbollah. As a fighting force, Hezbollah is far better trained and better equipped than Hamas.
[…] Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, is no less zealous than Sinwar in his stated desire to erase Israel from the map. But he has different constituencies and political concerns. Contemporary Lebanon is both a multiethnic state and a failed state. If Nasrallah were to attack Israel, he would be held responsible for the inevitable Israeli reprisals and the potential devastation not only of his Shia constituents in southern Lebanon but of Beirut. “You will pay an unimaginable price,” Netanyahu warned Hezbollah in early November. And Nasrallah has more than just the Israeli Air Force to contend with. One of the first things Biden did after October 7th was to park two aircraft carriers in the eastern Mediterranean.
[…] it had been Netanyahu’s policy to allow the funding of Hamas and, as his memoir makes plain, he knew Sinwar’s history and the capabilities of the armed wing of Hamas. […] “If tomorrow Shin Bet discovered the hole that Sinwar is in and Sayeret Matkal put his head on a pike and the hostages were freed, Bibi would be there to take the credit.” Dennis Ross, a veteran U.S. diplomat in the Middle East, agreed, telling me, “He has been Prime Minister since 2009, except for one year. Can you think of him ever taking responsibility for anything?”
[…] the former Prime Minister Yair Lapid told me, “These are good Israelis fighting admirably but also angry as hell at Netanyahu and this bunch of lunatics he’s surrounded himself with.”
[…] Netanyahu’s guile in building coalitions is unmatched in Israeli politics and only improved when he dispensed with principle to join with the likes of Ben-Gvir and Smotrich. Moreover, when support for Hamas runs so high in the West Bank, with the country feeling so damaged, so insecure, it is hard to imagine any of Netanyahu’s potential opponents taking up the issue of a two-state solution.
The moments when Netanyahu shows disdain for Biden are galling to American diplomats, but they play to his base. “The extent to which Netanyahu is desperate is manifested in his willingness to bite the hand that feeds him,” Martin Indyk told me. “His sheer survival instinct is to show he can stand up to America. He boasts about it.” […]
“Now he is Mr. Standing Up to America Who Will Impose on Us a Palestinian State. He is pivoting. After his grand failure, he needs a new story. He is going to try to sell the story that the security establishment failed, not him, and he is the only one to kill a Palestinian state.”
[…] The longer the war goes on—and, according to top military analysts, it is not going nearly as well or as quickly as the I.D.F. had hoped—the more time Netanyahu will have to rebuild his base and undermine potential challengers. “Netanyahu has an interest in never finishing this stage of war,” Nahum Barnea said. […]
Judd Legum writes for his “Popular Information” Substack that Twitter/X owner Elon Musk has been trafficking in a lot of misinformation about various aspects of voting.
This week, Elon Musk has repeatedly promoted false and misleading claims about voting to his 168 million followers on X, the social network formerly known as Twitter. Musk then used these erroneous claims to justify massive restrictions on voting in the United States, including eliminating early voting, abolishing most mail-in voting, and imposing new identification requirements.
On January 9, for example, Musk posted that “Arizona clearly states that no proof of citizenship is required for federal elections.” This revelation was accompanied by an image posted by an X user named Mark Jeffery, a cryptocurrency investor and self-published author of science fiction novels. A highlighted portion of the image states that individuals who do not provide proof of citizenship will be provided with a “federal only” ballot.
On January 10, Musk posted that he recently learned “illegals are not prevented from voting in federal elections,” and that “came as a surprise.” That claim is absolutely false. […]
Musk’s alarm about non-citizen voting is not grounded in fact. A study by the Brennan Center for Justice evaluating 23.5 million votes across 12 states in 2016 found 30 incidents of suspected non-citizen voting, 0.0001% of the 2016 vote in those jurisdictions. A 2022 audit of Georgia voting rolls found about 1600 noncitizens attempting to register to vote over a 25-year period, and no non-citizens were actually allowed to register or vote.
Ah well, I shall never know what these alleged Insane New Technologies are.
(clickbait, that is)
Reginald Selkirksays
@298
It would be very bad if someone carrying an easily transmitted disease- say, dengue fever- was to attend the event, hint, hint.
A fun thing about dengue fever – if you get one variant, you will not be immune to the other variants.
Yes, well; dengue is transmitted by mosquitos. Not many of those in Iowa in January.
Another interesting thing about dengue: A second infection with a different strain tends to produce much worse symptoms. The first infection primes the immune system in a way that goes badly when the second infection hits. link
birgerjohanssonsays
Reginald Selkirk @ 303
Damn! Maybe if I insert dengue genetic material in stomach flu…
John Morales @ 302
Scott Manly is one of the more credible podcasters although some of the technologies seem a bit ‘far out’. But I like the lunar optical interferometer.
.
Mike Sadler obituary | Second world war
Last original member of the SAS who used the stars to navigate across the north African desert during the second world war
.https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/14/mike-sadler-obituary
birgerjohanssonsays
John Morales @ 302
I forgot to mention “Venus surface sample return”. 😊
Scott Manly is one of the more credible podcasters although some of the technologies seem a bit ‘far out’.
I concur. Thing is, a naked link shows none of that.
No authorship. No content information. No sources. Nothing.
It’s just a naked link, with a most uninformative title.
Presumably, one of those alleged Insane New Technologies is a lunar optical interferometer.
In what sense is it supposedly insane?
—
Anyway. I just clicked on it.
It would have taken you the very same time to copypaste the description as to do that for the stupid, stupid clickbaity title.
Here:
“Last Week the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program published the latest set of awards, funding technology investigations which may one day lead to new technologies, new missions or solve problems which might be required in future plans.
Most of these are just funding for the investigators to study the problem, do the math and make a presentation of the findings.”
Exactly the same amount of work, but much more informative.
A tiny, tiny bit more work, but much neater and more informative. Since I included the title parameter in the tag, one can hover on the link and get even more info — particularly useful for sight-impaired people.
With such a link, I have some information regarding whether or not I think I care to click on it.
John Moralessays
I forgot to mention “Venus surface sample return”. 😊
Yeah, already clicked on the link to the video (obs, autoplay is for other people).
Were I to be interested, I’d just click on the provided NASA link and get it first hand.
From the horse’s mouth, so to speak.
Also, you forgot other things, too:
0:57 Solar system scale VLBI
3:30 Lunar Long-Baseline Optical Imaging Interferometer
6:24 Magnetohydrodynamic oxygen separation thingy.
8:11 Thin film radioisotope engine
10:22 sketchy Mars flying solar panel idea
11:35 Agnostic Life Finder (Mars bacteria or something)
13:14 Getting rid of perchlorates on Mars (but why? There's no nitrogen. Terraform Venus instead)
14:35 Swarms of small probes going to Proxima Centauri.
16:58 A "new" kind of antenna, I guess
17:30 Cryosleep for animals and maybe humans though a lot of animals can enter torpor and I think the Russians already did this with dogs?
18:31 Sample return from Venus, also carbon monoxide rocket
20:34 Autonomous tritium micropower sensors.
21:44 Electroluminescently cooled zero boil off propellant depots.
You don’t quite get it. Naked, uninformative links bad. Other naked links are fine.
The link @311 is quite informative, for example. It encodes the source, the date, and the topic.
I can tell by looking at it what it’s all about, and its provenance.
The point is that one should at least have some idea of what the link is about.
whheydtsays
In line with my earlier posts about the current eruption in Iceland, here is a link to a YouTube stream from a camera near Grindavik. It’s run by an Icelandic news site… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvcP4kVVOnk
birgerjohanssonsays
Maybe some very cautionous optimism? Like leading Hitler by 3 points.
Um, Biden can’t possibly lead Hitler; Hitler died decades ago.
(To which crucial polls does that link refer? Who posted that link? When was it posted? Who knows?)
John Moralessays
Ah, well, let’s bite. I shall click.
“Political strategist Simon Rosenberg on the state of the race and more.”
Credited with that on Jan 14, 2024.
Nothing to do with Hitler (aww). One would think that it would, given the hype, but no. No Hitler.
Nor does it mention which three polls of the multiple ones mentioned are the “crucial” ones.
So. Clicking on that link neither tells me which polls are crucial nor mentions Hitler.
(TL;DW: she wins but then she’s (a) young and (b) grown in the computer age)
—
I know, I know.
Multi-page cut’n’paste from sites, no worries.
Literally thousands of words copied, no worries. Just page down multiple times.
Video embedding, bad shit. Presumably, because there’s an image there!
Israel says it has used more than 10,000 bombs and missiles, and launched hundreds of airstrikes across Gaza, since the 7 October Hamas attack triggered the war.
Gazan officials say more than 50% of housing units in Gaza have been destroyed, left uninhabitable or damaged since the start of the conflict.
Almost two million people in the enclave – 85% of the population – are reported to have fled their homes.
Drone shots captured in Khan Younis, Maghazi and Rafah show the scale of the damage.
Ukraine’s military says it has shot down a Russian military spy plane over the Sea of Azov, in what analysts say would be a blow to Moscow’s air power.
Army chief Gen Valerii Zaluzhnyi said the air force had “destroyed” an A-50 long range radar detection aircraft, and an Il-22 air control centre.
The A-50 detects air defences and coordinates targets for Russian jets…
Another channel said the Il-22 command centre was hit by Russian “friendly fire”. It reportedly managed to land back in Russia…
@298 birgerjohansson The people coming to the Iowa caucus will crowd indoors to escape the cold. It would be very bad if someone carrying an easily transmitted disease- say, dengue fever- was to attend the event, hint, hint.
Donald Trump is urging even his sickest supporters to turn out in force at Iowa’s caucuses on Monday ― including people so ill that they may be at death’s door.
“If you’re sick as a dog, you say, ‘Darling, I gotta make it,’” Trump said at a rally on Sunday. “Even if you vote and then pass away, it’s worth it.” …
A missile fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels struck a U.S.-owned ship Monday just off the coast of Yemen in the Gulf of Aden, less than a day after Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired an anti-ship cruise missile toward an American destroyer in the Red Sea, officials said.
The attack on the Gibraltar Eagle, though not immediately claimed by the Houthis, further escalates tensions gripping the Red Sea after American-led strikes on the rebels. The Houthis’ attacks have roiled global shipping, amid Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, targeting a crucial corridor linking Asian and Mideast energy and cargo shipments to the Suez Canal onward to Europe…
birgerjohanssonsays
John Morales @ 318
…But we cannot protest, that would make us “anti-semites”. Like the many Jews around the world that have protested and gotten shunned by friends and relatives.
In 2024 tribal loyalty is still king. And the Republicans naturally back Netanyahu.
“This is the final battle. With you at my side, we will demolish the Deep State. We will expel the war mongers from our government. We will drive out the globalists; we will cast out the communists, Marxists, and fascists. We will throw off the sick political class that hates our country. We will route the fake news media, and we will liberate America from these villains once and for all.”
Those who don’t keep up on Trump’s day-to-day rhetoric might not realize the frequency with which this phrase comes up. [snipped many examples]
[Washington Post, Philip Bump]
If your immediate point of reference for that [“final battle”] phrase wasn’t to the Book of Revelation’s depiction of the apocalypse, you are probably not a Trump supporter. (A 2012 poll from PRRI found that the religious group most likely to say that the end times as predicted in Revelation would occur during their lives was evangelicals.)
[Prayer delivered at a Trump rally]
“This election is part of a spiritual battle. When Donald Trump becomes the 47th president of the United States, there will be retribution against all those who have promoted evil in this country.”
The ever-increasing religious tone of Trump’s campaign (and his cult) is disturbing.
[…] If Loudermilk and his growing investigatory team wants to bring Hutchinson’s experiences back into the spotlight, they’re welcome to do so, but they might be disappointed if they’re counting on an election-year political victory.
Republicans have already tried to peddle an “alternate” report on the insurrectionist attack on the Capitol, and it was an embarrassment. Its sequel is likely to be worse.
More details at the link.
Loudermilk is Republican Rep. Barry Loudermilk. He is the chair of the House Administration’s subcommittee on oversight. Same guy who conducted a questionable tour of the Capitol the day before the riot.
[…] The White House, as you know, has been under immense pressure to offer concessions to address the continuing large number of migrants coming to the US-Mexico border. Now there’s a bipartisan compromise bill in the Senate. Last night Majority Leader Steve Scalise said that bill in DOA in the House.
But Speaker Johnson said something more specific and revealing. He refused to bring up the bill and according to Jake Sherman of Punchbowl said “Congress can’t solve border until Trump is elected or a republican is back in the White House.”
Two things to note here. First, Johnson isn’t saying they won’t consider this bill. He’s saying they won’t consider any bill until Trump is elected. Sherman appears to have accepted the GOP wording – that “Congress can’t solve [the] border until Trump is elected.” But there’s more here.
Johnson is saying openly that they won’t pass any bill until Trump is elected. In other words, however out of control they claim the border is they want to keep it that way through November to use it as a political issue. There’s a bipartisan deal but House Republicans are rejecting it out of hand. […]
For many Americans who consider themselves Christian, it seems impossible to square the behavior of Donald Trump with any form of the religion they hold dear. It’s not just that Trump has little understanding of the core tenets of Christianity or its roots in Judaism: It’s that Trump’s actions seem to be the polar opposite of everything Christians are supposed to believe.
This is a man who has made vengeance the core of his latest election campaign. Whose philosophy is to return any blow 10 times over. Who regularly calls for violence, on levels large and small. A man who is eager to kill people by the thousands. Who declares that those who refuse to follow his every order deserve death. And that’s before even dipping into a personal life filled with accusations of fraud, adultery, theft, and rape. [links to resources are embedded in text at the main link]
[…] Trump supporters have redefined Christianity. For them, it has little to do with religion, and even less to do with Christ. Christianity is now just another synonym for MAGA.
[…] what’s happened in the past three decades, and especially in the Age of Trump, is very different. The number of Americans who no longer consider themselves affiliated with any religion has grown at an extraordinary rate. [details and graph at the link]
[…] In the past decade, the number of those who self-identify as evangelical has declined more rapidly than the still ongoing fall in numbers at more liberal churches. […]
Take the example of a retired corrections officer quoted in the Times article.
“I voted for Trump twice, and I’ll vote for him again. He’s the only savior I can see,” [more examples at the link]
Woman says that when Trump says, “I am being indicted for you,” that “my first thought went to, ‘Well, Jesus Christ died for my sins. Jesus died for me.’ It connects in my brain that way. OK, he’s doing this for us.”
[…] Why has Jesus been ousted as the central character in many a “Christian’s” life in favor of Trump?
[…] “People who love their country and believe in God, but haven’t been typical churchgoers—he’s brought those people into the fold,” said Jackson Lahmeyer, the founder of Pastors for Trump, a national group of church leaders backing the former president.
[…] while Trump’s supporters may find that a vitriol-spitting bigot seems to fit the God-shaped holes in their hearts, Pastors for Trump have an even more crass and destructive reason. In the face of emptying churches, they’re willing to swap out crosses for MAGA hats in the hope it will put asses in the pews and dollars in the offering plates.
[…] The “Christian” label serves another purpose for Trump supporters: It allows them to play the victim. It gives them the right to be racist, misogynist, antisemitic, anti-Muslim, and anti-LGBTQ+ … then retreat behind religion if anyone points it out.
[…] And if that means they have to trade a message of love, acceptance, and forgiveness for one of spite, anger, and violence … hey, does it matter? They’re Christians. You wouldn’t understand. […]
birgerjohanssonsays
Lynna, OM @ 327
För a person that is obsessing about pornography, Johnson sure spends a lot of time fellating Trump.
The savior dies for his flock. The flock dies for the cult leader. Always works that way.
——————————
In that photo of “Faith leaders pray over Donald Trump during a ‘Evangelicals for Trump” … That DT grin just makes me want to puke. He looks like a cartoon caricature with “Snake Oil Salesman” written all over. [photo available at link in comment 328, and, yes that is a really smarmy grin.]
——————————–
Trump is not being indicted for anybody but himself, he knows that, and he’s simply trolling for cannon fodder to be his mob support when things finally go sufficiently downhill.
——————————–
Religion based on hate of others
———————————–
Originally, I had several paragraphs about early schisms in the church, leading up to a discussion of the Thirty Years War and the Second Great Awakening. But you have to draw the line somewhere. [posted by the author, Mark Sumner]
—————————
the comfort level with a “Vengeful God” comes straight from the Old Testament. Also various horrific punishments if people aren’t respectful of your patriarchal supremacy. MAGA sensibility is all Old Testament
———————–
Deuteronomy 21:18-21 If you have a troublesome son you can have him stoned to death.
Numbers 5:11-31 If you suspect your wife has been unfaithful, make her drink poison.
————————
I keep seeing the LGBT stickers on trucks
L=Liberty
G=Guns
B=Beer
T=Trump
Q=QAnon
————————
IMO, it is a personality cult, there will be chaos when he is gone. They will look for a replacement and many will fight for the position but no one will be able to take his place. Personality cults that lose their leader usually disband very quickly.
—————————-
So, generally speaking, it is a cult. A hateful cult but still a cult. Leaders who only care about power and money and followers who hear their message and think they have found the almighty answer. A cult.
birgerjohanssonsays
This video from Sabine Hossenfelder does not contain any speculations about LBTQ issues.
“Our Universe Will Probably Not Rip Apart, Phew!”
birgerjohanssonsays
Goddammit ! I forgot to sort out the link again. Senior moment?
tomhsays
Villages-News:
Trumper gets jail time in voter fraud case involving dead father’s ballot
By Staff Report / January 9, 2024
An official active in the Villagers for Trump group has been sentenced to jail time in a voter fraud case involving his dead father’s mail-in ballot.
Robert Rivernider Jr., 58, was sentenced to 180 days in jail on Tuesday after he was found guilty in December by a Sumter County [Florida] jury on charges of fraud and forgery. In addition to the jail time, he has been ordered to pay $916 in court costs.
Rivernider, who lives at Continental Country Club in Wildwood, was charged with having signed a vote-by-mail ballot for his father, Robert Rivernider Sr., according to an elections fraud complaint from Sumter County Supervisor of Elections William Keen. The senior Rivernider died on Oct. 19, 2020.
“By filling out the mail-in ballot for his father, the Defendant intended to defraud or injure the State by voting for someone who was no longer alive,” said Assistant State Attorney Joseph Church.
Rivernider is already on federal probation for a 2013 conspiracy and wire fraud conviction. He won a “compassionate release” from federal prison during the COVID-19 pandemic, which claimed his father’s life.
A number of Villagers were charged with casting more than one ballot in the 2020 election, but all escaped with light sentences, which consisted primarily of civics classes…
birgerjohanssonsays
For fans of Mystery Science Theater 2000 -some lighter stuff as contrast to the madness in the world.
“Brandon’s Cult Movie Reviews: Armicron In Outlaw Power”. A rip-off of a rip-off?
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=Zi4sEPhzvyc
A year ago this week […] the new House Republican majority focused its attention on its very first bill of the new Congress. GOP members could’ve picked anything, but they went with legislation to cut funding for the Internal Revenue Service.
[…] At issue was legislation that targeted 87,000 IRS agents who don’t exist, increased the deficit by roughly $114 billion, was designed to help tax cheats, and undermined law enforcement. It nevertheless received unanimous support from the Republican conference.
[…] House Speaker Mike Johnson’s first big piece of legislation also tried to cut the IRS budget. The Louisiana Republican said the move would help make the deficit smaller, despite a Congressional Budget Office report showing that the GOP bill would add tens of billions of dollars to the deficit.
[…] The more Congress invests in the IRS, the more those investments pay dividends in the form of better law enforcement. […]
The Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act allocated $80 billion over 10 years to help the IRS enforce the law. While it’s true that Republicans successfully lowered that total to $60 billion as part of last year’s debt-ceiling deal, the tax agency had already benefited from the influx of resources,
[…] the IRS collected more than $500 million from millionaires who failed to pay what they owe.
Chances are, some on the right are reading this and preparing to argue that I’ve described a bad deal. The Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act set aside $8 billion per year for the tax agency, which, conservatives will say, is far more than the $500 million the IRS boasted about last week.
The problem with this pushback is that it only tells part of the story. As Kevin Drum explained, “[O]nly 0.8% of the new funding [for the IRS] has been spent, and increased enforcement only got seriously underway three months ago.”
In other words, the tax agency has just started to benefit from the investments, which already helping make a big difference for taxpayers and law enforcement.
Republicans should be celebrating these developments. Instead, GOP leaders are demanding even more cuts to the IRS as part of a plan to prevent a government shutdown.
Let this be a lesson to tax cheats and proponents of higher deficits: You have friends in the House Republican conference.
Excerpts from President Ulysses S. Grant’s 1875 speech delivered in Des Moines, Iowa:
I do not bring into this assemblage politics, certainly not partisan politics, but it is a fair subject for soldiers in their deliberations to consider what may be necessary to secure the prize for which they battled in a republic like ours. Where the citizen is sovereign and the official the servant, where no power is exercised except by the will of the people, it is important that the sovereign — the people — should possess intelligence.
The free school is the promoter of that intelligence which is to preserve us as a free nation. If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon’s, but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition, ambition, and ignorance on the other.
Now in this centennial year of our national existence, I believe it a good time to begin the work of strengthening the foundation of the house commenced by our patriotic forefathers one hundred years ago, at Concord and Lexington. Let us all labor to add all needful guarantees for the more perfect security of free thought, free speech, and free press, pure morals, unfettered religious sentiments, and of equal rights and privileges to all men, irrespective of nationality, color, or religion.
Encourage free schools, and resolve that not one dollar of money appropriated to their support, no matter how raised, shall be appropriated to the support of any sectarian school. Resolve that the State or Nation, or both combined, shall furnish to every child growing up in the land, the means of acquiring a good common-school education, unmixed with sectarian, pagan, or atheistic tenets. Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate. With these safeguards, I believe the battles which created the Army of the Tennessee will not have been fought in vain.
Joe Tacopina, one of former President Trump’s New York trial lawyers who is known for representing high-profile clients, is withdrawing from Trump’s cases.
Tacopina had represented Trump in both his criminal hush money case — one of four indictments Trump faces — and a sexual battery civil lawsuit brought by longtime advice columnist E. Jean Carroll.
[…]
[…] A U.S. fighter jet shot down an anti-ship cruise missile fired toward an American destroyer in the Red Sea from Houthi militant-controlled areas of Yemen, the U.S. military has said. The first attack by the Iran-backed rebels after American-led strikes […]
In Gaza, famine looms as the devastation mounts. More than 24,000 people have been killed in the enclave since the war began, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. More than 60,000 have been injured, and thousands more are missing and presumed dead.
[…] A video released by Hamas appears to show Israeli hostage Noa Argamani, […] stating that she has been injured and that two other hostages, Yossi Sharabi and Itay Svirsky, have been killed.
NBC News was not immediately able to independently verify the claims in the video, which Argamani is clearly making under duress and was released on the Telegram channel of the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant accused Hamas of “psychological terror” following the video’s release. “The IDF is in contact with the families of the abductees,” he said.
The video comes after Hamas shared separate undated footage on social media yesterday appearing to show Argamani, Sharabi and Svirsky. […]
Joe Tacopina, one of former President Trump’s New York trial lawyers who is known for representing high-profile clients, is withdrawing from Trump’s cases.
Tacopina had represented Trump in both his criminal hush money case — one of four indictments Trump faces — and a sexual battery civil lawsuit brought by longtime advice columnist E. Jean Carroll.
The motivation behind Tacopina’s departure remains unclear. He confirmed to The Hill he was withdrawing from Trump’s cases but declined further comment….
Could be so many reasons.
1) The check bounced.
2) He actually has scruples about allowing a client to perjure himself.
3) That odor.
[…] Women in North America held only 21% of senior leadership jobs in financial services in 2022, according to the consulting firm Deloitte, which projects that number will reach only 22% by 2031. And Payscale.com found earlier this year that of the 15 industries in the U.S. that it analyzed, finance and insurance had the biggest average pay gaps, with women making 77 cents for every dollar made by men. That’s up just a penny from 2020, when women were making 76 cents for every male dollar.
[…] Bill Singer, a veteran Wall Street lawyer, said that, over the months since the Goldman Sachs settlement, he sees scant evidence that Wall Street firms are interested in reforms. “I have seen no reaction to the settlement and don’t expect any,” he said. The long, 13-year duration of the suit ”will have a chilling effect on most female professionals whose careers will likely be sidetracked by any claims or lawsuits.”
[A settlement between Goldman Sachs and a group of women who sued for pay discrimination. As part of the $215 million deal, the firm will pay about 2,800 women who worked in Goldman’s investment banking, investment management, and securities divisions from as early as 2002 to 2023]
[…] Some of Goldman’s intimidating legal tactics could dissuade women from filing complaints in the future, say lawyers. Goldman, for example, sent subpoenas to five companies that had employed the named plaintiffs after they left the firm, asking for their performance evaluations and any negative reports such as reprimands and discipline.
[…] For decades, Wall Street has been able to keep accounts of discrimination and harassment from spilling out to the public due to its use of arbitration.
[…] “The only thing that seems to stop employers dead in their tracks is public exposure,” said gender equity researcher Amy Diehl […]
There’s always been a symbiosis between Donald Trump and right-wing rhetoric. His 2016 campaign for the Republican presidential nomination was successful — surprisingly successful — because of his willingness to embrace arguments and assertions that were considered beyond the pale for his more traditional opponents. By picking out and then defending (to whatever extent was necessary for his audience) claims about immigrants and terrorism, among other things, he tapped into a strain of argumentation that was often kept out of sight. He helped bring the rhetoric into the mainstream.
On Sunday, CBS News presented the results of a new poll conducted by the polling firm YouGov — results that offered a stark example of this pattern, of how even extreme right-wing arguments are now barely outside the norm.
Respondents were asked by YouGov whether they agreed with Trump that immigrants entering the United States illegally had the effect of “poisoning the blood” of the country. This is not just right-wing rhetoric, mind you, but a reflection of some of the most extreme racial politics in modern history. It is an explicit depiction of immigrants as dangerous, but specifically in the context of posing a threat to national identity. It is the language of fascism.
Nearly half of Americans agreed with it. [Charts at link]
That was largely because more than three-quarters of Republicans agreed with Trump’s framing. Fewer than half of Democrats and independents agreed.
Interestingly, when the comments weren’t attributed to Trump, support was lower. Republicans were 10 points more likely to indicate agreement with Trump when they were told it was Trump with whom they were agreeing. Democrats were slightly less likely to agree.
There are a lot of rationalizations that are made for accepting Trump’s language, but there’s no serious question that race is central to the idea. That’s reflected elsewhere in the CBS-YouGov poll, as when people were asked to evaluate efforts to promote racial diversity and equality. Most Americans said that such efforts were about right or not going far enough.
Two-thirds of Republicans said they were going too far.
Trump’s support was initially rooted heavily in a sense among White Republicans that they were under attack. Throughout his presidency and in the years after, the role of White grievance — concern about White Americans suffering diminishing status — has become an unabashed element of Republican politics.
The CBS poll also asked Republican primary voters whether a slew of policy views would trigger more support for a particular candidate. The three that saw the highest percentages of voters indicating that they would increase a candidate’s appeal? Cutting taxes, banning surgeries to change a minor’s gender … and challenging “woke” ideas. Nearly 9 in 10 primary voters said that support of those issues would increase their support for a candidate.
There is no universally accepted understanding of “woke” ideas, a term that’s been reframed away from its original meaning. By now, it generally just serves as a (pejorative) umbrella term for those aforementioned efforts to recognize the country’s diversity and racial history.
YouGov also asked people whether President Biden’s second-term policies would give preference to White Americans, racial minorities or neither. Most respondents said “neither.” Most Republicans said racial minorities.
Asked the same question about Trump, nearly half the respondents said he would give preference to White Americans.
[…]
Trump and allies like adviser Stephen Miller often framed the increase in immigration as a threat to the economy, despite the increase in immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border overlapping with a period of increased employment. But the result above shows an obvious path to an erosion of democracy: use issues like immigration to argue that the economy is under threat and then sidestep democratic elections or systems to ostensibly backstop the economy.
Again, that’s a long-tail outcome. The more immediate risk, obviously, is to immigrants seeking new lives in the United States. As such, it’s worth remembering that nearly everyone in the country is a descendant of someone who moved here from somewhere else. It’s worth remembering, too, that there were similar concerns about the American identity being tainted by immigrants when the new arrivals were similarly viewed with a racially loaded skepticism.
Those immigrants helped make America what it is today.
[…] the first of three brutal reports [was published in The New York Times] on Trump’s financial history, leaving little doubt that he had spent much of his adult life meandering between failures and fraudulent endeavors.
The reporting from Susanne Craig, David Barstow, and Russell Buettner received a Pulitzer Prize.
[…] Trump responded to the reporting by filing a $100 million lawsuit against the newspaper and its source — his niece, Mary Trump. […] a New York judge rejected Trump’s case, ruling that the civil case was based on arguments that “fail as a matter of constitutional law.”
[…] last week’s developments were about requiring Trump to pay the reporters’ legal fees.
A spokesperson for the Times told the Associated Press the ruling has “sent a message to those who want to misuse the judicial system to try and silence journalists.”
The former president’s case against niece, however, is still ongoing.
Trump was ordered to pay nearly $400,000 in legal fees to The New York Times and three of its reporters.
birgerjohanssonsays
Only 40 seats in UK parliament are “safe” for the conservatives!
On the morning of June 12, 2022, Ángela Astudillo, then a law student in her mid-twenties, grabbed her water bottle and hopped into her red Nissan Juke. The cofounder of Dress Desert, or Desierto Vestido, a textile recycling advocacy nonprofit, and the daughter of tree farmers, Astudillo lives in a gated apartment complex in Alto Hospicio, a dusty city at the edge of the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, with her husband […]
Exiting the compound, […] Astudillo saw a thread of smoke rising from its direction. With her in the lead, the two vehicles caravanned toward the dune, the site of the second-largest clothes pile in the world.
As they got closer to El Paso de la Mula, the thin trail of smoke had expanded into a huge black cloud. Astudillo stopped the car and texted the academics behind her.
[…] The mound of discarded fabric in the middle of the Atacama weighed an estimated 11,000 to 59,000 tons, equivalent to one or two times the Brooklyn Bridge.
[…] more than half of the clothes pile was on fire. […] Municipal authorities turned the group away, forbidding them to stay on the premises. But Astudillo knew the landscape, so she directed the team to the dune’s far side, where access was still unimpeded.
[…] On prior visits to the clothes dump, Astudillo had uncovered clothing produced by the world’s most well-known brands: Nautica, Adidas, Wrangler, Old Navy, H&M, Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, Forever 21, Zara, Banana Republic. Store tags still dangled from many of her findings. The clothes had come to the Atacama from Europe, the United States, Korea, and Japan. […]
For 14 years, no rain has fallen in Alto Hospicio or the surrounding Atacama Desert region. Those dry conditions, coupled with the nonbiodegradable, predominantly synthetic, petroleum-derived fibers that modern clothes are made with, meant that the pile never shrank. Instead, for more than two decades, it grew—metastasized—with every discarded, imported item that was added.
[…] Each day in Iquique’s port, giant cranes pluck containers full of discarded clothing from the decks of ships and deposit them onto flatbed trucks. No one really knows exactly how much clothing passes through the port every year; estimates range from 60,000 to 44 million tons. Next, they head to the nearby Free Trade Zone, known locally as “Zofri,” where trailers back into the warehouses of 52 used-clothes importers and forklift operators transfer sealed bales of clothing, or fardos, inside.
[…] Countries like Chile, Haiti, and Uganda became depositories for fast fashion discards. In 2021 alone, Chile imported more than 700,000 tons of new and used clothing—the weight equivalent of 70 Eiffel Towers.
[…] CHILE’S GOVERNMENT RECENTLY voted to adopt recycling measures that make certain producers accountable for their waste. […]
Eventually, according to the Ministry of the Environment, Chile intends to incorporate clothing and textiles as a priority product into the law. Currently, Chilean companies that make tires and packaging (such as bags, plastics, paper, cardboard, cans, and glass) must comply.
[…] New York, California, Sweden, and the Netherlands are developing legislation similar to Chile’s extended producer responsibility law that went into effect this year, mandating that the fashion industry fund recycling programs via tariffs calibrated to the quantity of garments produced.
[…] Meanwhile, every day, container ships continue to offload more cargo.
“Our land has been sacrificed,” said alto Hospicio’s mayor.
[…] “Clothes begin to appear on the ground until the horizon is completely covered.” […]
Hi, all! I hope everyone here had a pleasant and safe holiday season. Just dropping in to say hey and assure everyone I’m still alive. (I hope no one thought I got COVID and died. I did have several friends and family members get it again this year, and fortunately all have recovered despite some cases being risky. I continue to do my damnedest to avoid catching it; no risk factors that I know of, just Do Not Want. Here’s a piece from the John Snow Project which Orac linked to back in November, with apologies if it’s been posted here before: “‘Endemic’ SARS-CoV-2 and the death of public health.”)
I’ve checked into the blog a couple of times over the past few months but by the time I got caught up reading all the news here I didn’t have time to comment! Several reasons for my absence:
I make things, and somehow the things I make started selling, so I had to make more things. I’m not going to quit my day job (not least because I don’t have a day job), but it’s been fun. I was already getting involved in a number of discussions and arguments here that I very much wanted but didn’t have the time or energy to continue, which was incredibly annoying, and then I had even less time, so…
Cats are delightful little time thieves.
I was temporarily overwhelmed by the stupidity of the discourse (not here, but in the world generally!) surrounding many of the topics I care about the most.
In the this episode of Brain Science we talk with neuroscientist Kevin Mitchell about his new book Free Agents: How Evolution Gave Us Free Will. While many neuroscientists and philosophers argue that free will is an illusion, Mitchell argues that the ability to make meaningful choices is part of our evolutionary heritage. He also addresses the important issue of determinism, siding with those physicists who argue that the fundamental nature of our universe is NOT deterministic. These issues are crucial to how we see ourselves and others.
They briefly mentioned Carlo Rovelli and the Relational Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, which was total catnip. I’ve now read three of his books, and during the same time (finally) read Ed Yong’s An Immense World, and am still…pondering it all together. It’s more a Groovy Existential Experience than an Existential Crisis.
Bernardo Arévalo was sworn in as Guatemala’s president on Monday minutes after midnight despite months of efforts to derail his inauguration, including foot-dragging and rising tensions right up until the transfer of power.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was released Monday after more than two weeks at Walter Reed military hospital, according to a statement by the Pentagon.
Apple will remove pulse oximeters from its smartwatches to avoid an import ban that impacted the products, according to court filings Monday.
[…] The import ban originated out of a complaint from medical device manufacturer Masimo, which claimed in 2021 that Apple poached its talent and intellectual property to add pulse oximeters to its watches. While a patent infringement suit against Apple failed, the ITC ruled in Masimo’s favor last year.
The ban specifically applies to the Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection agreed to technical changes to Apple Watches on Friday — removing the pulse oximeter functionality — to drop the import ban, Masimo said in a court filing released Monday.
Apple is also pursuing a permanent stay on the ban, pending the company’s appeal, which is expected to be decided this week. If a federal appeals court decides to permanently stay the ban, the pulse oximeters will remain in the watches.
It is unclear exactly how the capability will be removed from the products, likely through software updates.
[…]
Reginald Selkirksays
@349
While many neuroscientists and philosophers argue that free will is an illusion, Mitchell argues that the ability to make meaningful choices is part of our evolutionary heritage.
Before writing a book, one ought to look into the definition of key terms.
Sometimes I keep up, and sometimes I fail to keep up. Like you I am sometimes overwhelmed.
I was temporarily overwhelmed by the stupidity of the discourse (not here, but in the world generally!) surrounding many of the topics I care about the most.
Recent example, courtesy of Steve Benen:
Kentucky’s junior senator clearly needs a new hobby: “Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said that the former U.S. chief medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, should ‘go to prison’ over his ‘dishonesty’ in handling the COVID-19 pandemic and lying to Congress.”
Ukraine has amassed enough natural gas reserves to meet winter heating needs without Russian imports for the first time since gaining independence, Naftogaz reported…
Reginald @362, ahem.
You imagined Russia has been supplying gas to Ukraine until just now?
“On 25 November 2015 Gazprom halted its exports of Russian natural gas to Ukraine.[157] According to the Ukrainian government they had stopped buying from Gazprom because Ukraine could buy natural gas cheaper from other suppliers.[157] According to Gazprom it had halted deliveries because Ukraine had not paid them for the next delivery.[157] Since then, Ukraine has been able to fulfil its gas supply needs solely from European Union states.”
Each state is represented by a square of the same size, which tracks data from 1850 to 2020 on where each state’s citizens were born. Dark blue represents the share of citizens born in the state. Light blue is for residents born in a different U.S. state. Orange represents the foreign-born percentage. […] those shares in each state evolve over time (i.e. from left to right) […] illuminates trends
/Glad you’re okay. =)
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
* I suppose the Iowa-born portion could instead be shrinking as folks flee.
Aussie ABC news piece here – headline pretty much nail it. Albeit they created that alternative reality of theirs a very long time ago. Back in Obama days even.. They just keep trying to drag more people into it :
With his Iowa Republican primary win, Donald Trump has created another reality, where facts and logic don’t rule
hose of us who live in the “reality-based community” may find that difficult to comprehend but we are witnessing the fulfilment of a prophecy made in Washington two decades ago.
The term “reality-based community” comes from a 2004 article by journalist Ron Suskind in The New York Times magazine. This quote in it was attributed to an “anonymous aide” working for then President George W. Bush: …(snip)… At the time, that quote caused jaws to drop en masse in Washington. It seemed shockingly megalomaniacal, but it was also incomprehensible that a senior White House official could believe that facts and objective reality didn’t really matter (the source was rumoured to be Bush’s chief-of-staff Karl Rove, something Rove has denied).
Twenty years later, with Donald Trump all but set to clinch the Republican party’s nomination for President — for the second time — the only shocking thing about that quote is how stunningly prescient and insightful it was.
Since 2016, Trump has been creating his own realities, one after another.
The outcome in Iowa shows that many Americans are still here for it.
Except, of course, in reality we all live in reality even if Trump Kultists & other Science Deniers refuse to accept and understand it and know it.
Reginald Selkirksays
@366 John Morales
Reginald @362, ahem.
You imagined Russia has been supplying gas to Ukraine until just now?
You are the one who is imaging things. And assigning your thoughts to other people, so that you can then argue against them. Technically this is known as the strawman fallacy
Part of what makes Iowa significant isn’t the caucuses’ role in elevating those who win, rather it’s the caucuses’ role in dispatching those who lose. […]
Paul Krugman has written for years about the existing “wingnut welfare” infrastructure that offers financial security for prominent far-right voices. This, as much as anything, encourages Quixotic presidential campaigns, because candidates realize that failure is often little more than a precursor to years of success.
Halfway competent Republicans who raise their national profile can expect conservative media gigs, paid speaking opportunities, book deals, and inevitable podcasts.
In a breakthrough deal, Republicans are rescuing Trump-era tax breaks for businesses, while Democrats are expanding the child tax credit.
Three years ago, congressional Democrats and President Joe Biden approved a dramatic expansion of the child tax credit as part of their ambitious American Rescue Plan. It was a great success, which successfully reduced child poverty.
It was also temporary. The American Rescue Plan was designed to give the economy a short-term boost in the wake of the recession from Donald Trump’s final year in office, and the expanded child tax credit expired in 2022. (Democratic efforts to extend the policy faltered, in part due to opposition from Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia.)
As 2024 gets underway, however, a version of the policy is poised to make a welcome comeback. NBC News reported:
Senior lawmakers in Congress announced a bipartisan deal Tuesday to expand the child tax credit and provide a series of tax breaks for businesses. The $78 billion tax agreement between House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith, R-Mo., and Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden, D-Ore., caps months of negotiating and pursuing common ground in the divided Congress.
[…] Just as much of the American Rescue Plan’s provisions were temporary, so too were elements of the Republican tax package that Trump signed in 2017. In particular, Republicans were desperate to rescue, among other things, deductions for research-and-development investments and expensing for investments in machines, equipment, and vehicles.
GOP officials were so eager to fight for these tax breaks for businesses that they were in a dealmaking mood, effectively asking Democrats, “What do you want in exchange?”
The answer was a renewed child tax credit. NBC News’ report added:
The new child tax credit policy would benefit about 16 million kids in low-income families, according to an analysis by the liberal-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “The expansion would meaningfully reduce child poverty,” CBPP wrote. “In the first year, the expansion would lift as many as 400,000 children above the poverty line. 3 million more children would be made less poor as their incomes rise closer to the poverty line.”
In a written statement, Wyden said, “Fifteen million kids from low-income families will be better off as a result of this plan, and given today’s miserable political climate, it’s a big deal to have this opportunity to pass pro-family policy that helps so many kids get ahead.”
[…] As for paying for the package, Roll Call reported, “Tax writers plan to end the pandemic-era employee retention tax credit program early to cover the cost of the deal. They estimated ending the program would offset more than $70 billion of the package’s cost.” […]
Some good news, some bad news. At least it is not all bad. That’s where I am with news involving Republican congress critters these days.
[…] The Iowa GOP caucus electorate especially is made up of a high percentage of conservative evangelical voters. It’s overwhelmingly rural. By any fair measure, 51% of those voters is underwhelming. [Trump won 51% of the vote.]
[…] the story we’re telling ourselves — or the one the dominant political press is telling us — about the 2024 landscape is at least significantly out of whack.
[…] If Trump is the de facto incumbent, the current leader of the GOP, this result is a good enough but hardly a resounding result. Almost half the people who turned out to vote, even knowing Trump was an overwhelming favorite, decided to vote for someone else. It suggests a party in which Trump is the dominant figure but a party that is also quite divided and which will have to rely on polarization to make up for those divisions. It is at best an underwhelming result. There’s no other way to put it. […]
On Monday night, Iowans slipped and slid over icy roads to give Donald Trump a 51% victory in the first Republican caucus. On Tuesday morning, the media seemed saturated with stories about Trump’s “landslide win.” The truth is the Iowa results can’t be seen as anything other than a weak candidate in a divided party.
That’s because for the first time since 1892, when comeback Democrat Grover Cleveland beat incumbent Republican Benjamin Harrison, this is an election with essentially two incumbents. Trump is the leader of his party. He’s running against candidates who have repeatedly thanked him for his assistance in winning races, declared him the “best president of the 21st century,” and largely promised to fulfill Trump’s policies—only more so.
With all that going for him, half the Republican Party still said no to Trump.
CBS, and CNN, and The Washington Post, and The Financial Times, and of course, Fox News are all running headlines this morning swooning over Trump’s “landslide” win. The question shouldn’t be why Trump scraped out a bare majority of Republican voters, but why he didn’t win bigger.
Does anyone believe that if President Joe Biden took just over 50% in any state, the press wouldn’t be screaming, “Biden is in big trouble!”
Trump’s opponents are so frightened of displeasing his rabid base that they have barely dared to raise their voices against anything he’s said and refused to go after him even when he demeaned them. Instead, they’ve devoted their time to tearing into each other in a race for second place that seems far more about raising visibility for 2028 or securing the spot for the next guy Trump approves of than it is about getting behind the Resolute Desk.
Trump barely got half the vote in a cakewalk against opponents who couldn’t stop genuflecting in his direction and who devoted their time and money to sniping at each other. […]
Donald Trump barely cleared the hurdle of getting more votes in Iowa than Ted Cruz did in 2016. […]
If anything good happened for Trump, it was probably Ron DeSantis edging out Nikki Haley. With Haley well ahead of DeSantis and nipping at Trump’s heels in New Hampshire polls going into last night, DeSantis’ second-place finish likely means that the Florida governor devotes even more time to going after Trump’s former UN ambassador while Trump is free to sit back, pull strings, and laugh. And wait for the media to declare his next landslide win.
Good news: More US pharmacists can now prescribe birth control, and soon, some patients won’t need prescriptions at all, Jacqueline Howard, CNN, January 12, 2024.
As of Monday, according to data from the Guttmacher Institute, 29 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws allowing pharmacists to prescribe or provide contraception without a doctor’s prescription.
Those states are Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia.✂️
In the next few months, Opill, the first over-the-counter birth control pill approved in the United States, may also be an option for some people.
“If you think about access in general — access to contraception and anybody being able to access it whenever they need it — as a big puzzle, pharmacists prescribing is one piece of that puzzle. Availability of contraception over the counter without a prescription is another piece of that puzzle, and there are several others too, but without one of those, you don’t have this complete picture of access,” Long said.
“Neither one on its own is going to be a panacea for access, but together, they do improve access,” she said.
Most of the newly ordered maps redrawing Wisconsin’s political boundaries for the state Legislature would keep Republicans in majority control, but their dominance would be reduced, according to an independent analysis of the plans.
Seven sets of new state Senate and Assembly maps were submitted on Friday, the deadline given by the Wisconsin Supreme Court to propose new maps after it ruled three weeks ago that the current ones drawn by Republicans were unconstitutional.
The ruling stands to shake up battleground Wisconsin’s political landscape in a presidential election year.
Wisconsin is a purple state, with four of the past six presidential elections decided by less than a percentage point. But Democrats have made gains in recent years, winning the governor’s office in 2018 and again in 2022 and taking over majority control of the state Supreme Court, setting the stage for the redistricting ruling. […]
Republicans have indicated that they plan an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court arguing due process violations, but it’s not clear when that would occur.
Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos has suggested the appeal will argue that liberal Justice Janet Protasiewicz, who called the current maps “rigged” and “unfair” during her run for office, should not have heard the case. Her vote was the deciding one in the ruling that ordered new maps to be drawn.
NEW YORK — Another civil case against former president Donald Trump begins this week. It is the second trial to be held in a pair of cases against Trump brought by his sexual assault accuser E. Jean Carroll.
The trial is expected to be brief and very limited in scope, because a jury….will be asked only to determine whether damages should be awarded for defamatory comments Trump made in 2019 while he was in office.
Carroll has already been awarded $5 million at a previous trial in Manhattan federal court for sexual abuse and defamation related to comments Trump made in 2022, which echoed the disparaging remarks Trump made two years before.
Based on that verdict, the judge overseeing the cases, Lewis A. Kaplan, said that no new evidence needed to be presented on the issue of whether Carroll suffered reputational harm….
“The court determined in a previous decision that Mr. Trump is liable for defamation,” Judge Lewis A. Kaplan told prospective jurors. “For purposes of this trial it has been determined already that Mr. Trump did sexually assault Ms. Carroll, that he knew when he made theses statements about Ms. Carroll … that they were false or with reckless disregard … ”
Trump denies that any sexual encounter occurred.
He has called Carroll a liar, painted her as mentally ill and has suggested he would never have approached her romantically because she wasn’t his “type.”….
In total, 80 prospective jurors were called in this morning for screening. Questions have included whether they’ve read about the case, if they’re members of a political party and whether they voted in the past two elections….
“Neither your names nor the names of the jurors who are ultimately selected nor any other identifying information will be made public,” Judge Lewis A. Kaplan told prospective jurors. The panel will be anonymous even to the judge and the parties. They will be picked up by court staff at designated points so they can be driven to a secure location at the Manhattan federal courthouse….
Donald Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba is hurting the former president’s case with her performance thus far in his second defamation trial from E. Jean Carroll, one legal expert suggests.
Just hours after jury selection in the trial began Tuesday, Trump’s attorneys have already seemed to draw the ire of presiding U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan by complaining about restrictions he issued in the case in a scathing order last week.
In one instance Habba voiced her gripes, according to Politico’s Erica Orden, and Kaplan replied, “Ms. Habba, I have heard you. I’ve considered what you have to say. And I have ruled. That’s it. In my courtroom, when a ruling is made, that’s the end, not the beginning, of the argument.”
“Every other lawyer already knows this. Habba has to be reminded,” attorney Bradley Moss wrote of Kaplan’s remark on X/Twitter…
Bobi the Portuguese mastiff, who had comfortably clinched the title of the oldest dog ever by the time he died last October at the apparent age of 31, is having the distinction reviewed after doubts about his lifespan gave officials at Guinness World Records (GWR) paws for thought.
The canine’s demise made headlines around the globe and prompted a tribute from GWR, which declared him both the world’s oldest living dog and the oldest dog ever in February 2023.
Until Bobi’s death at the age of 31 years and five months, the most ancient recorded dog was Bluey, an Australian cattle dog who died in 1939 aged 29 years and five months.
However, the tributes were swiftly followed by scrutiny and suspicions about Bobi’s record-breaking age, which equates to more than 200 human years.
Some observers noted that images of Bobi in 1999 showed he had different-coloured paws to the dog that died in Portugal on 21 October 2023, while vets pointed out that although his age had been registered on the national pet database, such entries were usually based on owners’ self-certification. And then there was the genetic testing, which confirmed he was old but did not provide a precise age…
Trump denies that any sexual encounter occurred. He has called Carroll a liar, painted her as mentally ill and has suggested he would never have approached her romantically because she wasn’t his “type.”….
I don’t understand why media outlets are still repeating that bullshit from Trump. He has already been tried and found to have sexually assaulted Carroll. Trump has already been found to have defamed Carroll, and financial penalties were specified for that defamation. He was found to be lying about Carroll being his “type” when he mistakenly identified her in a photo as one of his former wives.
Now Trump is on trial again because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. He continued to defame Carroll. In fact he was posting about her in disparaging ways today.
Trump has been called on his bullshit and found liable by a jury of his peers. He should not be given a platform to repeat those lies.
One tunnel in Gaza was wide enough for a top Hamas official to drive a car inside. Another stretched nearly three football fields long and was hidden beneath a hospital. Under the house of a senior Hamas commander, the Israeli military found a spiral staircase leading to a tunnel approximately seven stories deep.
These details and new information about the tunnels, some made public by the Israeli military and documented by video and photographs, underscore why the tunnels were considered a major threat to the Israeli military in Gaza even before the war started.
But Israeli officials and soldiers who have since been in the tunnels — as well as current and former American officials with experience in the region — say the scope, depth and quality of the tunnels built by Hamas have astonished them. Even some of the machinery that Hamas used to build the tunnels, observed in captured videos, has surprised the Israeli military.
The Israeli military now believes there are far more tunnels under Gaza.
In December, the network was assessed to be an estimated 250 miles. Senior Israeli defense officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, are currently estimating the network is between 350 and 450 miles — extraordinary figures for a territory that at its longest point is only 25 miles. Two of the officials also assessed there are close to 5,700 separate shafts leading down to the tunnels.
[…] Hamas has invested heavily in the tunnels since it does not have the resources or numbers to fight the Israeli military in a conventional war. The group uses the tunnels as military bases and arsenals, and relies on them to move its forces undetected and protect its top commanders.
One 2022 document showed Hamas budgeted $1 million on the tunnel doors, underground workshops and other expenses in Khan Younis.
Israeli intelligence officials recently assessed that there were about 100 miles of tunnels just under Khan Younis, southern Gaza’s largest city, where Israeli forces are now in heavy fighting. Yahya Sinwar, the military leader of Hamas in Gaza, had a home in Khan Younis.
[…] One soldier, speaking on the condition of anonymity for safety reasons, said he oversaw the destruction of about 50 tunnels in Beit Hanoun. All of them were booby-trapped, he said. The soldier, an officer in the combat engineers, said his unit had found bombs hidden in walls and a massive explosive device that was hard-wired to be remotely activated. […]
Biden Invites Congressional Leaders to White House to Discuss Aid to Ukraine
President Biden will press congressional leaders for passage of his funding for Ukraine, Israel and the border during a meeting at the White House on Wednesday, his press secretary announced on Tuesday.
Mr. Biden’s request for $61 billion in military assistance for Ukraine has been held up by a dispute with Republicans on Capitol Hill, who are demanding restrictive new policies at the border in exchange for their votes. But negotiations have stalled for weeks, leaving the Ukraine assistance in limbo.
The president and his aides have warned that failing to approve funding for Ukraine could hand a victory to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in the two-year war that followed his invasion. […]
[…] As we discussed last week, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is facing a legitimate controversy following his recent hospitalization, which he kept private from everyone — including the White House. It was against this backdrop that Tuberville sat down with Fox Business’ Larry Kudlow and said:
“It’s kind of a slap in the face to the president, though it goes to show you, and puts question marks there, Larry: Who’s running the show? Is it Obama?”
For now, let’s put aside the curious idea that Austin’s mistake raises questions about President Joe Biden’s leadership role. Instead, let’s ask a related question:
Are Republicans still on the “Maybe Obama is secretly in charge” thing?
NBC News reported in October that Donald Trump spent a chunk of the fall insinuating that Barack Obama was secretly still in control of the White House. As we discussed soon after, he’s not alone.
Megyn Kelly, a prominent conservative media personality, told an on-air audience last month, “There are a lot of people who think the Obamas are already running the government and that there is some sort of shadow puppet situation going on that they’re controlling.”
[…] In July, Republican Rep. Greg Murphy of North Carolina said during a Fox Business interview that he also believes that Biden is merely “a puppet for a progressive left committee, as it were, headed by Obama.”
Last year, Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo also suggested that the former Democratic president might be secretly “running the country,” to which Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee replied that Obama’s meetings with Biden led people to believe that the former president was “the de facto leader in the White House.”
[…] there’s an enormous gap between “Democratic presidents share thoughts about campaign tactics” and “former president secretly runs the White House.”
What’s even stranger is why, exactly, so many Republicans are invested in this particular conspiracy theory. The idea appears to be rooted in the idea that Biden is old, so he must need someone else to lead the White House in secret.
But isn’t this counterproductive for the right? Once it becomes obvious that Obama, several years removed from government service, isn’t secretly in charge, aren’t we left with the obvious fact that Biden is perfectly capable, despite his age?
Bits of political campaign news, as summarized by Steve Benen:
The next primary debate for the remaining Republican presidential candidates is scheduled for Thursday — just two days from today — but it now appears the event is in doubt: Former Ambassador Nikki Haley’s new position is that she won’t participate in any primary debates unless Donald Trump also agrees to appear on the stage.
In keeping with his usual approach to reality, Trump boasted before the Iowa caucuses that he’d won the nominating contest twice before, and after the results were announced, the Republican boasted anew that he’d won the caucuses three times. In reality, Sen. Ted Cruz defeated Trump in Iowa in 2016, but the former president likes to pretend the race was “rigged.”
[…] Representative Adam Schiff last week unveiled a blueprint designed to bolster our democracy. The congressman’s plan, among other things, calls for an end to Senate filibusters and the electoral college. [Schiff is run-in in California’s U.S. Senate race. He is leading so far.]
[…] Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia hosted a “listening session“ at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics over the weekend, as part of his ongoing flirtation with a possible third-party presidential campaign that Trump allies are desperate to see. [Bad idea.]
Roughly 110,000 voters turned out for last night’s caucuses. That compares to 187,000 in 2016. […] the lowest turnout in more than a decade […]
There are a few possible explanations. One is that it was incredibly cold last night. But let’s be honest: winters in Iowa are always cold as fuck. They’re used to it. More significant, Republicans could be pretty confident that the outcome of the caucus and the overall nomination battle are both pretty much settled in Trump’s favor. That is a big disincentive to show up. Those explanations, especially the second, get you pretty close to a good explanation. […]
Contested elections drive turnout. But so does enthusiasm. Even though the underwhelming result is the big signifier, substantial turnout would have pointed in a contrary direction. That many people staying home points to an unenthused electorate. And that’s actually consistent with approaching two years of elections in which GOP enthusiasm and turnout have been lackluster. The other way to look at it is that the low turnout/low stakes assumption is also consistent with the idea that Trump’s running as the de facto incumbent/party leader.
In which case he should have done significantly better.
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley claimed Tuesday that the United States has never been a “racist” country, rejecting a suggestion that she might have trouble becoming the GOP presidential nominee as a woman of color.
In an interview on “Fox & Friends,” co-host Brian Kilmeade asked Haley whether she thinks the GOP is a “racist party.”
“No. We’re not a racist country, Brian. We’ve never been a racist country,” Haley said in response…
John Moralessays
Reginald @371:
@366 John Morales
Reginald @362, ahem.
You imagined Russia has been supplying gas to Ukraine until just now?
You are the one who is imaging things. And assigning your thoughts to other people, so that you can then argue against them. Technically this is known as the strawman fallacy
This is what you quoted, with absolutely no context or comment of your own, my emphasis:
“Ukraine has amassed enough natural gas reserves to meet winter heating needs without Russian imports for the first time since gaining independence, Naftogaz reported… ”
It follows you tacitly endorsed that claim, else you would have put in at least one comment regarding its correctness. I therefore then noted Russia has not been selling gas to Ukraine since 2015.
(This is 2024)
You now claim I’m making a “strawman” claim (falsely claiming I’m indulging in a fallacy of irrelevance), and indignantly attempting to evade the weight of my correction and not conceding you got sucked into posting an incorrect claim. The irony is palpable.
Ah well, cowardice takes many forms. Be aware that textual media such as this is nice for people like me to deal with people like you, and thus expose their claims for what they are.
(Also, I’ve been using ‘straw dummy’ for decades, myself. Try to guess why)
Representative Dean Phillips floated having Bill Ackman of Pershing Square Capital Management, X owner Elon Musk and angel investor Jason Calacanis in a potential cabinet if his longshot Democratic presidential campaign takes him to the White House…
Do Republicans realize every stock market crash in the last 94 years happened under a Republican administration? Beginning with President Herbert Hoover’s 1929 crash ushering in the Great Depression, and ending with President Donald Trump’s April 2020 stock market crash, they all happened under the GOP’s watch. In between, we had President Ronald Reagan’s 1987 stock market crash and President George W. Bush’s two crashes in 2001 and 2008, which ushered in the Great Recession. History shows after every one of those crashes we saw an economic recovery under the Democrats’ watch. Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and now Joe Biden, have all presided over remarkable economic recoveries. Don’t fool yourselves, Republicans know how to cause stock market crashes and they do it so they can profit from them.
Nelson Solano, Stuart
…
John Moralessays
Reginald:
@394: Fuck off, troll-boy.
Ah yes, the refuge of the coward. Can’t dispute the facts, so they get personal. Call me a troll.
Last person who persevered thus spent years at it. They no longer post here.
I take it you do not concede that Russia has not been supplying gas to Ukraine for some time, contrary to the claim you posted.
Conservative politicians are dominating Facebook advertising about changing the date of Australia Day, analysis shows.
After Woolworths announced last week that it would no longer stock Australia Day merchandise due to declining demand, the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, condemned the move as an “outrage” born from the retailer’s “woke agenda” and said most Australians likely thought the same.
…
Taylor’s outlet is a prime example. A couple of weeks before the Iowa caucuses, business was brisk with out-of-towners flocking to a decommissioned church in a tiny village that is now packed with Trump merch. It’s like the Cave of Wonders from the movie Aladdin, except with more references to butts, poop and pee. A bumper sticker shows a cartoon Trump urinating on “Putin.” A keychain can be squeezed to make a tiny Trump defecate. “Moonie Trump” figurines depict the former president mischievously showing his naked backside. “We sell a lot of those,” said Taylor, who has long sought to create controversies of his own…
From Boltzmann to quantum theory, from Einstein to loop quantum gravity, our understanding of time has been undergoing radical transformations. Carlo Rovelli brings together physics, philosophy and art to unravel the mystery of time.
Also, a quote from the John Snow Project article linked @ #349:
…The unofficial alliance between big business and dangerous pathogens that was forged in early 2020 has emerged victorious and greatly strengthened from its battle against public health, and is poised to steamroll whatever meager opposition remains for the remainder of this, and future pandemics.
The long-established principles governing how we respond to new infectious diseases have now completely changed – the precedent has been established that dangerous emerging pathogens will no longer be contained, but instead permitted to ‘ease’ into widespread circulation….
…
We can only hope that we will never see the day when such an epidemic hits us but experience tells us such optimism is unfounded. The current level of suffering caused by COVID-19 has been completely normalized even though such a thing was unthinkable back in 2019. Populations are largely unaware of the long-term harms the virus is causing to those infected, of the burden on healthcare, increased disability, mortality and reduced life expectancy. Once a few even deadlier outbreaks have been shrugged off by governments worldwide, the baseline of what is considered “acceptable” will just gradually move up and even more unimaginable losses will eventually enter the “acceptable” category. There can be no doubt, from a public health perspective, we are regressing….
House Speaker Mike Johnson demands a clear strategy from Ukraine before he will allow a vote on more weapons from the United States. But that is a misunderstanding of what a military strategy is, so in this video I explain the concept.
0:00 Mike Johnson demands Ukraine strategy
1:44 Ends, ways, and means
3:26 The linear understanding of strategy
4:21 The actual process of making a strategy
4:59 Ukraine’s goals and possible methods
6:14 The catch-22 of Ukraine’s means
7:01 The role of Congress in strategy development
9:00 Ukraine in a strategic limbo
…“This year, significantly more attention has been paid to the impact of our food systems — not just on the environment but also on food security, human health, people’s livelihoods and on animals,” Perran Harvey, Senior Global Policy Lead at Upfield, tells Sentient Media.
In response, a flurry of pledges, declarations and initiatives were launched during the talk. But was this enough to impact the way our food is produced, often in highly polluting ways?
To make sense of what happened at COP28, and how it’s likely to impact the future of food, here’s our wrap-up of the negotiations, taking you through the four key takeaways for food systems of the world’s biggest climate event….
Exclusive: ex-officials at the Food and Agriculture Organization say its leadership censored and undermined them when they highlighted how livestock [sic] methane is a major greenhouse gas…
…The US as a whole extracted more oil and gas than ever before in 2023. And globally, fossil fuel companies invested twice as much in oil and gas as they should, if they wanted to avert catastrophic levels of heating, the global energy watchdog International Energy Agency found last month.
“They have left no doubt that their pledges were deployed for cynical political purposes, only to be ditched when they no longer suited the industry’s strategic position,” Dan Cohn, global energy transition researcher at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, told the Guardian in July.
Rees said he hopes the industry’s behavior in 2023 dispenses with the idea that small tweaks to energy policy can deliver necessary climate action.
“Hopefully this makes clear that it’s not enough to tinker around the edges with some small regulations, because left up to their own devices, this is how the industry acts,” he said.
There may now “finally” be room for larger conversations about how to “manage the decline of the industry” in ways that don’t leave the industry in charge of its own fate, he said.
“That potentially includes things like cutting off finance flows to the sector and also taking public control of the companies,” he said. “I think the industry fully owning this villain role can hopefully allow our champions to step up and recognize what’s needed.”
“I understand that when you have been [going to] a restaurant for many years, for some customers, it’s normal to think that somehow you own it a little bit, like, ‘Oh, this is my table, this is my restaurant.’ And, then when the restaurant changes completely, you feel really betrayed… I invited them. I invited a lot of people, a lot of my regular customers. I said, ‘don’t worry, we have changed. But nothing has changed, you know, just come. I invite you and your family. You come and eat just like you used to do, and you are going to love it.’ And they did not. And they took revenge. Took revenge.” – Alexis Gauthier
Alexis Gauthier opened his first restaurant in London when he was 24. He got his first Michelin star a couple of years later. He’s a French chef who has run Gauthier Soho for many years. And for a great part of that time his restaurant served traditional French food.
But, in 2016, Alexis became vegan and in 2021 he removed all animal products from his restaurant menus. This created quite the uproar.
Alexis and I met in London last week and I had dinner at Gauthier Soho the day after this conversation. The food is even better than what he describes, it was one of the best meals I’ve ever had.
There are so many great episodes of this podcast, but this one is especially charming.
I heard about this on Maintenance Phase – NAAFA (National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance) – Campaign for Size Freedom. They note:
In the first of many victories to come, the New York City Council passed legislation to outlaw size discrimination in NYC in employment, housing, and public accommodation. Mayor Eric Adams signed the bill into law on May 26, 2023, and the law goes into effect November 22.
Similar bills in other places are coming into being.
Kate and TPM’s Nicole Lafond are joined by Professor Karen Lee Ashcraft to discuss a masculinity “in crisis,” its intrinsic connection to right-wing politics and how the Josh Hawleys and J.D. Vances of the world are hijacking it for their own ends.
Kate and TPM’s Josh Marshall talk with Professor Heather Cox Richardson about the state of American democracy and how we got here.
The Bunker – “How Brexiteers and Trump weaponised shame to corrupt our politics – Alex Andreou speaks to David Keen” (no link, but it’s easy enough to find):
We’ve all felt shame. But it’s more than an emotion – it’s also a political weapon. All manners of politicians, including recent figures like Trump and various Brexiteers, have utilised the feeling to pursue their ends. David Keen, the author of Shame: The Politics and Power of an Emotion, speaks to Alex Andreou to discuss the strength of shame and how it’s been used throughout history.
Sorry if this has been discussed here, but I was shocked by how little attention the Tesla recall received. Months ago, I had watched a jawdropping episode of The New York Times Presents and could not believe the government was allowing Tesla to have these cars on the road. The episode definitely existed, and is described on the FX site:
The first documentary of the new season is “Elon Musk’s Crash Course.” Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, has claimed since 2015 that, for Tesla, technology for self-driving cars is essentially a “solved problem,” and made outlandish claims about Autopilot capabilities. But a New York Times investigation reveals the quixotic nature of Musk’s pursuit of self-driving technology, and the tragic results. Drawing on first-hand accounts, the film traces how Autopilot has been a factor in several deaths and dozens of other accidents that Tesla has not publicly acknowledged. It details pressure Elon Musk put on government officials to quash investigations and features inside stories from several former Tesla employees, who speak out against Musk for promoting a self-driving program that they believe was perilous.
Elon Musk made his name, and fortune, taking bold risks and betting on the impossible, but the story of his pursuit of self-driving has put Musk on a crash course with both the business realities and technology’s limits. Yet, even after years of unfulfilled promises, Elon Musk continues to double down on his Full Self-Driving service, once again, with questionable results.
This was the first episode of season 2. The show is available on Hulu, but season 2 has vanished for some reason. You can watch season 1 and season 3, but not season 2.
As soon as I heard the news about the recall, I went to look for analysis by Ed Niedermeyer, who was interviewed last year at Tech Won’t Save Us:
Paris Marx is joined by Edward Niedermeyer to discuss the rollercoaster ride of Tesla’s share price, the escalating regulatory and legal scrutiny the company faces, and the challenges it faces in the electric car market.
…If the end is coming for Tesla’s dangerous and deceptive foray into self-driving technology, it can’t come soon enough. As long as the richest man in the world got there at least in part by introducing new risks to public roads, his success sets a troubling example for future aspirants to towering wealth. Out of fear of that example alone, let us hope this recall is only the beginning of the regulatory action against Autopilot.
Happy New Year! We’re kicking off 2024 by bringing you our conversation with David Zipper, one of the hardest-working analysts on the transportation scene today. You may be familiar with David from his writing at Bloomberg CityLab, Slate and Fast Company, where he relentlessly covers road safety, climate change, and the future of micromobility.
We talked with David about the excesses of the auto industry, our road fatality crisis, the absurd way speed limits are determined on American streets, and whether we might ever be able to swap out our bloated SUVs for electric golf carts. Or if that’s too much to ask, will cities at least start charging people more for driving massive glacier melters?
An irresistible trend took hold in American cars 50 years ago. We’re all paying the price….
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
@SC #410:
[Bunker podcast]: shaming […] I think, tends to be pretty ineffective in changing peoples’ behavior, unless there’s some kind of shared set of values
[…]
if a [government or individual] adheres to a set of values from which it has temporarily departed […], and you can shame them in a way that’s not humiliating, that appeals to values they actually have, and you yourself as a shamer have some kind of moral credibility, then I think […] shame can actually work to a certain extent.
Related. Shame’s been widely used since 2011 in developing countries’ campaigns to adopt toilets (demotivating unsanitary norms). Evidence of effectiveness and sustainability turned out to be weak.
The process raises the awareness that as long as even a minority continues to defecate in the open, everyone is at risk of disease. […] The concept originally focused mainly on provoking shame and disgust […] With time, CLTS evolved away from provoking negative emotions to educating people
[…]
it has been reported that communities which respond favorably tend to be motivated more by improved health, dignity, and pride than by shame or disgust.
wzrd1says
Musk wants a raise from Tesla. Entertaining, as his last compensation package was so exorbitant that stockholders took Tesla to court over the amount and are awaiting a court decision in Delaware.
Now, having sold off a fair bit of his 20% of Tesla to blow on Twitter, he wants 25% of Tesla stock. Some blather about wanting more say in AI and robot development.
So, he wants more control and well, tons more money. And I want a pony.
Even money, he’ll get what he wants, as usual. My luck, someone will give me a pony I have no way to take care of and minimal knowledge on how to ride.
SC @ 411, the last Tesla recall I recall is a software update for the door locks. They unlock in an accident, which is against highway code.
CNN has an entirely consistent story about Boomers holding onto their multi-bedroom homes, which is bad for the young ‘uns – who can’t afford current real estate prices anyway. Yeah, entirely circular arguments in the article. Apparently, it’d be better for Boomers to get a new mortgage after paying off their homes or just go homeless so the younger generation can drool over the properties that they cannot afford to buy, which would solve housing nothing, hand wave.
wzrd1says
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain @ 413, are they trying to say that positive reinforcement outperforms negative reinforcement? Obviously commies or something! Only those progressive reprobates that are closet commies don’t beat people over the head to convince them.
Or something.
“The recall is just an automatic over-the-air software update pushed out to the vehicles. Tesla began rolling out the update this week and it will come at no cost to Tesla owners.”
Got a chuckle, Tesla got singled out by some news organizations for issues where it’s been well, fairly Arctic in conditions for difficulties in charging, low battery capacity, etc. Only Tesla.
Others actually mentioned it was EV vendor independent, which is true, that whole chemistry thing and all. All seem to have missed that lead-acid batteries have a tough time of it in double digit negative temperatures.
A few organizations did mention pre-conditioning the battery, aka, warm the damned thing up by you know, warming up the car, defrosting, heating, idling to allow the battery to warm up by operating under drain, increasing efficiency, which will give better performance for range and for charging.
Because, ever so many people forget chemistry 101, if it’s really frigging cold, chemical reactions get sluggish.
I’ll not go into how many times over the decades that I went out to start my gasoline engine car and the battery, quite aged at the time, gave up the ghost in either extremely hot or extremely cold conditions.*
*In the olden days, one could literally easily dismantle a lead-acid battery, sand the plates a bit, reline the cells with new separators and refill the battery after reassembly and they would be like new. One can do so now, but one has to break a seal and reseal the damned thing, which is a nuisance, to put it mildly and one has to recast the lead connecting bar assemblies, which snap when the top is removed.
Frequently, what kills a lead-acid battery is lead whiskers shorting out individual cells.
Lithium based batteries, not certain, but possibly similar, with a bit of a higher risk of fire when things go sideways due to shorted cells.
Still, a leading cause of the loss of diesel-electric submarines was battery room explosions, either due to faulty batteries or flooding into the battery room/compartment. Obviously, never dumped the technology, we simply added additional protective measures.
John Moralessays
wzrd1:
But, never obtuse?
Ah, I see you are acute. ;)
(“acute what”, you ask…)
John Moralessays
Ah, nostalgia.
*In the olden days, one could literally easily dismantle a lead-acid battery, sand the plates a bit, reline the cells with new separators and refill the battery after reassembly and they would be like new.
I was in school (South Australia) and had another lad come to school from Uruguay.
Because I was the one Spanish-speaking kid at school, he was set up in my class and we did become friends for a time. I was amused, of course, because South American “spanish” was his thing — ‘vos’ instead of ‘tu’ or ‘usted’, ‘liseo’ instead of escuela — that sort of thing, which sounded archaic to me. And the “seseo” (‘c’ pronounced as ‘s’ etc). Still, we did become friends, stayed that way until he joined the Army some years later.
Thing is, his dad was a practicing doctor. As in, an MD. Mate-drinking, but Uruguayan, so that was not a thing.
Anyway, during one of my visits (I think around 1976) to his place, I remember his dad and us broke down some car batteries, and in his back yard (nice open air location) lit a fire, got it nice and hot, and melted the ex-battery lead down into fishing weights. Even at the time I thought that a bit odd, but hey.
Certainly pragmatic, no?
wzrd1says
Dad used to work as concrete foreman for a tank contractor company, basically put gasoline stations in. Needless to say, he got plenty of used tire weights that we melted down for fishing weights.
Couldn’t get the car batteries, those got recycled for money, so the gas station owners rarely gave those up.
Waste not, want not, as they say.
I learned concrete work, plumbing work, electrical work, which is why I went into electronics and later IT and hell, SF was less strenuous on the joints than working concrete and humping industrial cabling.
Tesla is recalling nearly all vehicles sold in the U.S., more than 2 million, to update software and fix a defective system that’s supposed to ensure drivers are paying attention when using Autopilot.
Documents posted Wednesday by U.S. safety regulators say the update will increase warnings and alerts to drivers and even limit the areas where basic versions of Autopilot can operate.
The recall comes after a two-year investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration into a series of crashes that happened while the Autopilot partially automated driving system was in use. Some were deadly.
The agency says its investigation found Autopilot’s method of making sure that drivers are paying attention can be inadequate and can lead to “foreseeable misuse of the system.”
The added controls and alerts will “further encourage the driver to adhere to their continuous driving responsibility,” the documents said.
But safety experts said that, while the recall is a good step, it still makes the driver responsible and doesn’t fix the underlying problem that Tesla’s automated systems have with spotting and stopping for obstacles in their path.
…
The attempt to address the flaws in Autopilot seemed like a case of too little, too late to Dillon Angulo, who was seriously injured in 2019 crash involving a Tesla that was using the technology along a rural stretch of Florida highway where the software isn’t supposed to be deployed.
“This technology is not safe, we have to get it off the road,” said Angulo, who is suing Tesla as he recovers from injuries that included brain trauma and broken bones. “The government has to do something about it. We can’t be experimenting like this.”
…
According to recall documents, agency investigators met with Tesla starting in October to explain “tentative conclusions” about the fixing the monitoring system. Tesla did not concur with NHTSA’s analysis but agreed to the recall on Dec. 5 in an effort to resolve the investigation.
Auto safety advocates for years have been calling for stronger regulation of the driver monitoring system, which mainly detects whether a driver’s hands are on the steering wheel. They have called for cameras to make sure a driver is paying attention, which are used by other automakers with similar systems.
Philip Koopman, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University who studies autonomous vehicle safety, called the software update a compromise that doesn’t address a lack of night vision cameras to watch drivers’ eyes, as well as Teslas failing to spot and stop for obstacles.
“The compromise is disappointing because it does not fix the problem that the older cars do not have adequate hardware for driver monitoring,” Koopman said.
Koopman and Michael Brooks, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Auto Safety, contend that crashing into emergency vehicles is a safety defect that isn’t addressed. “It’s not digging at the root of what the investigation is looking at,” Brooks said. “It’s not answering the question of why are Teslas on Autopilot not detecting and responding to emergency activity?”
Koopman said NHTSA apparently decided that the software change was the most it could get from the company, “and the benefits of doing this now outweigh the costs of spending another year wrangling with Tesla.”
In its statement Wednesday, NHTSA said the investigation remains open “as we monitor the efficacy of Tesla’s remedies and continue to work with the automaker to ensure the highest level of safety.”
…
NHTSA has dispatched investigators to 35 Tesla crashes since 2016 in which the agency suspects the vehicles were running on an automated system. At least 17 people have been killed.
The investigations are part of a larger probe by the NHTSA into multiple instances of Teslas using Autopilot crashing into emergency vehicles. NHTSA has become more aggressive in pursuing safety problems with Teslas, including a recall of Full Self Driving software….
They managed to minimize the damage to such an extent that not only do people (those who noticed it at all, given that it was done in the middle of the holiday season) just see it as a regular recall but many think it was a run-of-the-mill software update when it was neither. (They’ve since had to recall 1.6 million more cars in China.)
Once again, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is requesting more information from Tesla regarding the safety of Autopilot.
In a special order dated July 26, the regulator shared concerns about a change to Tesla’s advanced driver assistance system that allows drivers to use the system for extended periods of time without prompting the driver to place their hands on the steering wheel.
NHTSA ordered Tesla to answer questions and produce documents, according to the letter released Tuesday.
The special order is part of NHTSA’s ongoing investigations into Autopilot after identifying more than a dozen crashes in which Tesla vehicles hit parked emergency vehicles. The agency is also actively looking into whether Teslas can make sure drivers are paying attention when using Autopilot.
…
“The resulting relaxation of controls designed to ensure that the driver remained engaged in the dynamic driving task could lead to greater driver inattention and failure of the driver to properly supervise Autopilot,” reads NHTSA’s July letter to Tesla.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has shared plans on X — the social media platform formerly known as Twitter that Musk bought in 2022 — to gradually reduce alerts aimed at ensuring drivers using Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) system keep their hands on the wheel.
Tesla has been ordered to provide information on when the software update was introduced, how many vehicles were affected, Tesla’s reason for installing it and any plans to enable the software in the next year. NHTSA gave Tesla a due date of August 25, and late responses can cost $26,315 per day. NHTSA did not respond in time to TechCrunch to confirm that Tesla met its deadline.
The order from NHTSA comes as Tesla faces back-to-back lawsuits this fall. The first, scheduled for September in a California state court, contains allegations that Autopilot caused a vehicle to suddenly veer off a highway at 65 miles per hour, hit a tree and burst into flames, killing the owner of the vehicle.
The second is set for October, and concerns the death of a Miami driver whose Model 3 drove under the trailer of a truck that had pulled onto the road, slicing off the top of the car’s roof and killing the driver. The lawsuit alleges that Autopilot failed to brake, steer or act in any way to avoid the crash.
So even in the middle of the investigation Musk was talking publicly about reducing the already inadequate safety controls, making the cars even more of a menace. Nothing could make it more clear that this isn’t just an engineering flaw like you’d see in a typical recall. Niedermeyer calls Tesla autopilot users “paying liability sponges” – Musk is using and endangering them the same way Trump does with his followers, and in the process endangering everyone.
A judge has found “reasonable evidence” that Elon Musk and other executives at Tesla knew that the company’s self-driving technology was defective but still allowed the cars to be driven in an unsafe manner anyway, according to a recent ruling issued in Florida.
Palm Beach county circuit court judge Reid Scott said he had found evidence that Tesla “engaged in a marketing strategy that painted the products as autonomous” and that Musk’s public statements about the technology “had a significant effect on the belief about the capabilities of the products”.
The ruling, reported by Reuters on Wednesday, clears the way for a lawsuit over a fatal crash in 2019 north of Miami involving a Tesla Model 3. The vehicle crashed into an 18-wheeler truck that had turned on to the road into the path of driver Stephen Banner, shearing off the Tesla’s roof and killing Banner.
The lawsuit, brought by Banner’s wife, accuses the company of intentional misconduct and gross negligence, which could expose Tesla to punitive damages. The ruling comes after Tesla won two product liability lawsuits in California earlier this year focused on alleged defects in its Autopilot system.
Judge Scott also found that the plaintiff, Banner’s wife, should be able to argue to jurors that Tesla’s warnings in its manuals and “clickwrap” were inadequate. He said the accident is “eerily similar” to a 2016 fatal crash involving Joshua Brown in which the Autopilot system failed to detect crossing trucks.
“It would be reasonable to conclude that the Defendant Tesla through its CEO and engineers was acutely aware of the problem with the ‘Autopilot’ failing to detect cross traffic,” the judge wrote.
…
The judge also cited a 2016 video showing a Tesla vehicle driving without human intervention as a way to market Autopilot. The beginning of the video shows a disclaimer which says the person in the driver’s seat is only there for legal reasons. “The car is driving itself,” it said.
Judge Scott said that “absent from this video is any indication that the video is aspirational or that this technology doesn’t currently exist in the market”, he wrote.
Bryant Walker Smith, a University of South Carolina law professor, told Reuters that the judge’s summary of the evidence was significant because it suggests “alarming inconsistencies” between what Tesla knew internally, and what it was saying in its marketing.
“This opinion opens the door for a public trial in which the judge seems inclined to admit a lot of testimony and other evidence that could be pretty awkward for Tesla and its CEO,” Smith said. “And now the result of that trial could be a verdict with punitive damages.”
After issuing a recall last week on 2 million vehicles equipped with its autopilot technology, plaintiffs in lawsuits against Tesla argue the move proves the automaker knew its self-driving technology was dangerous when it was sent to market, according to a new report from Bloomberg….
Paul Ksays
SC (Salty Current): I’m very glad to see you back. I admit I was concerned about your welfare in this messed up reality we’re all living (and dying) in.
This series of threads, as I’ve written several times over the years, is a vital connection for me to other sane minds. Well, mostly sane, anyway! It’s not easy to stay balanced when the world just keeps throwing real but so-hard-to-believe things at you day after day.
The ink was barely dry on Russia’s decision to outlaw what it called the “international LGBT public movement” as extremist when masked police raided a bar in central Moscow where Vasili gathered with his friends on Friday nights for an LGBTQ+ party.
“It was a regular Friday evening until suddenly we saw the police storming in,” Vasili, who asked for his name to be changed because of safety concerns, recalled.
Vasili described how, along with about 100 others, he was ordered to face a wall while police searched visitors for drugs and photographed their passports.
“The police claimed it was a drug raid, but everyone understood they raided the club because it was a queer night,” he said. “Standing against that wall, you realise how little rights you have as a gay person in this country.”
At least two other LGBTQ+-friendly venues in the Russian capital were raided on the same evening of 1 December, less than 48 hours after the country’s top court, in a landmark ruling, banned what it called the “global LGBTQ+ movement” as an extremist organisation.
While sexual minorities have faced a long history of social exclusion and prejudices in both the Soviet Union and its Russian successor, the Kremlin first opened its legal attack on Russia’s LGBTQ+ community in 2013, when Vladimir Putin signed the notorious law that banned “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations” among minors.
But in big cities such as Moscow and St Petersburg, gay Russians and their allies still found ways to express themselves despite existing laws, with a vibrant LGBTQ+ party scene blossoming, one to which authorities largely closed their eyes.
…
Ever since Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Russian leader launched a fresh effort to promote what he called “traditional values”, making anti-gay rhetoric one of the cornerstones of his political agenda.
The Kremlin is directly linking the crackdown on LGBTQ+ expression with its justification for the war, said Shainyan, telling its citizens that Russia was not only fighting Ukraine, but was involved in a broader, existential battle against western liberal values it often describes as “satanic”.
Last year, Putin signed a law that banned “LGBT propaganda” among adults, a bill that criminalised any act regarded as an attempt to promote what Russia calls “non-traditional sexual relations” – in film, online, in advertising or in public. In the aftermath of that law, bookstores and cinemas withdrew all content containing LGBTQ+ themes.
The on-the-ground consequences of the “extremist” label imposed on the “international LGBT public movement” at the end of November are yet to be fully felt.
In the past, the authorities have used the extremist label to prosecute human rights groups, religious groups and political opposition, including allies of the Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny and members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, some of whom have received lengthy prison sentences.
Human rights activists said the wording in the ruling – targeting the “international LGBT public movement,” which is not an entity but rather a broad and vague umbrella term – allows Russian authorities to persecute any individual or organisation it considers to be part of the “movement”.
There will be less visible consequences as well, activists said, with institutional oppression harming the mental health of the queer community.
“It is hard to comprehend the speed at which the crackdown is happening,” said the Russian queer performance artist Gena Marvin.
…
Many others from the queer community are also looking for a way out of the country, said Evelina Chaika, who heads the NGO Equal Post, which helps queer Russians relocate.
Chaika said her group registered a sixfold increase in requests for relocations since the supreme court’s “extremist” ruling.
“We now receive an average of 12 requests on how to leave Russia an hour. More than 100 a day,” she said.
Those deciding to leave for the west often face an uncertain and difficult journey….
…
The majority of Russia’s LGBTQ+ community, however, are unable or unwilling to leave their homes.
“This is my country. I don’t know where else to go,” said Vasili, who was still recovering emotionally from the police raid.
Vasili decided he would stop going to queer events and would only discuss his sexuality with his closest friends.
“Many in this country don’t support the war in Ukraine but decide to stay quiet so they don’t get into trouble,” he said. “It will be the same for my sexuality. I will just pretend not to be me.”
birgerjohanssonsays
When carburettors were a thing, getting the car started in deep cold without pre-heating was a dark art.
(Funny how nobody calls phone software updates “recalls”)
Not really, since they’re not recalls. This was a recall. That Musk’s and Tesla’s power meant that it was limited to software changes that could be made remotely such that the story barely registered with the public or even with Tesla owners is hugely damaging to public safety and awareness and corporate accountability.
The Tesla recall, in contrast, is half-assed, so the system continues to pose a hazard, but it’s more than the regulators did for the previous several years so I guess that’s something.
… Frenzied construction work provided the backdrop in the northern Indian city of Ayodhya – a vast centre to welcome pilgrims, arched sandstone gates, a broad corridor leading to a grand new $217m (£170m) temple for the Hindu deity. A multi-billion dollar makeover has seen swathes of the city bulldozed to turn it into what some Hindu nationalist leaders are calling a “Hindu Vatican”…
Christian nationalists are joining forces to recruit swing-state, MAGA-leaning churches to help elect Donald Trump in 2024. It’s a brazen effort to transform religious congregations — which are technically supposed to keep electoral politics out of the pulpit — into a campaign powerhouse for the former president.
During a weekend broadcast of his podcast, the influential Christian nationalist “apostle” Lance Wallnau unveiled a new collaboration with Turning Point USA that aims to get “civically enlightened” pastors to turn out their faithful for the “America First agenda.” The effort will be primarily focused, Wallnau said, in the purple states of Arizona, Wisconsin, and Georgia…
A federal judge upheld Georgia’s shortened four-week runoff period mandated by the state’s 2021 voting law, ruling Friday that there wasn’t evidence to prove discrimination against Black voters.
[Trump appointed] U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee’s decision keeps in place quick runoffs after general elections and fewer early voting days before runoffs. The ruling also maintains a voter registration deadline 29 days before elections, preventing new voters from being able to sign up ahead of runoffs.
“Plaintiffs presented evidence that Black voters are more likely to vote early. Plaintiffs did not present any evidence, however, which would show why Black voters would disproportionately struggle to vote during the new early voting period,” Boulee wrote in a 31-page order. “… All of the factors weigh against a discriminatory intent finding.”
Let me add my voice to the “Welcome Back SC” crowd.
Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the oldest member of the U.S. Senate, has been hospitalized in the Washington area with an infection and is receiving antibiotic infusions, his office said Tuesday…
Reginald @436: Amusing! Just a rock, but still amusing.
SC@429, thanks for making those points about public safety. All too true.
Text quoted by SC @427: “[…] Russia was not only fighting Ukraine, but was involved in a broader, existential battle against western liberal values it often describes as satanic.”
Just like Trump, Putin is framing his actions and his plans in increasingly religious terms. For some of my neighbors, I see this ploy working. They are happy to be more devoted as cult followers. I imagine that works in Russia too. I watch it happening. So disturbing.
GAM439 “The Devil Conspiracy”
If you scrape Jesus’ DNA off something he touched you can clone him… as a vessel for the antichrist!
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=XudGvr-gtnw
Good news from Florida, as summarized by Steve Benen:
in the Orlando area, Democrat Tom Keen successfully flipped a Florida state House seat in a special election this week. Keen, a former Navy flight officer, appears to have defeated Republican Erika Booth by roughly 2.6 points
In a normal political party, the E. Jean Carroll case would have effectively ended Donald Trump’s political career. Last year, several months after the Republican launched his 2024 candidacy, a jury found the former president liable for sexually abusing Carroll, and jurors awarded the writer $5 million in damages for her battery and defamation claims.
The jury did not find Trump liable for rape, though a judge later concluded that the former president, for all intents and purposes, “‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’”
[…] And yet, when former Ambassador Nikki Haley appeared on CNN the day after the Iowa caucuses, and was asked about Trump’s Carroll scandal, she seemed awfully eager to give her opponent a pass. [video at the link]
After CNN’s Dana Bash asked the South Carolinian how she feels about her party’s frontrunner being found liable for sexual abuse, Haley responded, “I haven’t paid attention to his cases and I’m not a lawyer. All I know is that he’s innocent until proven guilty, and when he’s proven guilty, and he’s sitting in a courtroom — that’s exactly what I’m talking about. You’ve got investigations on Trump and Biden.”
Let’s break that answer down a bit.
“I haven’t paid attention to his cases.” Really? Haley can recite obscure details from Gov. Ron DeSantis’ record from memory, but she has no idea what happened when a jury found Trump — the candidate she’s ostensibly trying to defeat — liable for sexual assault?
“All I know is that he’s innocent until proven guilty.” [FFS!] In a general sense, that’s certainly true, but in the Carroll case, a jury weighed the evidence and concluded that Trump was, in fact, responsible for sexual assault. The case has already been adjudicated. The verdict was announced months ago. None of this is a secret.
“You’ve got investigations on Trump and Biden.” Oh, good, we’ve reached the point in the process in which a leading presidential hopeful, asked about the Carroll case, thought it’d make sense to try to both-sides the scandal.
[…] The Republican, who wants her party’s race to be seen as a “two-person” contest, was asked about the fact that her principal intraparty opponent was found to have sexually abused a woman.
And the candidate didn’t want to talk about it.
The next time Haley denies interest in being Trump’s running mate, keep this story in mind.
Former President Donald Trump is on trial this week in New York City to determine whether he will have to pay former Elle magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll additional damages for defaming her in 2019 when he denied her allegations of sexual abuse…
At the lunch break, Judge Lewis Kaplan threatened to boot former President Trump from the courtroom if he continues to make side comments within earshot of the jury.
The warning came after E. Jean Carroll’s attorney Shawn Crowley complained for a second time about Trump’s comments.
“The defendant has been making statements that we can hear at counsel table,” she said, quoting Trump as saying, “It is a witch hunt” and “It really is a con job.” When a video of Trump disparaging E. Jean Carroll was played for the court, Crowley said Trump remarked, “It’s true.”
Judge Kaplan, in response, addressed the defense from the bench.
“Mr. Trump has the right to be present here. That right can be forfeited and it can be forfeited if he is disruptive, which is what has been reported to me,” the judge said. “Mr. Trump, I hope I don’t have to consider excluding you from the trial.”
“I understand you are probably very eager for me to do that,” the judge added, to which Trump threw his up his arms and said, “I would love it, I would love it.”
“I know you would, because you can’t control yourself in this circumstance,” Kaplan replied. “You just can’t.”
very stable genius.
birgerjohanssonsays
HuffPost:
“DeSantis Warns GOP Will Lose In 2024 If Election Focuses On Trump’s Legal Woes”
Let us hope this particular crook is right this particular time.
Carroll II, the second trial of Donald Trump for defaming E. Jean Carroll by lying about his sexual assault of her, got underway in Manhattan yesterday, and it’s shaping up to be a colossal financial threat to the former president.
Having lost in Carroll I, where a jury concluded he had raped Carroll, Trump is barred from contesting the fact of the rape in Carroll II. The only question is how big are her damages for his defamation.
While jury verdicts are notoriously difficult to predict, this case has the potential to do to Trump what a DC federal jury did to Rudy Giuliani in the defamation case brought against him by Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. The Giuliani jury reached a verdict against him of $148 million, including punitive damages.
Like Giuliani, Trump has been defiant throughout the two Carroll trials, constantly repeating the defamatory statements with impunity, and persisting in attacking the plaintiff even while the trial was underway.
Trump was in court Tuesday as jury selection got underway, but his social media operation launched what was clearly a pre-planned full-scale attack on Carroll, including repeating the defamation. (It was perhaps not a coincidence that a key Trump lawyer resigned the night before.)
Trump is risking a substantial punitive damages award by continuing to attack his accuser. It does appear to be a calculated risk, not merely shooting from the hip inadvisably. And that should only fuel the arguments Carroll can make to the jury about how severely it should punish Trump for his misconduct.
In opening statements, Carroll’s lawyers seized on the morning’s developments to urge the jury to make Trump pay until it hurt enough to get him to stop defaming Carroll: [video from All In with Chris Hayes]
Last week, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis climbed behind CNN podiums in Des Moines for a final pre-caucus debate. As he has for every debate since the primary season began, Donald Trump chose to sit it out. But just because Trump refused to be seen on the same stage as his opponents doesn’t mean he spent the night in the endless shrimp line at Mar-a-Lago. Instead, Fox News gifted Trump with 90 minutes of self-care, giving him a solo “townhall” in which all the questions were the softest of softballs and all of the audience were fawning Trump supporters.
At the end of the night, Haley and DeSantis clubbing away at each other earned an average of 2.62 million viewers. Trump engaging in a self-gratulatory smug fest knocked down 4.4 million viewers.
On Wednesday, CNN announced that it is calling off its Republican primary debate in New Hampshire after Haley said she would not attend unless Trump was also present. This follows ABC’s announcement that it was dropping its debate, which was scheduled for earlier in the week.
It’s clear the talking is over. Barring some kind of miracle that makes Trump think he would have something to gain by looming creepily over Haley, there won’t be any more Republican debates. For both DeSantis and Haley, that likely means their opportunities to speak to a national audience will now be limited to whatever snippets they can sneak into a news cycle. That won’t be the case for Trump.
“Last night, it was amazing,” Trump said, referring to what was actually an underwhelming victory in the sparsely attended Iowa caucuses. “NBC and CNN refused to air my victory speech—think of it—because they are crooked, they’re dishonest, and, frankly, they should have their licenses, or whatever they have, taken away.”
Unsurprisingly, that was a lie. Both networks aired portions before cutting away to the other candidates’ speeches, which is how these things are typically covered. But Trump insisted he’d been unfairly singled out. “They put on Nikki Haley. She came in third, a distant third—like, I mean, a distant third,” Trump continued. “And they put on Ron DeSanctimonious [DeSantis], who came in a boring second.” […]
Coincidentally, on MSNBC Monday evening, Rachel Maddow explained why MSNBC and other networks “stopped giving an unfiltered live platform to remarks by former President Trump.”
“It is not out of spite. It is not a decision that we relish,” Maddow said. “It is a decision that we regularly revisit,” she continued. “And honestly, earnestly, it is not an easy decision, but there is a cost to us as a news organization of knowingly broadcasting untrue things. And that is a fundamental truth of our business and who we are.”
Aww. Poor Tangerine Toddler saw that he was not the center of attention for a moment.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on Wednesday announced an update to its 2012 plan for solar power development in the western U.S., adding five states to the original six.
The original plan identified prime areas for solar development in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah. The BLM on Wednesday updated and finetuned its analyses and added Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming to the plan.
The Interior Department used $4.3 million in Inflation Reduction Act funds for the update. The BLM projected about 700,000 acres of public lands will be necessary to meet the U.S.’s expected renewable energy needs, while the preferred BLM alternative of the six outlined in the updated plan would free up about 22 million acres.
Meanwhile, the BLM is also processing some 67 onshore renewable energy projects on public lands across the west, a combination of wind, solar and geothermal that together could potentially add nearly 37 gigawatts to the grid.
The Biden administration has set a target of a fully renewable grid by 2035. In addition to the updates and the additional states, the BLM noted that Nevada is advancing four solar power proposals, while California is set to take the first steps on a 44-megawatt photovoltaic solar facility and Arizona has completed a 179-megawatt photovoltaic project on private land. […]
[…] Earlier this month, as first reported by More Perfect Union, King [Indiana Republican state Rep. Joanna King] proposed a bill (HB 1062) that would amend Indiana labor law to allow kids to drop out of school after the eighth grade and work full-time, 40 hours a week, on farms. Not even their own family farms (though that’s cool starting at 12!), but also on large corporate farms.
For real:
SECTION 1. IC 22-2-18.1-5.2 IS ADDED TO THE INDIANA CODE AS A NEW SECTION TO READ AS FOLLOWS [EFFECTIVE JULY 1, 2024]: Sec. 5.2. As used in this chapter, “exempted minor” refers to a minor: who has been excused from compulsory school attendance after completing grade 8; and whose parent submits to the minor’s current or prospective employer:
A) signed statement from the parent declaring that the minor has been excused from school after completing grade 8; and
B) proof supporting the statement made under clause (A).
Later in the bill is the part where they can work 40 hours a week and 8 hours a day.
Alas, it seems that priorities like “keeping kids in school” don’t count for much when farm owners just really, really want to be able to pay people very little money to work for them and take advantage of as many desperate families as they can. The agriculture industry is already absurdly exempt from many labor laws, including the whole of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, largely because “racism.” Farm owners are not required to pay overtime and, in many cases, smaller farms are even exempt from the minimum wage. They are also allowed to hire children as young as 12 — and, even, under certain circumstances, kids as young as 10. It’s not great! And now, I suppose, they want more.
Curiously, one of the only other things King has done that made any news was her support of a bill banning gender affirming care that would have taken away the rights of parents to make medical decisions for/with their children. A bill so bad it was overturned by a Trump appointee. […]
High school dropouts have a median salary of $26,000 a year, compared to high school grads with a median salary of $32,000. I was unable to find statistics on how well those who drop out after eighth grade do in comparison because when I tried to look those up, all I got was information about how much eighth grade teachers make and information about Little House on the Prairie times. That, I think, still tells you something significant.
This would be why we have spent so many years, Very Special Episodes, and shady musical numbers in pursuit of lowering the high school drop out rate [video at the link]
[…] If teenagers old enough to obtain work permits want to milk cows and bale hay for some extra cash, more power to them — but let’s keep it to after school and weekends.
These have been some real banner days for Elon Musk. He burned down most of his $44 billion investment in Twitter. He drove remaining advertisers away with his antisemitism. Then he went into a snit on stage and told those advertisers to go fuck themselves. Now he’s frosting that cake with a daily dose of horrifying racism and taking some time to sneer at disabled people.
Oh, and he finally got out the CyberTruck. Four years late. With half the promised range. Far above the promised price. [cold weather mention snipped]
All of which makes it an excellent time for Musk to inform the Tesla board that unless they give him another $80 billion in shares, he’ll take his big brain elsewhere.
As The New York Times reports, Musk’s threat was delivered the way all his business deals are made these days: with a series of sloppy posts on social media. In a Monday post to X, Musk told the board at Tesla that he needs to own 25% of the company so that he can have enough control of their developments in AI and robotics. Otherwise, Musk says he will “build products outside of Tesla.” […]
A Canadian man who had pushed a conspiracy theory that the Ottawa government started the record-breaking wildfires in Quebec rather than a result of an overheating planet was arrested and charged with 13 counts of arson and one count of arson with disregard for human life.
Over 700 out-of-control wildfires in the province demanded the attention of Canadian firefighters—and international crews to mitigate the burn area. The arson took resources away from critical firefighting efforts.
Thirty-eight-year-old Brian Paré admitted to having started all fourteen fires. The 700 fires were ignited by lightning strikes in the boreal forests of Quebec, not deliberately created by the government as Paré alleged. He was not the only one pushing the lie; even the Albertan Premier dished out the bullpucky. MAGA isn’t just for simple-minded Americans anymore.
Check out the CBC article where MAGA untruths are being spread to upend Canadian military aid to Ukraine by claiming the Trudeau government requires Ukraine to pay a carbon tax. […]
The Senate began the process of averting a partial government shutdown this weekend, but it’s not yet a sure thing that Washington will avoid at least a brief stoppage.
Laborious Senate rules and hard-line GOP opposition still stand in the way…
[…] Nick Fuentes is a white supremacist leader who attended the deadly 2017 “Unite the Right” white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, called for a “white uprising” to install Trump as a dictator, and has generated a lengthy list of bigoted statements, including his recent exhortation for Jews to “get the fuck out of America.” He is also a Holocaust denier.
Now, on the evening that Trump won the Iowa GOP caucus, Fuentes spoke out about his loyalty to Trump — while giving a Nazi salute and discussing his willingness to commit extrajudicial violence for “Supreme Leader Trump.” [video at the link]
[…] [Excerpt from video]:
[…] I am a Donald Trump cultist. I am a soldier for Donald Trump. I am part of — I serve at the personal pleasure of Donald Trump, my supreme leader. I am part of the paramilitary wing of the Trump movement. I am part of the Revolutionary Guard.
I do not answer to the Pentagon. I do not answer to the civilian government. I answer — I am the Praetorian Guard of Donald Trump. If Donald Trump ordered me to do an extrajudicial killing, I would perform it.
[…] if Donald Trump called me up and said, look, we need to capture my political enemies and torture them, you’re OK with that, right? This is totally off the books. This is a black op. If he called me up and told me to do it, I would. I would be like, sir, yes — I wouldn’t even say, yes, Mr. President. I would say it will be done. I would say it will be done, Supreme Leader.
[…] No. I’m kidding, kidding, kidding, kidding. Dude, listen, we’re just having fun with it, OK? You can’t hate. You can’t hate on me because it’s just — this is just a little bit of parody. We’re just having fun with it. It’s all jokes. Don’t worry. I’m just kidding. OK? That’s all a joke before everybody gets on my — he Nazi saluted! It’s just a joke. It’s just like, hey, what if. It’s just a joke. Everybody relax. It’s just entertainment. We’re having fun with it. We’re having fun tonight. It’s Iowa caucus tonight. The boomers are out, they’re wearing their beanies. They got Band-Aids on their faces. We’re just having a good time. We’re riffing our hearts out. I just trolled you, OK? Anyway. All right.
In November 2022, after announcing his 2024 run for president, Trump dined with Kanye West and Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago.
More of this tired racism from Trump (no new ideas in his head):
In a Tuesday night post on Truth Social, Donald Trump referred to Nikki Haley by a misspelled version of her first name. The move seemed extremely reminiscent of Trump’s repeated use of “Barack HUSSIEN Obama,” and like that usage, Trump’s post appears meant to drive home the fact that Haley’s parents are immigrants.
“Anyone listening to Nikki ‘Nimrada’ Haley’s wacked out speech last night, would think that she won the Iowa Primary,” Trump wrote, “She didn’t, and she couldn’t even beat a very flawed Ron DeSanctimonious, who’s out of money, and out of hope.”
Haley’s actual first name is “Nimarata.” […] Trump has now moved to the blaring dog whistle part of his campaign plan. Next stop: full-bore racism.
Despite frequent claims on the right, Nikki Haley did not change her name for politics. Nikki (Punjabi for “little one”) was her middle name at birth and the name she was always called growing up. Haley is her married name.
But it was only a matter of time before Trump dragged some part of Nimarata Randhawa–Haley’s birth name–into the primary season.
[…] In her last Iowa debate performance, Haley said, “Just because President Trump says something doesn’t make it true.” That might be the mildest possible criticism, but it’s still seen as high heresy in some Republican circles.
Trump naturally responded by calling Haley “wacked out” (again, spelling is not his thing), a “birdbrain,” and reminding everyone that she is other, other, other. […]
Republican U.S. Rep. Jeff Duncan said Wednesday he will not run for an eighth term in his solidly Republican South Carolina district.
Duncan said he ran for office after the September 2001 terrorist attacks because he wanted to serve his country. The businessman said he felt like he had completed that mission first in the state legislature and later in the U.S. House.
“At some point in a career, one needs to step aside and allow others to bring fresh ideas and abilities into the fight for liberty,” Duncan said in a statement…
But Duncan’s reputation for conservative family values was diminished last year when his wife filed for divorce, saying the congressman left her and was having a sexual relationship with a lobbyist. She said he had been unfaithful before during their 35-year marriage…
J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon slammed Democratic messaging about MAGA, or “Make America Great Again,” Republicans on Wednesday, telling Democrats to “grow up” and “listen” to supporters of former President Trump.
“When people say MAGA, they’re actually looking at people voting for Trump and … they’re basically scapegoating them,” Dimon said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
“I don’t like how [Trump] said things about Mexico … but he wasn’t wrong about some of these critical issues, and that’s why they’re voting for him,” Dimon continued. “And I think people should be a little more respectful of our fellow citizens.” …
Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) challenged his Republican colleagues to introduce a bill that removes the Statue of Liberty because of their stances on immigration at the southern border.
Frost, a first-term legislator, read part of the poem “The New Colossus,” which was cast and mounted on to the lower level of the Statue of Liberty as a message to immigrants arriving at Ellis Island in the 1800s.
While at a House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing Wednesday, Frost called out his GOP colleagues — and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) specifically — for their treatment of immigrants and their sweeping bill H.R. 2 that would dramatically restrict the asylum process and create stricter policies and surveillance on regional migration and undocumented immigrants…
CNN’s Abby Phillip pushed back on Ben Carson, who served as Housing and Urban Development (HUD) secretary under the Trump administration, after he argued that former President Trump is not a “highly vindictive individual.”
When asked if he would support his former boss going after President Biden if reelected in November, Carson said he thought Trump would take a different road.
“I think in his speech yesterday, or the day before, we found that he took a more conciliatory tone and recognizes that the problems that face us right now are enormous and we could spend a lot of time going after people or we could address those problems,” Carson, who ran an unsuccessful presidential campaign against Trump in 2016, told Phillip.
“I think we’ve already seen that President Trump is not a highly vindictive individual, in that he didn’t go after Hillary after he was elected in 2016,” he added…
Carson reinforces his reputation of being clueless and out of touch.
StevoRsays
How is Trump not facing multiple Contempt of Court charges?
Donald Trump has been threatened with expulsion from his New York civil trial after he repeatedly ignored a warning to keep quiet while writer E Jean Carroll testified that he shattered her reputation when she accused him of sexual abuse.Judge Lewis Kaplan told the former president that his right to be present would be revoked if he remained disruptive.
After an initial warning, Ms Carroll’s lawyer said Mr Trump could still be heard making remarks to his lawyers, including “it is a witch hunt” and “it really is a con job”.
When will this elderly toddler get some actual consequences?
StevoRsays
A spacecraft built by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, has been circling Earth’s only natural satellite since Christmas, preparing for a historic touchdown attempt on Saturday, January 20, Japan time.
Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, better known as SLIM, is about the size of a small car and was launched on September 7, 2023. It’s the first JAXA-built spacecraft to attempt a soft landing on the Moon.
Like previous Moon landing attempts, SLIM’s descent will be fully autonomous but getting to the surface is no easy feat.
I know they are trying to make it relatable to everyday objects, but “a small car” in the USA is very different from the smallest cars in, say, Japan. Kei car
John Moralessays
StevoR:
How is Trump not facing multiple Contempt of Court charges?
Colorado state Rep. Mike Lynch, who is also running for a seat in Congress, was arrested in 2022 on suspicion of drunken driving and possession of a gun while intoxicated — an episode that stayed under wraps until the The Denver Post reported it Wednesday.
Lynch, the Republican minority leader in the Colorado House, is running for the hotly contested U.S. House seat that Republican Rep. Ken Buck is vacating. Far-right Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert is another contestant in the primary after she switched congressional districts last month.
Lynch pleaded guilty to driving while ability impaired and was sentenced to 18 months of probation and monitored sobriety, along with a required handgun safety course and a prohibition on possessing firearms. The sentence for the weapons charge was deferred, and Lynch completed the course and is finishing community service…
“The number of people that will be amnestied when I am president is zero. We cannot do an amnesty in this country,” DeSantis said.
“You have to deport them,” Haley said.
#394:
In an interview on “Fox & Friends,” co-host Brian Kilmeade asked Haley whether she thinks the GOP is a “racist party.”
“No. We’re not a racist country, Brian. We’ve never been a racist country,” Haley said in response…
#441:
After CNN’s Dana Bash asked the South Carolinian how she feels about her party’s frontrunner being found liable for sexual abuse, Haley responded, “I haven’t paid attention to his cases and I’m not a lawyer. All I know is that he’s innocent until proven guilty, and when he’s proven guilty, and he’s sitting in a courtroom — that’s exactly what I’m talking about. You’ve got investigations on Trump and Biden.”
Just a pathetic clown. It’s even more horrifying to watch Republicans now than it was in 2016.
SC @469: “Just a pathetic clown. It’s even more horrifying to watch Republicans now than it was in 2016.”
Yes, Haley is a pathetic clown. And yet, she is better than Trump because Trump is such an abomination that it is hard to find candidates worse than he is. Still, it is awful to watch people make so many excuses for Nikki Haley. They extol her as “normal.” She is not. She is just not as pathologically and publicly demented as Trump.
It is more horrifying to watch Republicans now because we know more. There are no blinders we can wear to shield us from the horror. It’s all there in front of us. As the presidential race heats up and truly normal, or almost normal, citizens start paying attention we will see Trump in front of our faces even more. All the time.
I am, in a way, glad that Nikki Haley is so clueless. She says the dumb stuff in front of the cameras, so at least we don’t have to wonder about her.
Republicans argue that sending aid to Ukraine is a bottomless pit where American money disappears with no hope for a positive outcome. Without American aid, there is justifiable pessimism around how Ukraine could win a war funded only by its European allies. It would mean steep cuts to Ukraine’s war effort.
But even as Republicans in Congress continue to block Ukrainian aid, there are good reasons to be optimistic about Ukrainian prospects in the long term. And there are good reasons to believe Ukraine can win a war of attrition against Russia. [True.]
Let’s conceptualize what it means to win a war of attrition.
Imagine Russia’s war-making abilities as a large reservoir of water, a pipe, and a smaller tank. [illustration at the link]
The reservoir represents Russia’s long-term capacity for supporting its invasion. This includes its GDP, military industries, manpower, and physical resources—the ability of Russia to continue to put soldiers and materiel in the field.
The pipe represents Russia’s short-term ability to convert long-term capacity into actual frontline combat resources. For example, the month-to-month delivery of artillery shells, armored vehicles, infantry, and supplies.
Finally, the tank of water represents the amount of combat power Russia has available at the front. This is the total capability of its frontline units and immediately deployable reserve forces.
Given that Ukraine doesn’t have the realistic option of bombing Russia’s military infrastructure into oblivion (attacking the “pipe”), Ukraine has two avenues to victory:
– Drain the frontline combat power of Russia faster than it can be refilled. That is, eliminate Russian soldiers, armor, and supplies faster than they can be replaced by the pipe—until Russian frontline forces break down sufficiently that a significant weakness opens up.
– Continue to fight until Russia’s long-term capacity is sufficiently reduced so that it cannot continue to sustain its frontline combat power.
The former is the shortest path to Ukrainian victory—but would require a manyfold increase in Ukrainian units equipped with Western arms and armor. Providing Ukraine with a military capable of quickly degrading Russia’s fighting ability through combat losses is likely impossible without additional large-scale U.S. aid. With Ukraine aid bills stalled in the U.S. Congress, that option is currently off the table. [True, but President Biden continues to work on getting that aid. I have not yet given up on seeing Biden’s efforts bear fruit.]
While it would take longer, the latter route gives Ukraine another path to victory, straining Russia’s long-term capacity to the breaking point.
This may seem a hopeless task. Most serious analysts of the Russian economy or war industry agree that Russia is not at any imminent risk of economic or industrial collapse, let alone running out of manpower. One reason for optimism, however, is Russia’s reliance on refurbished Soviet-era equipment for a majority of its armor production.
For example, one of the most important armored vehicles in the war in Ukraine has been the infantry fighting vehicle (IFV). Able to transport small groups of infantry into battle, packing a moderate amount of armor protection and a quick-firing autocannon that can devastate enemy light vehicles or infantry, IFVs like the Soviet-era BMP1 and BMP2 are a common and critically important vehicle in both the Ukrainian and Russian armies.
Infantry fighting vehicles are also lost in massive quantities. Oryx’s database of Russian war losses lists 3,286 visually identified IFVs that have been destroyed.
(Warning: The video below contains graphic violence.) [video at the link]
Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 with an estimated 4,000 BMP1, BMP2, and BMP3 IFVs. Russia has lost likely approximately half of these vehicles in just under two years of fighting, with losses amounting to an estimated 2,000 Russian IFVs. Russia appears to have provided just enough replacement vehicles to maintain its strength in the face of these losses.
Russia currently produces only the BMP3, having closed its production lines of the Soviet-era BMP2 years ago. Russian production of BMP3s, even if we take Russian official figures at face value, amounts to only 400 BMP3s a year—or, at most, 800 BMP3s in the past two years. Russia has procured another 1,200 replacement IFVs with refurbished Soviet-era BMP2 and BMP1 mostly stored in major outdoor storage depots. [Photo at the link, looks like a graveyard for rusting vehicles to me.]
At the close of the Cold War, the Russian army inherited a disproportionately large amount of military equipment from the Red Army, compared with what the former Soviet satellite states received. But while Russia had a Soviet-sized military, it didn’t have the economy to sustain it.
As a result, Russia placed thousands of Soviet-era tanks, IFVs, armored personnel carriers, artillery, and other equipment into outdoor storage sites.
Facing a massive budget crunch in the early 2000s, in the initial years of his rule, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin implemented a series of cost-cutting measures, arguably the most important of which was an end to subsidies that kept the Russian military industry afloat. Only profitable Russian military industries that could continue to operate without state support survived. As a consequence, many Russian military industries simply disappeared, such as the domestic ability to produce semiconductor chips or military-grade hardened steel.
Mass production lines of older and cheaper Soviet arms, like the T-72 tank or the BMP2 IFV, were abandoned, as was the infrastructure necessary to mass-produce military-grade steel to feed those production lines. Discussions about reviving older BMP2 production lines have gone nowhere, since the factories, equipment, and steel mills that fed them have been gone for 20 years. The only production lines that survived were refurbishing old Soviet equipment, and producing a small number of high-tech weapons that were designed in the last days of the USSR—such as the T-90 tank or the BMP3 IFV.
The problem for Russia is that though the stocks of aging Soviet IFVs are massive, they are not infinite.
A recent accounting of Soviet IFVs visible in publicly available satellite imagery indicates a massive drop in the number of IFVs remaining in storage depots compared with two years ago. [Tweet and list at the link]
High Marsed’s analysis indicates that from outdoor storage depots, Russia removed 1,081 BMPs of various types, corresponding to those aforementioned estimates that Russia sent 1,200 refurbished BMPs to the front in the past two years (over 700 in 2023).
What’s more, High Marsed’s analysis suggests that only 2,200 repairable BMPs remain. And even that might be overly optimistic for Russia, as Marsed explains that only visibly degraded vehicles were excluded from the count. Many vehicles could be degraded in ways that are not readily visible from satellite imagery.
Thus, at a consumption rate of around 600-700 vehicles per year, it seems a reasonable guess would be Russia would run out of BMPs to refurbish in late 2026 to early 2027.
But the collapse of Russia’s steel-alloy production capacity has implications beyond just IFVs. Russian tank production and replacement artillery tubes both also require specialized hardened military-grade steel alloys.
Russian tank production is similarly reliant on repaired Soviet-era tanks. And Russian artillery-tube production is in such a distressed state that the country’s primary source of replacement artillery barrels is cannibalizing barrels from archaic towed howitzers. Altogether, it looks like Russia will burn through its remaining Soviet stocks by late 2026, when its Soviet inheritance likely runs out.
The question is, assuming that the U.S. eventually grants limited support, can Ukraine resist into 2027 and 2028, when these shortages would likely begin degrading the Russian army?
The Republican-led House Homeland Security Committee kicked off the new year by wasting everybody’s time with new impeachment hearings against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. And on Wednesday, Chair Mark Green sent a letter to Mayorkas asking that the secretary provide written testimony since he “declined to appear” before the committee.
But that’s not exactly true. Also on Wednesday, NBC News obtained a letter from DHS contradicting Green’s assertion that Mayorkas “declined” anything. According to NBC, after the Republican-led committee originally requested that Mayorkas testify in person on Jan. 18, DHS replied that the secretary could not testify on that date due to scheduling conflicts. Specifically, Mayorkas would be hosting a delegation from Mexico to discuss immigration issues. In other words, the exact issue Republicans are pretending to be interested in working on as lawmakers. [Yep, Republicans lied.]
In the letter, DHS explained that Mayorkas remained willing to testify in front of the committee at another date, but as DHS spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg described it in a statement following Green’s letter, Republicans’ “rush to impeach” Mayorkas seems to be taking precedence over having a reason to impeach him.
This is just the latest example of Committee Republicans’ sham process. It’s abundantly clear that they are not interested in hearing from Secretary Mayorkas since it doesn’t fit into their bad-faith, predetermined and unconstitutional rush to impeach him. Last week, the Secretary offered to testify publicly before the Committee; in the time since, the Committee failed to respond to DHS to find a mutually agreeable date.
Instead, they provided this offer of written testimony to the media before any outreach to the Department. [Homeland Security Committee] Republicans have yet again demonstrated their preference for playing politics rather than work together to address the serious issues at the border.
Mayorkas has long been a target for the do-nothing Republicans in Congress because immigration has been an amorphous boogeyman they use to (successfully) frighten their base. Sometimes, though, Republican lawmakers can’t keep their conspiracy theories straight, such as when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene mistakenly claimed during another hearing that the FBI was part of the Department of Homeland Security.
As a DHS official told NBC, Mayorkas has testified 27 times in 35 months—more than any other Biden Cabinet official—and has answered hundreds of questions concerning immigration and the southern border. The first two-hour hearing that Green chaired last week was unable to bring up a single piece of evidence that might rise to the level of impeachment. […]
[…] Here’s what the people who know him best said:
• “He was thin-skinned and easily distracted,” said Nikki Haley, U.N. Ambassador and 2024 GOP candidate.
• “We can’t be following celebrity leaders with fragile egos who refuse to acknowledge reality,” said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who opposes his re-election.
• “President Trump endangered my family,” said Vice President Mike Pence, referring to January 6 rioters who wanted to hang him […]
• “Donald Trump is not fit to be president… I have been in those rooms when he’s met with those leaders. They think he’s a laughing fool,” said National Security Adviser John Bolton, who is not supporting Trump’s re-election.
• “Our country can’t be a therapy session for a troubled man,” said Attorney General Bill Barr, who also opposes his re-election.
• “He places our nation’s security at risk,” said Secretary of Defense Mark Esper.
• “A man who is pretty undisciplined,” said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
• “He failed at being the president when we needed him to be that,” said Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, referring to the January 6 insurrection.
• “A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law. God help us!” said White House Chief of Staff John Kelly.
• “Clearly an irrational man,” said White House Aide Cassidy Hutchinson.
• “He cares about no one but himself,” said press Secretary Stephanie Grisham.
• “The domestic terrorist of the 21st century,” said Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci.
The video ends with cameos without quotes by three other top officials: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Christopher Krebs, and Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao.
John @475, I agree that the illustration was silly. I think it was also unnecessary. However, some parts of the rest of the article did contain useful information.
The dispute arising from a fisheries regulation is the latest attack on the federal bureaucracy as part of what has been called a war on the administrative state.
A 40-year-old Supreme Court precedent that over the years has become a bugbear on the right because it is viewed as bolstering the power of federal agencies came under tough scrutiny Wednesday as the current justices considered whether to overturn it.
[…] two related cases involving a fisheries regulation that call into question whether the 1984 ruling in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council should be consigned to history.
[…] some conservative members of the court appeared to be leaning toward overturning the Chevron precedent […]
Ironically, at the time it was decided, Chevron was a win for the deregulatory efforts of the Reagan administration, with the court ruling that judges should defer to federal agencies in interpreting the law when the language of a statute is ambiguous.
The ruling allowed the Environmental Protection Agency to move forward with a Clean Air Act regulation that was favorable to polluting facilities, much to the displeasure of environmental groups that had wanted the court to give the agency less leeway.
During that period, the EPA was led by Anne Gorsuch, the mother of conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, although she had left the post following a scandal over the agency’s management of pollution cleanups by the time the case was argued. Justice Gorsuch has been an outspoken critic of the Chevron ruling.
During the arguments Wednesday, he questioned why a judge who thinks the agency’s interpretation of the law is wrong would “abdicate that responsibility and say, automatically, whatever the agency says wins.”
[…] Liberal justices strongly defended the status quo, with Justice Elena Kagan giving practical examples of when it might be better for courts to defer to an agency’s expertise, such as whether a cholesterol-lowering product should be classified as a dietary supplement or a drug.
[…] Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, another liberal, made a similar point, saying Chevron helps “courts stay away from policymaking.”
[…] In practice, the Chevron ruling initially meant that both Democratic and Republican presidents could take advantage of the flexibility it gave to agencies in implementing new regulations on a wide variety of issues.
[…] Environmental groups and others on the left hope to keep the ruling in place so agencies can tackle difficult issues like climate change, especially in the absence of Congress’ passing major legislation itself. [Understandable.]
[…] The Supreme Court has already addressed the issue of agencies’ exerting broad power without clear congressional instructions from another angle in recent rulings that struck down President Joe Biden’s federal student loan debt relief plan, blocked his Covid vaccination or test requirement for larger businesses and curbed the EPA’s authority to limit carbon emissions from power plants.
Those cases did not rely on the Chevron analysis but instead said simply that on issues of broad national impact, there needs to be an explicit authorization from Congress, an approach known as the “major questions doctrine.”
The cases argued Wednesday involve a challenge to a less far-reaching government regulation […] The court took up appeals brought by operators of fishing vessels active in the herring fishery off the Atlantic coast, which challenged the 2020 rule applying to New England fisheries. Lower courts in both cases ruled for the federal government.
[…] The fisheries dispute is one of several in the current court term in which the justices are considering attacks on federal agency power led by business interests and the conservative legal establishment.
The makeup of the court itself reflects another front in the war, with the Trump administration having specifically selected judicial nominees in part based on their hostility to the federal bureaucracy. The Supreme Court’s conservative majority includes three Trump appointees: Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett.
[…] Defending the doctrine, the Biden administration extols its benefits. Not only does the Chevron doctrine acknowledge the subject-matter expertise of federal agencies, it writes, but deferring to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of the law allows the agency’s interpretation to apply throughout the country, avoiding the inconsistent interpretations that might result from “piecemeal litigation of the issue.” Moreover, the administration continues, if an agency’s interpretation is politically unpopular, that agency is part of the executive branch and therefore – unlike federal judges with lifetime tenure – is “politically accountable to the American people through the President.” […]
More details are available at SCOTUS blog.
“Will courts decide these issues as to things they know nothing about? Courts that are completely disconnected from the policy process … and that just don’t have any expertise and experience in an area?” — Justice Kagan on what’s at stake in the debate over Chevron deference
The U.S. government on Wednesday proposed to limit bank overdraft fees, which companies can charge customers who spend more money than they have available in their accounts, touching off a fierce fight with financial giants eager to preserve their profits from federal regulation.
StevoRsays
Scientists discover southern Africa’s temps will rise past rhinos’ tolerance
by Daegan Miller, University of Massachusetts Amherst
A research team from the University of Massachusetts Amherst has recently reported in the journal Biodiversity that, though the area will be affected by both higher temperatures and changing precipitation, the rhinos are more sensitive to rising temperatures, which will quickly increase above the animals’ acceptable maximum threshold. Managers in national parks should begin planning adaptations to manage the increased temperatures in the hopes of preserving a future for the rhinoceroses.
The African continent has seen its average monthly temperatures rise by 0.5–2 degrees Celsius over the past century, with up to another two degrees of warming projected for the next 100 years, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) high greenhouse gas emissions scenario. It is also well known that the changing climate will disrupt historical precipitation patterns—but which of these, temperature or rainfall, will have the most impact on a species, like white and black rhinos, that have long been the target of conservation efforts? The question is especially important for rhinos because they don’t sweat, and instead cool themselves off by bathing and finding shade. “Generally speaking, most, if not all, species will, in one way or another, be negatively affected by the changing climate,” says lead author Hlelowenkhosi S. Mamba,
In a tense, three-hour meeting with staff Tuesday afternoon, new Baltimore Sun owner David Smith told employees he has only read the paper four times in the past few months, insulted the quality of their journalism and encouraged them to emulate a TV station owned by his broadcasting company.
Smith, whose acquisition of the paper from the investment firm Alden Global Capital was announced publicly Monday evening, told staff he had not read newspapers for decades, according to several people who attended the meeting but were not authorized to speak publicly.
[…] Smith, who is the executive chairman of Sinclair Inc., which operates more than 200 television stations nationwide, told New York Magazine in 2018 he considered print media “so left-wing as to be meaningless dribble.” Asked Tuesday during the meeting whether he stood by those comments now that he owns one of the most storied titles in American journalism, Smith said yes. Asked if he felt that way about the contents of his newspaper, Smith said “in many ways, yes,” according to people at the meeting.
The Baltimore Sun won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting.
Smith seemed to try and pit reporters against each other, asking them to rank who was the best in the newsroom. Several times throughout the meeting, he said he has “no idea what you do.” [That sounds kind of like Trump]
[…] One newsroom member characterized the meeting as “bleak.” Another called it “very bad,” and another said it left them feeling sick.
[…] Smith repeatedly talked about increasing profits — at one point telling reporters to “go make me some money” — and said reporters need to do a better job giving the public what they want.
[…] Smith purchased The Sun with Armstrong Williams, a conservative commentator who hosts a nationally syndicated television show on Sinclair network affiliates. Williams’ share of ownership is undisclosed. […]
StevoRsays
Predicting others’ preference-based choices is cross-cultural and uniquely human, suggests study
by Public Library of Science
Children across cultures can anticipate other individuals’ choices based on their preferences, according to a study published in PLOS ONE by Juliane Kaminski at the University of Portsmouth and colleagues. However, non-human great apes appear to lack this ability. Understanding the beliefs, desires, and preferences of others is known as “theory of mind,” but whether or not this ability is unique to humans remains unclear. Researchers investigated if children and non-human great apes could predict the food choices of others based on their preferences.
They tested 71 children aged 5 to 11 years from Namibia, Germany, and Samoa, and 25 great apes from four species: chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), bonobos (Pan paniscus), gorillas (Gorilla gorilla), and orangutans (Pongo abelii).
.. (snip)..
These findings support the hypothesis that recognizing the preferences of others, even when they differ from our own, is a uniquely human trait. The researchers found children across diverse societies considered their partners’ preferences, indicating that this facet of childhood theory of mind is remarkably robust to cultural influence.
According to the authors, the study suggests the ability to understand that others can have different preferences and to take this into account when making decisions is universal in humans and independent of culture.
I know I’m a bit of an imposition; my thing is to critique and critisize more so than to endorse and go along, hence I’m more likely to complain than to enthuse. Makes me seem contrarian, and makes me annoying.
Also, I find it hard to let go of issues until they are sorted. Gets irritating quickly, even in real life.
FWIW, I truly think you’ve done a fine job for quite some time now, so though I complain a bit I do appreciate that and hold you in high regard on that basis. Plus, you’ve tolerated me more than I might deserve. I want you to know that, whether or not you believe me.
Last thing I am is sycophantic, so this is not to stroke you, but to lay it out.
I do wish more people realised that, given I am merciless and blunt and relentless about my complaints, my praise and approval is likewise honest. There is no facade.
—
Belated, but since I’m in this mood, I too like having SC back, much as we’ve contended over lo these many years.
StevoRsays
One more from Phys dot org here :
Researchers have linked the travels of a 14,000-year-old wooly mammoth with the oldest known human settlements in Alaska, providing clues about the relationship between the iconic species and some of the earliest people to travel across the Bering Land Bridge. Scientists made those connections by using isotope analysis to study the life of a female mammoth, named Élmayųujey’eh, by the Healy Lake Village Council. A tusk from Elma was discovered at the Swan Point archaeological site in Interior Alaska. Samples from the tusk revealed details about Elma and the roughly 1,000-kilometer journey she took through Alaska and northwestern Canada during her lifetime.
Isotopic data, along with DNA from other mammoths at the site and archaeological evidence, indicates that early Alaskans likely structured their settlements to overlap with areas where mammoths congregated. Those findings, highlighted in the journal Science Advances, provide evidence that mammoths and early hunter-gatherers shared habitat in the region. The long-term predictable presence of wooly mammoths would have attracted humans to the area.
[…] “Who decides?” Gorsuch asked, interrupting the lawyer opposing the government to better make his argument for him. “Is the judge persuaded at the end of the day, with proper deference given to a co-equal branch of government, or does the judge abdicate that responsibility and say, automatically, whatever the agency says wins?”
It’s not hard to tell where Gorsuch comes down, as he twists agency deference into a “heads big, scary government wins,” “tails judges are hamstrung and “ordinary citizens” lose proposition.
Chevron has long been an obstacle to these right-wing forces’ efforts to unspool and defang regulation, to create an even friendlier legal environment for business. Unwinding it has been the driving thrust of the movement, the source of its endless funding and resources.
Gorsuch, son of a mother who boasted about eliminating Environmental Protection Agency regulations while she was the agency’s Reagan administration chief, is the perfect face for the nearly successful effort and served as its spokesperson during the oral arguments. With his abstract libertarianism, the justice maintained that Chevron means the government never loses — a surprise to those of us who have watched Biden agency actions from student debt forgiveness to power plant regulations fall at the hands of this Court. With Chevron in hand, Gorsuch waxed, the tyrannical government can run roughshod over Congress, judges and the “citizens” pitted against its might.
Flanked by his right-wing colleagues, many of whom were incubated in the same environments, Gorsuch is poised to lead the Court in overturning — or at least, fatally weakening — Chevron and fulfilling the promise for which they were chosen.
[…] This case, for example, is nominally about federally mandated monitors on commercial fishing vessels to prevent environmentally damaging overfishing. The lawyers for that side made much of the thin margins in the fishing industry, the struggle for those blue collar workers to keep afloat. If that’s what this case was truly about, we would have heard much more about herring Wednesday and much less philosophical debate over agencies’ place in society.
This case, like all of those gunning for strong regulatory agencies, is backed by the much less pitiable interests of big business, powerful corporations who want to dump waste in rivers or underpay their workers without threat of government-inflicted punishment. These lowly, maligned fisherpeople are backed by the might of Koch Industries CEO Charles Koch. Lawyers working for the nonprofit he funds are arguing the case for free, hidden behind a shell law firm, according to New York Times reporting.
Gorsuch himself also has reported close and long-standing personal ties to an oil and gas billionaire who has given money to the Koch-funded right-wing nonprofit for whom these lawyers work.
[…] What Gorsuch and co. don’t say is that weakening agencies does not actually empower Congress. The legislature, hamstrung by the Senate filibuster, a polarized Congress and a lack of interest in policymaking on the right, can barely fund the government each year, much less pass a bill every time the Occupational Safety & Health Administration wants to tweak a factory workplace regulation or the Food and Drug Administration has to decide if a new product qualifies as a dietary supplement or a drug. It also lacks the expertise to do those things, given that much of what agencies do is highly technical. This is the reason justices devised Chevron in the 1980s — the recognition that neither Congress, nor the courts, had the ability and expertise to speak to all questions in American federal policy.
[…] the judiciary [becomes the sole] arbiter of what agencies can do. [Sounds like the conservative justices handing themselves a shit ton of power.]
[…] “I suppose judicial policy making is very stable — but precisely because we are not accountable to the people and have lifetime appointments,” Justice Jackson said.
[…] the right-wing, decades-long quest to kill Chevron seems very near victory.
Nearly 71 million unique credentials stolen for logging into websites such as Facebook, Roblox, eBay, and Yahoo have been circulating on the Internet for at least four months, a researcher said Wednesday.
Troy Hunt, operator of the Have I Been Pwned? breach notification service, said the massive amount of data was posted to a well-known underground market that brokers sales of compromised credentials. Hunt said he often pays little attention to dumps like these because they simply compile and repackage previously published passwords taken in earlier campaigns…
Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, on Wednesday called on business and political leaders to reject socialism and instead embrace “free enterprise capitalism” to bring an end to world poverty.
“Today, I’m here to tell you that the Western world is in danger,” Milei said in a special address at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, according to a translation.
“And it is in danger because those who are supposed to have to defend the values of the West are co-opted by a vision of the world that inexorably leads to socialism, and thereby to poverty,” he added…
Sure, Jan. With multiple rich persons topping $100 billion in value, socialism is the problem before us. And Davos, a meeting of the rich and powerful, is where the threat of socialism is coming from.
Google researchers say they have evidence that a notorious Russian-linked hacking group — tracked as “Cold River” — is evolving its tactics beyond phishing to target victims with data-stealing malware.
Cold River, also known as “Callisto Group” and “Star Blizzard,” is known for conducting long-running espionage campaigns against NATO countries, particularly the United States and the United Kingdom.
Researchers believe the group’s activities, which typically target high-profile individuals and organizations involved in international affairs and defense, suggest close ties to the Russian state. U.S. prosecutors in December indicted two Russian nationals linked to the group.
Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) said in new research this week that it has observed Cold River ramping up its activity in recent months and using new tactics capable of causing more disruption to its victims, predominantly targets in Ukraine and its NATO allies, academic institutions and non-government organizations…
In research shared with TechCrunch ahead of its publication on Thursday, TAG researchers say that Cold River has continued to shift beyond its usual tactic of phishing for credentials to delivering malware via campaigns using PDF documents as lures…
A coalition of reproductive and civil rights groups formally launched an effort Thursday to advance an amendment that would enshrine abortion rights in the Missouri Constitution.
Missourians for Constitutional Freedom began collecting signatures throughout the state after they selected one proposed constitutional amendment to attempt to place on the 2024 ballot from an original field of 11 possible options…
A midwife in New York administered nearly 12,500 bogus homeopathic pellets to roughly 1,500 children in lieu of providing standard, life-saving vaccines, the New York State Department of Health reported yesterday.
Jeanette Breen, a licensed midwife who operated Baldwin Midwifery in Nassau County, began providing the oral pellets to children around the start of the 2019–2020 school year, just three months after the state eliminated non-medical exemptions for standard school immunizations. She obtained the pellets from a homeopath outside New York and sold them as a series called the “Real Immunity Homeoprophylaxis Program.”
The program falsely claimed to protect children against deadly infectious diseases covered by standard vaccination schedules, including diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (covered by the DTaP or Tdap vaccine); hepatitis B; measles, mumps and rubella (MMR vaccine); polio; chickenpox; meningococcal disease; Haemophilus influenzae disease (HiB); and pneumococcal diseases (PCV)…
The Louisiana Senate gave its approval Wednesday to a congressional redistricting proposal that increases the number of majority-Black districts to two out of six. Gov. Jeff Landry backs the legislation that faces an end-of-month deadline for approval.
Senate Bill 8, sponsored by Sen. Glen Womack, R-Harrisonburg, turns the 6th Congressional District, which U.S. Rep. Garret Graves, R-Baton Rouge, holds, into a majority-Black district that stretches diagonally across the center of the state from Caddo Parish in northwest Louisiana to East Baton Rouge Parish.
The bill was passed with a 27-11 vote, with Republicans accounting for all of the no votes.
A congressional redistricting plan must be approved before the special session ends at 6 p.m.Tuesday to comply with an order from a U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick, who gave the legislature until Jan. 31 to redraw the lines. A version lawmakers passed in 2022, retained a single majority-Black district, led to a lawsuit from a group of Black voters to block its boundaries from taking effect.
According to the 2020 Census, Black voters comprise one-third of the Louisiana electorate. Dick, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, has indicated she will change the map herself if lawmakers don’t do it themselves.
Some Republicans who voted for the map did so reluctantly.
“Unfortunately, we must pass this map before us instead of giving the pen to a heavy handed, Obama-appointed judge who seeks to enforce her will upon us,” Sen. Jeremy Stine, R-Lake Charles, said.
Sen. Royce Duplessis, D-New Orleans, pushed back on this notion.
“[The Voting Rights Act] was not just interpreted by one judge, in the Middle District of Louisiana, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, but also by the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that’s made up of judges that were appointed by Republican presidents and the United States Supreme Court that is… made up of justices that were appointed by majority Republican presidents,” Duplessis said.
[Speaker of the House Mike Johnson continues to try to derail the deal.]
[…] there’s precious little to be gained by trying to understand Trump voters or ascribe any rationality to them. Revenge is a raw human emotion, not something that can be dealt with through discourse or reason. As Nichols cogently explains, more than anything, Donald Trump’s loyal base wants revenge “on their fellow citizens” for their attacks, critiques, and disparagement of Donald Trump.
Tom Nichols wrote an article for The Atlantic, and a Daily Kos writer discussed that article.
A different kind of human trafficking, and a different kind of cybercrime:
[…] The “pig butchering” cyberscam, explained
[…] Here’s how it works: You get a conversational text or a message on a service like WhatsApp that appears to be a wrong number. The seemingly innocent texts may lead to a conversation that could involve the promise of an exciting love affair or a valuable business opportunity. But these messages are, in fact, written by people forced into service thousands of miles away, and they are actually the first step in a scam that can end with the victim wiring large amounts of money into the scammers’ accounts.
The practice is known as “pig butchering” — as in, the victims are gradually “fattened up” for the slaughter — and it’s a booming industry. In 2022 alone, Americans lost more than $2.6 billion to such pig butchering scams, according to the FBI.
Southeast Asia, particularly Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar, are this illicit industry’s ground zero. The scam centers evolved out of a lucrative casino business along these countries’ borders with China and Thailand, which once catered to junkets of Chinese high-rollers. Many of these casinos operate in “special economic zones,” where lax regulation and tax incentives are meant to attract international investment, but which in practice often become the bases of organized crime. […]
The Covid-19 pandemic was a major blow to the casino business, putting an end to lucrative Chinese gambling junkets as Beijing shut the country’s borders. This led organized crime groups to search for new sources of revenue. With people around the world spending far more time online during the pandemic and cryptocurrencies exploding in popularity, cyberscams were an obvious choice.
[Yep. The pandemic opened up new opportunities for organized crime groups.]
But finding people to operate the scam centers required another scam altogether. Criminal groups began luring young, tech-savvy workers from around the world with the promise of tech jobs, then holding those workers against their will in tightly controlled compounds. […]
This practice — while still awful — is somewhat different from the normal image of human trafficking. “It’s a white-collar crime,” Richard Horsey, senior Myanmar analyst at the International Crisis Group, told Vox. “You need an office block with reliable electricity, a good internet connection, and your workers, even if they’re enslaved, have to be kind of fairly well-educated, technically literate people.”
[…] during the pandemic, “organized crime groups managed to quickly turn casino complexes into large-scale online scam and fraud compounds. Dormitory style bedrooms were constructed in the complexes; scammer training manuals were created; enforcers were hired to control trafficking victims; and the mass recruitment of trafficking victims began.”
[…] There are frequent reports of beatings and electrocution for those who disobey. According to accounts collected in the report, women are often threatened with sexual violence or being sold into prostitution and some victims have even been threatened with having their organs removed and sold.
[…] “pig butchering” is a crime with two sets of victims: the scammed and the scammers themselves.
Initially, many of the trafficking victims came from countries like India, Malaysia, and Thailand. This changed once China loosened Covid restrictions at the end of 2022.
“Once the borders opened, young Chinese started streaming across the border to man the scams,” said Priscilla Clapp, a former charge d’affaires at the US embassy in Myanmar now at the US Institute of Peace. Chinese workers were targeted for their language skills — they were better able to scam their countrymen in Mandarin — and poor economic conditions in China coming out of the pandemic made them easier to recruit.
“There’s been a real employment problem for young people in China,” said Clapp. “Well-educated college graduates can’t find work, so they’re the ones who are responding [to the fraudulent ads].”
While total numbers are difficult to come by, the UN has estimated there may be as many as 100,000 people held in scam centers in Cambodia and 120,000 in Myanmar, making it one of the largest coordinated trafficking operations in history. […]
How Myanmar became a cyberscam hotspot
While several countries host scam centers, the UN says Myanmar has become an increasingly popular location, thanks to the political chaos in the war-torn country. Many of the scam centers are located in areas along the country’s borders that are not under the direct control of the government […]
“On paper, these Border Guard Forces are part of the chain of command of the military, and they have some Myanmar military officers sort of seconded to them,” said Crisis Group’s Horsey. “But in practice, they’re a lot more independent than that and they make an awful lot of money.”
[…] China steps in
“China’s main goal is just to have a stable Myanmar state,” […]
Beijing is clearly losing patience with the chaos on its borders and in particular with the scam centers targeting Chinese citizens as both scam victims and trafficking victims. It has repeatedly urged the Myanmar government to do more to crack down on the centers, albeit with little result.
So last September China began cracking down on its own, issuing arrest warrants for government-linked militia officials in Myanmar’s northeastern Wa state, on the Chinese border, accusing them of being “kingpins” in the scams. That prompted a crackdown that resulted in thousands of people being returned to China from scam compounds in the state. […]
China also launched a PR campaign last fall with what appeared to be the coordinated release of several hit movies about the dangers of southeast Asian scam centers. […]
the Three Brotherhood Alliance launched its campaign to eradicate the scam centers. China’s exact role in the rebel group’s Operation 1027 is a bit murky. One of the main groups in the alliance, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, is composed of ethnic Chinese fighters in Myanmar and reportedly has links to Chinese security services. While it’s unlikely they were acting as direct proxies, Scot Marciel, a former US ambassador to Myanmar, told Reuters “the Chinese weren’t troubled that they did it.” At the very least, the alliance’s outspoken anti-scam message was a clear bid for Chinese support. […]
The scams are just starting
Operation 1027 was certainly a blow to the scam centers in Shan state. Three weeks after the operation began, some 7,000 people have escaped to China. […] skeptical it will deal a long-term blow to this illicit industry.
“The people running them have moved south and they’ve set up new compounds in Karen state along the Thai border,” she said. “They’ve probably also moved into Cambodia and Laos, because they already had a foothold in those places.”
[…] Scammers may increasingly rely on artificial intelligence tools and translation tools to communicate with victims. […] doesn’t necessarily mean trafficked workers won’t still be used, just that their profile may change, with IT skills taking precedence over language skills.
[…] “We’re really talking about a form of transnational crime that involves fraud, cybercrime, human trafficking, money laundering, corruption,” she said. “If we don’t address all of these facets, the criminal groups are just going to continue to flourish.”
[…] Myanmar’s recent experience suggests that as crime moves online, its links to real-world armed conflict aren’t going anywhere.
AOC, Jamie Raskin, Robert Garcia showed up IN FORCE.
On Wednesday, Republicans on the House Oversight Committee tried to have a hearing on immigration policy. They called their hearing, “The Biden Administration’s Regulatory and Policymaking Efforts to Undermine US Immigration Law.”
Unfortunately for them (I suppose), their beliefs about our immigration situation and what is going on at the border are based mostly on vibes, so Democrats on the Oversight Committee pretty unkindly insisted on pointing out actual facts.
In one instance, ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-MD) helpfully pointed out that despite GOP narratives, chief Border Patrol agents have testified that the border is more secure now … because they have funding. [video at the link]
Raskin and other Democrats on the Committee repeatedly and correctly hammered home the fact that Republicans have repeatedly voted against properly funding the border because they’re mad that Joe Biden is president, while Republicans tried to argue that funding wasn’t worth anything because Joe Biden is President.
Indeed, Rep. Jared Moskowitz even brought out a visual aid featuring a quote from Texas Congressman Troy Nehls saying exactly that.
“Let me tell you, I’m not willing to do too damn much right now to help a Democrat and to help Joe Biden’s approval rating,” Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) told CNN earlier this month. “I will not help the Democrats try to improve this man’s dismal approval ratings. I’m not going to do it. Why would I?”
Now, sure, funding border agents and immigration judges isn’t quite as sexy as alligator moats or a bunch of agents standing on the border shooting people’s legs out (, which Rep. Robert Garcia (D-California) reminded the committee were some of Trump’s ideas … [video at the link] … but it is more effective and less overtly psychotic.
Of course, that’s according to me, a person with a well-known left-wing bias against alligator moats and shooting people in the legs. So Rep. Garcia actually asked a fella named David Bier of the Cato Institute what he thought of these ideas. Biel, a guy who literally works for one of the most famous right-wing think tanks in the country, agreed that an alligator moat was inhumane and not a good idea. He also affirmed that ordering soldiers to shoot migrants in the legs to stop them from coming to the US would not only be a bad idea, but that it would be attempted murder.
Rather than going along with the narrative that we need to keep immigrants out, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) pointed out that doing so is actually hurting us — and that we owe much of our nation’s economic success to more liberal immigration policies. Also the fact that practically everyone in the chamber and everyone in the country, other than indigenous people, Black people or those who are from Puerto Rico or Guam or another US territory are here because of immigration. And specifically, many of us are here because of the more liberal immigration policies of up until 1925 that allowed pretty much anyone (except the Chinese, because racism) to come here and work and build a life for themselves. […] [video at the link]
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez also pointed out that job openings are at a record high, that we need people to fill them, and that many right-wing states have even moved to bring back child labor in order to do so.
To be clear, most child labor victims in the United States are immigrant children — frequently unaccompanied minors or those who had been separated from their families at the border. But Republicans in states like Florida, Wisconsin, and Indiana are sick and tired of seeing these child immigrants take jobs from our American middle-schoolers and want to loosen up the child labor laws so that they, too, can be exploited by the capitalist machine. You know, instead of allowing more adults into the country.
Seems like not a great solution!
But speaking of family separation — it is only fair to point out that the Republicans had their, uh, moments during this hearing as well. [video at the link]
Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna had the courage to come out and openly say that she thinks family separation is great and that we should do more of it. She suggested that the children were only separated from those she referred to as their “quote, unquote parents” until our government could prove that they were actually the biological parents of the children and were not trafficking them.
Now, this actually used to be the case — people who came over here as families really only were separated when something like child trafficking was suspected. The difference, however, is that the Trump administration instituted a zero tolerance policy that required all families to be separated when parents were caught being here illegally. Many of these families were separated for years, causing untold amounts of trauma to the children, which is something that someone who was actually concerned about child welfare would be concerned about. And as of October, a thousand of the parents — who were deported without their children — have still never been found.
But while we’re here and talking about trafficking, please to enjoy this clip of Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Ohio) discussing with David Bier the fact that, despite the right-wing hysteria, it’s actually American citizens who are bringing fentanyl into the country — because it’s obviously way easier for them to get through security and the drug traffickers know that. [video at the link]
[…] Republicans are leaning as hard as they possibly can into stoking fears about immigration amongst the kind of people who pay a billionaire immigrant $8 a month so that they can be the first to tell AOC [on X, formerly Twitter] that she hates America. It’s best we be prepared for that.
AOC, Jamie Raskin, Robert Garcia showed up IN FORCE.
On Wednesday, Republicans on the House Oversight Committee tried to have a hearing on immigration policy. They called their hearing, “The Biden Administration’s Regulatory and Policymaking Efforts to Undermine US Immigration Law.”
Unfortunately for them (I suppose), their beliefs about our immigration situation and what is going on at the border are based mostly on vibes, so Democrats on the Oversight Committee pretty unkindly insisted on pointing out actual facts.
In one instance, ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-MD) helpfully pointed out that despite GOP narratives, chief Border Patrol agents have testified that the border is more secure now … because they have funding. [video at the link]
Raskin and other Democrats on the Committee repeatedly and correctly hammered home the fact that Republicans have repeatedly voted against properly funding the border because they’re mad that Joe Biden is president, while Republicans tried to argue that funding wasn’t worth anything because Joe Biden is President.
Indeed, Rep. Jared Moskowitz even brought out a visual aid featuring a quote from Texas Congressman Troy Nehls saying exactly that.
“Let me tell you, I’m not willing to do too damn much right now to help a Democrat and to help Joe Biden’s approval rating,” Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) told CNN earlier this month. “I will not help the Democrats try to improve this man’s dismal approval ratings. I’m not going to do it. Why would I?”
Now, sure, funding border agents and immigration judges isn’t quite as sexy as alligator moats or a bunch of agents standing on the border shooting people’s legs out (, which Rep. Robert Garcia (D-California) reminded the committee were some of Trump’s ideas … [video at the link] … but it is more effective and less overtly psychotic.
Of course, that’s according to me, a person with a well-known left-wing bias against alligator moats and shooting people in the legs. So Rep. Garcia actually asked a fella named David Bier of the Cato Institute what he thought of these ideas. Biel, a guy who literally works for one of the most famous right-wing think tanks in the country, agreed that an alligator moat was inhumane and not a good idea. He also affirmed that ordering soldiers to shoot migrants in the legs to stop them from coming to the US would not only be a bad idea, but that it would be attempted murder.
Rather than going along with the narrative that we need to keep immigrants out, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) pointed out that doing so is actually hurting us — and that we owe much of our nation’s economic success to more liberal immigration policies. Also the fact that practically everyone in the chamber and everyone in the country, other than indigenous people, Black people or those who are from Puerto Rico or Guam or another US territory are here because of immigration. And specifically, many of us are here because of the more liberal immigration policies of up until 1925 that allowed pretty much anyone (except the Chinese, because racism) to come here and work and build a life for themselves. […] [video at the link]
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez also pointed out that job openings are at a record high, that we need people to fill them, and that many right-wing states have even moved to bring back child labor in order to do so.
To be clear, most child labor victims in the United States are immigrant children — frequently unaccompanied minors or those who had been separated from their families at the border. But Republicans in states like Florida, Wisconsin, and Indiana are sick and tired of seeing these child immigrants take jobs from our American middle-schoolers and want to loosen up the child labor laws so that they, too, can be exploited by the capitalist machine. You know, instead of allowing more adults into the country.
Seems like not a great solution!
But speaking of family separation — it is only fair to point out that the Republicans had their, uh, moments during this hearing as well. [video at the link]
Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna had the courage to come out and openly say that she thinks family separation is great and that we should do more of it. She suggested that the children were only separated from those she referred to as their “quote, unquote parents” until our government could prove that they were actually the biological parents of the children and were not trafficking them.
Now, this actually used to be the case — people who came over here as families really only were separated when something like child trafficking was suspected. The difference, however, is that the Trump administration instituted a zero tolerance policy that required all families to be separated when parents were caught being here illegally. Many of these families were separated for years, causing untold amounts of trauma to the children, which is something that someone who was actually concerned about child welfare would be concerned about. And as of October, a thousand of the parents — who were deported without their children — have still never been found.
But while we’re here and talking about trafficking, please to enjoy this clip of Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Ohio) discussing with David Bier the fact that, despite the right-wing hysteria, it’s actually American citizens who are bringing fentanyl into the country — because it’s obviously way easier for them to get through security and the drug traffickers know that. [video at the link]
[…] Republicans are leaning as hard as they possibly can into stoking fears about immigration amongst the kind of people who pay a billionaire immigrant $8 a month so that they can be the first to tell AOC [on X, formerly Twitter] that she hates America. It’s best we be prepared for that.
Wasn’t the soviet lady in The Spy Who Loved Me designated Triple-X ?
New Yorker link
“How Trump Captured Iowa’s Religious Right.”
The state’s evangelical voters were once skeptical of the former President. Now they are among his strongest supporters.
Below, I have posted excerpts from a much longer article:
Where Homer Simpson went.
“Iconic Black Hole Pioneer Disproves The Existence of Singularities?”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=xnlIjiyhAWE&si=g79YtWVvMWD9IZTd
Lynna, OM @2
The masks have fallen off.
If Biden (and democracy) survives the next election, the religious right will have dug its own grave. Apart from rural areas there will be no young people joining and replacing the old.
Thank you, PZ, for giving The Infinite Thread a new lease on life.
For the convenience of readers, here are a few links back to XXIX
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2023/10/09/infinite-thread-xxix/comment-page-6/#comment-2206790
Bigoted Comedy Isn’t ‘Edgy Truth-Telling.’ It’s Just Mean.
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2023/10/09/infinite-thread-xxix/comment-page-6/#comment-2206788
UK accused of hypocrisy
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2023/10/09/infinite-thread-xxix/comment-page-6/#comment-2206786
Congressional leaders announce funding deal to avoid government shutdown
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2023/10/09/infinite-thread-xxix/comment-page-6/#comment-2206784
Dark money is flowing to groups trying to limit medication abortion. Leonard Leo is at the core
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2023/10/09/infinite-thread-xxix/comment-page-6/#comment-2206763
Biden’s plan extends solar to low-income people, EVs surge
They were wrongfully convicted. Now they’re denied compensation despite Michigan law
More at the link.
Trump shares a bizarre video declaring “GOD MADE TRUMP” – it’s worse than you think
Students build science identity through immersive research experience
.https://phys.org/news/2024-01-students-science-identity-immersive.html
“it’s worse than you think”
Nah. It’s not as bad as I thought.
(I do wish people didn’t project their ignorance unto others)
@birgerjohansson xxix,p6#449:
Amoral with proudly uncorrected biases.
‘Family Guy’ Is Still Just as Transphobic as Ever (2019)
Family Guy just backtracked on its promise to drop ‘gay jokes’ (2019)
Seth said to HollywoodReporter in 2022 (re trans topics, etc): “Look, there are always things that you would do differently when you look back at earlier points in your career. There isn’t a big change I would make.”
‘South Park’ Made It Cool Not to Care. Then The World Changed
South Park raised a generation of trolls
CA7746, that’s all just hyperbole. Don’t take it seriously. :)
(How do ya like it?)
Lynna, OM @ 5, that explains two ad campaigns I’ve been seeing inundating youtube. One, against solar in general, with all manner of outlandish claims for why solar is evil. The other, blathering about EV’s mystery battery failures that isn’t backed up with any factual reporting.
Gotta keep the fossil fuel industry happy, after all! And provide the additional benefit of cost savings on heating steel to heat treat it by turning earth into venus…
Seems seals can catch bird flu – and sadly it kills them :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-08/antarctic-bird-flu-h5n1-threat-scientists-fear-worst/103287708
The Peregrine Mission 1 robotic lunar lander has been successfully (so far anyhow) launched NASA live launch video for that here whilst we have a wikipage on it here :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peregrine_Mission_One
Plus this under ten minutes long Astrobotic’s Peregrine Mission 1, explained clip here by Spaceflight Now too.
Oh and also we have Scott Manley on Why Vulcan is the Most Important Rocket ULA Has Ever Built that being the rocket that has just launched this latestest lunar lander. 17 mins long.
StevoR @ 15
Thank you for the link!
.
‘The Constitution disqualifies Trump’: Famed conservative judge predicts SCOTUS ruling.
(I wish I was as certain the SCOTUS judges will be non-corrupt!)
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=pH5JdL8FGGo&si=GRiOCh2e5c43lSyY
StevoR, I was en route to work and could not watch the launch in real time.
Even if it is not a crewed mission, a craft designed for a crew landing on the moon is the first since Apollo 17 (I am old enough go have watched every Apollo launch since Apollo 8, and I would really have wanted to see this).
Somebody didn’t do the math.
God-emperors are far beyond mere math.
Or sense.
As well proved when he wanted to nuke a hurricane.
I love it when evil people make mistakes.
“Tories Select Disgraced MP’s Partner As Candidate”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=kfrwaYy1IPY&si=ALnFFS9CennLZ3WB
Never mind that a huge number of people -including conservatives- support the accusations against him, the local party will support the candidacy of his partner (who denies the allegations).
So they will be handicapped in an already difficult election, when tories are widely impopular and their rival party at the far right is also fielding a candidate.
May the US Republicans embrace the same kind of unfounded optimism!
StevoR @ 14
To simplify watching, I have added times for significant moments.
“First US Commercial Moon Launch: Astrobotic Peregrine Mission 1 (Official NASA broadcast)”
Take-off is at 50 minutes 15 seconds.
Mach 1 is reached 1 minute 10 seconds into the mission.
SRBs are separated at 1 minute 50 seconds. I always get surprised how time flies when watching a launch
.https://youtube.com/live/BWwnpVk6Wq4?si=K7Uxe2JPYey1fPaTååå
Cindy Morgan (Tron, 1981) has died. She was 69 years.
I fail to see why liberals are complaining about the threat of fascism and Christian nationalism when they don’t seem willing to do anything to actually stop them.
No. Voting isn’t going to stop them.
Ukrainian forces destroy Russian ‘satellite killer’ weapon ‘Triada’ in Donetsk sector
In 2024, what’s the way forward? | Bernie Sanders | The Guardian
.https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/08/bernie-sanders-democracy-biden-trump
Jodie Foster
.https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/jan/06/jodie-foster-interview-true-detective
Japan prosecutors make first arrest in financial scandal engulfing ruling party | Japan | The Guardian
.https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/08/yoshitaka-ikeda-arrest-japan-prosecutors-financial-scandal-prime-minister-fumio-kishida
Fed Up Prosecutors Stick The Final Dagger in Trump’s Business
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=81bE0onW0So&si=XXk9heeb6obZHUqK..
.How Powerful was Radagast?
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=3sf42w33wE4&si=_alqlESfwA_OTbUI
For April 8: https://www.astronomy.com/observing/20-of-the-best-places-to-view-the-2024-great-north-american-eclipse/
Republicans don’t have any damning evidence.
Trump’s relationship to “real.”
Link
Washington Post:
Link
The one good thing Trump did on Jan. 6 turns out to be a lie
I hope the conservatives on the Supreme Court take note.
Consider revising celibacy rule for Catholic priests, Vatican official says | Catholicism | The Guardian
.https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/08/consider-revising-celibacy-rule-catholic-priests-vatican-official-says
Speaking of judges:
Link
Cartoon: The outrage cycle
See also: https://www.msnbc.com/velshi
Claudine Gay’s case
BTW the celibacy was really because there were problems with inheritance etc and the celibacy was then retroactively justified ideologically by saying priests hanging out with women was inherently sinful because wimminz are oozing evil, or whatever.
The Catholic Church is not a bastion of clear thinking.
Ban on swastikas, Nazi salutes goes into effect in Australia
UN Asks Alabama To Please Not Suffocate Man To Death With Nitrogen Gas
https://www.wonkette.com/p/un-asks-alabama-to-please-not-suffocate
That does, in fact, sound a lot like torture.
@37: “The Catholic Church is not a bastion of clear thinking.”
Heh. Understatement.
re birgerjohansson @25: I have been looking forward to the new season of True Detective ever since I read that Jodie Foster was going to be starring in it. I have seen all three previous seasons of the show, and they were all interesting and compelling.
@ 38
GASP! What a horrible infringement of freedom of speech! How can Australia call itself a “democracy’ if Nazis aren’t allowed to wave their bloodly banner and spread their foul racist crap? Some needs to call the Down-under equivalent of the ACLU to sue on behalf of white supremacists everywhere!
Because fascists are people too.
Trump moves to dismiss Georgia election case on presidential immunity grounds
Ah ha ha ha ha.
US Mint releases 3 new coins
Oregon teacher finds chunk of fuselage from Boeing 737 Max 9 in his back yard | Air transport | The Guardian
.https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/08/boeing-737-max-9-fuselage-found-in-portland-back-yard
Two cellphones that fell out have been recovered.
In the preceding month, a cabin pressure warning light activated on three occasions.
In Germany nazi symbols have been banned since the war, for obvious historical reasons.
They are banned in Sweden, too.
The reasoning is, people who feel affinity with the fucking Austrian art-school reject are potential mega-war-criminals and – like that Norwegian mass murderer- their complaints about human rights are BS.
BTW at 5000 m altitude the air pressure is nearly half that at sea level.
A rapid pressure drop like that must have been painful, also you need to rapidly lose altitude even if 5000 m is generally not enough to lose consciousness.
.
At normal cruise altitude of 12000 m there would certainly have been fatalities.
The pressure gradient at the hole would have sucked out nearby passengers even if they had been wearing their seat belts.
Quickly grabbing oxygen masks would have been essential for surviving while the pilots quickly tried to reach low altitude.
I am reminded of the DC-10 that crashed in the late 1970s after a poorly designed cargo hatch was torn loose. The pressure gradient tore up the floor, where the hydraulic lines to the controls were mounted.
.Solid state battery design charges in minutes, lasts for thousands of cycles
https://techxplore.com/news/2024-01-solid-state-battery-minutes-thousands.html
If they really have solved the dendrite problem it is a BIG step forward.
Immunoengineering researchers decode the ‘cytokine storm’ in sepsis
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-01-immunoengineering-decode-cytokine-storm-sepsis.html
I lack medical training, but being able to prevent sepsis… that is a major achievement.
Pope Francis calls for a universal ban on surrogacy. He says it exploits mother and child
Is exploitation a bad thing? The Holy Roman Catholic Church has been exploiting its power over families for a century or more. By opposing effective birth control, they hope to get many more young Catholics.
Corrupt Chinese Officials Filled Missiles With Water, Report Says
It sounds so… Russian.
Newsom announces special election to fill McCarthy’s seat
Tanya Chutkan, the judge overseeing Trump’s federal election interference case, appears to be victim of ‘swatting’
Noah and Eli at God Awful Movies are torturing Dr. Cara Santa Maria with the film “E-motions 2.0”.
(I am a Patreon member but they will probably put this at Youtube in another day)
From Mano Singham:
“The further adventures of Kristina Karamo”
Did you know that Democrats are harvesting organs from children?
https://freethoughtblogs.com/singham/2024/01/08/the-further-adventures-of-kristina-karamo/#more-72826
.
StevoR, https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-67915696
GOP Secretary of State Melts Down When Asked To Explain Bid to Throw Biden Off Ballot
birgerjohansson @ 47, not that great a pressure change. The cabin altitude for US flights is between 8000 and 10000 feet. So, about a change from 10.1 – 10.9 PSI to 8 PSI, a 2 PSI change, sea level being 14.7 PSI. At 30000 feet, one is talking about 4.36 PSI.
And people skydive from 12000 – 18000 feet, with supplemental O2 at the higher altitudes, time of usable consciousness being much higher at 16000 feet, compared to 30000 feet. Figure around a half hour at 16000 feet, 1 – 3 minutes at 30000 feet, at 35000 feet 30 – 50 seconds, 40000 feet and you’re screwed at 15 – 20 seconds.
At high altitudes/low pressure, the blood gas exchange system essentially begins draining the blood of its gases, to a fair extent, nitrogen included, but CO2 and O2 both are quickly lost. Frostbite also becomes a major risk at any of those altitudes, with 35000 feet basically reaching dry ice temperatures.
Getting ejected, that’s as much flow vs surface area within the air flow, the closer to the hole, the greater the force.
That said, it’s likely my personal time of useful consciousness would be fairly, if not much lower than the average. At normal cabin pressurization levels, I tend to feel out of sorts, drained and have difficulty remaining awake. At cruising altitude, I’d likely be awakened by a depressurization event, loaded with adrenaline as my bloodstream is depleting atmospheric gases and if I managed to find my face with my mask, I’d be unlikely to remember to tug on the tubing to activate the oxygen generator. Which is one reason flight attendants have oxygen tanks to lug down the aisles, so that they can check that passengers are masked and have the generator activated.
https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/air-altitude-pressure-d_462.html
https://skybrary.aero/articles/time-useful-consciousness
A bit of trivia, the plug type door that fell off and was found weighs in around 60 pounds and images of NTSB personnel recovering it show it appearing quite intact.
Makes me wonder if teacher Bob emulated the 2001 scene when the apes found the monolith in their garden… ;)
Oh, nice video explaining the plug type door, its mounting and securing method.
https://youtu.be/maLBGFYl9_o
‘We are working-class women of color’: the long-shot socialist run for the White House
– Lengthy introduction failing to answer who, what, where, when why in efficient manner and proving that journalism is dead –
Trump claims he didn’t have ‘fair notice’ that Georgia actions could be illegal
Ukraine Update: The Ukrainian tank shuffle and the case of the missing Abrams
Roger Stone Plots Kidnapping/Assassination of Swalwell and Nadler With Police Officer.
From the Mediate article:
There’s also this:
Link
See the diagram. It states a clear message.
“Families will change dramatically over the years to come, says study”
https://phys.org/news/2024-01-families-years.html
This takes “shifty” to a new level.
‘Boris bolt’: LBC bolted down guest seat to stop former PM dodging cameras | Boris Johnson | The Guardian
.https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/jan/09/boris-bolt-lbc-bolted-down-guest-seat-to-stop-former-pm-dodging-cameras
“Trump’s Theory Of Magnetivity”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=rkIKEJPAUzM&si=DDv09xWOfrEy6m1b
Hm. I note there are 95 matches for ‘Trump’ on this page as I type this.
Constantly in the conversation, he is.
Either a coincidence, or he’s a fucking genius at being in the conversation.
—
P.T. Barnum: “There’s no such thing as bad publicity”.
Oscar Wilde: “There’s only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”
Ah well.
(PS “There is no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary.” — Brendan Behan)
I would love if SSAT disappears into obscurity. He has been polluting the media on a daily basis since 2015.
.
I do not pity the NRA, but the idea of “designated contrarians” is a good one. Also, Elon Musk would hate it which is another argument in its favor.
Both the Catholic Church and the Israeli military use it, with varying success.
“Opinion: ‘Designated contrarians’ could disrupt the kind of consensus and groupthink that contributed to the NRA’s economic woes”
https://phys.org/news/2024-01-opinion-contrarians-disrupt-kind-consensus.html
Trump Slammed For Admitting He Hopes Economy Crashes This Year | HuffPost Latest News
.https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-economy-crash_n_659cdfece4b075f4cfd3b5c2
Gabriel Attal: Macron’s pick for PM is France’s youngest at 34
South Korea passes law banning dog meat trade
The list of people Republicans are currently trying to impeach. or whom they want to impeach, is growing:
Link
Republicans want to impeach:
President Biden
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin
Attorney General Merrick Garland
Vice President Kamala Harris
Secretary of State Antony Blinken
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg
Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona
FBI Director Chris Wray
Matthew Graves, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia
Where do they find the time?
Cause of Sinéad O’Connor’s death ruled as natural causes
.https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/jan/09/cause-of-sinead-oconnor-death-natural-causes
DC Circuit Hears Trump Argument That He’s Above The Law
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/live-blog/dc-circuit-trump-immunity
Posted by readers of the article:
Followup to comment 74.
Cartoon: Bribery emoluments
If anyone wants to listen to the oral arguments before the DC Circuit Court on Trump’s immunity claim it’s going on now here.
Cartoon: Billionaire buttinsky on campus
Followup to comments 74 and 75.
Trump’s Lawyer Argues Presidents CAN Order Seal Team 6 To Assassinate Political Rivals? YES!
Posted by a reader of the article:
That is not the same as criminal prosecution.
Biden Stares Down White Supremacy Without Blinking During Fiery Speech At South Carolina’s Mother Emanuel Church
https://www.wonkette.com/p/biden-stares-down-white-supremacy
He also fends off idiot hecklers.
Video of Biden’s speech is available at the link.
@75: Buying time
Since the arguments are so bad, the appeals court could grant a summary judgment against, which need not take long at all (a week?). And then the Supremes could refuse to hear an appeal, which would also be fast.
IANAL, yada yada yada
X promises peer-to-peer payments, AI advances in 2024
Ha. Like I would entrust my money to a drug-addled Nazi.
Fani Willis Faces Being Disqualified From Donald Trump Case
Even if true, I don’t see how a relationship between two prosecutors would constitute a conflict of interest.
That sounds far-fetched. The investigation and prosecution are far advanced, and several defendants have already flipped.
Just-Released Report Outlines Troubling Trend Toward Religious Extremism in State Legislatures
Trump fuels fire with absurd conspiracy theory about FBI, Jan. 6
Why do so many Republicans believe a bizarre conspiracy theory about the FBI and Jan. 6? Probably because Donald Trump keeps telling them it’s true.
Makes my brain hurt.
X Bans and Then Unbans Journalists and Podcasters in Twitter’s Latest Free Speech Massacre
Don’t you love how “free speech” works?
Oh, FFS. Well, reality strikes again.
Link
Posted by readers of the article:
Watch MSNBC guest […] ‘Jesus is not an ally of the Republican Party’
Video at the link. Scroll down to view.
Ray Epps, a target of Jan. 6 conspiracy theories, gets a year of probation for his Capitol riot role
Greg Pence to retire from Congress
Dean Phillips Offers Dark Quip After Zero Voters Turn Out for Campaign Event
Re: Lynna, OM @ #87….
McCarthy might have survived if he hadn’t stabbed the Democrats in the back after every time he made an agreement with them. I don’t know if Johnson learned that particular lesson. IF (and only if) he keeps the deals he’s made, enough of the Democrats might vote to keep him on when (not if) the radical fringe right tries to oust him. If not…it’s his bed. He made, he gets to sleep in it.
New Mexico man pleads guilty in drive-by shootings on homes of Democratic lawmakers
GOP effort to impeach official who removed Trump from Maine ballot voted down
whheydt @92: “McCarthy might have survived if he hadn’t stabbed the Democrats in the back after every time he made an agreement with them.”
Good point.
Reginald 289, seems like appropriate punishment. Because Ray Epps was not put in jail, I expect conspiracy theorists who claimed (wrongly) that he was an FBI agent are going to be very hot and bothered.
(this news item by Sabine Hossenfelder does not seem controversial)
This New Semiconductor Could Revolutionize Computing
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=oXBtPmVrES4&si=anLcOOLB5X1GErcA
Associated Press:
Scientists Discover Dozens of Unknown Bacteria Species in Hospital Patients
God Awful Movies 438 E-motions 2.0
Noah and Eli torment Cara Santa Maria with a horrible “documentary” that provides an insight into a grifter operation using every alternative medicine trope in the book.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=wD2LWvSJQBo&si=Yi_cHpz5hJJdp_Bq
RFK Jr. Didn’t Want To Go To RFK Jr.’s Birthday Anyway!
https://www.wonkette.com/p/rfk-jr-didnt-want-to-go-to-rfk-jrs
Update:
New York Times link
Yep, this guy was photographed sitting next to George Santos many times? Buddies? Birds of a criminal feather?
Link
There are also questions about campaign finance violations because … of course there are.
birgerjohansson @96, yes.
I note however that she mentions Moore’s Law, but (as is common) neglects its more relevant cousin, Koomey’s law which is more relevant to power dissipation. Which was Seymour Cray’s problem, back in the day.
SEC says it did not yet approve Bitcoin ETF, X account was compromised
Trump spreads birther lie about Nikki Haley
House Republican to file impeachment articles against Lloyd Austin
I guess being sick is now a ‘high crime or misdemeanor’
Louisville Republicans unveil ‘Safer Kentucky Act,’ a sweeping bill aimed at public safety
Who wants to tell them the GOP can no longer claim to be the ‘Law and Order’ party?
Judge rejects Trump 14th Amendment claim in Nevada by GOP political competitor
I’d say any venue is appropriate for a protest against the enabling of genocide.
KG, yeah, well… wonkette.
’nuff said.
Note to PZ or anyone else with the keys to the blog: in the sidebar, the links to Coyot.es Network and Coyote Crossing are now redirected to Diario del Sur.
@Reginald Selkirk, 105: I wonder if Nikki Haley expected the leopard to eat her face.
Lauren Boebert’s ex-husband arrested after Colorado restaurant row
All India Pregnant Job service: Indian men conned by ‘impregnating women’ scam
“Biden vs. Trump: Whose Economic Plan Is Better for You? | Robert Reich”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=oEMn40L5UN4&si=Uwlh98hkSNoOYCE4
Hey guys:
I’m just posing here to let everyone know that I’m going to be leaving the blog for an indefinite period. It’s nothing anyone said or did here. You’re all fine people, better than I’ll ever be. However, it’s obvious that my daily intake of political and religious news and opinion leaves me angry, terrified, and frustrated and, as many have witnessed here, I have a nasty habit of violent rage posting in response. I’ll rant and rave, coming to the most extreme opinions because “fuck those who disagree, I’M RIGHT!'” and I in my anger I consider “nuance” to be motivated obfuscation and an excuse for hypocrisy while “civility” and seeking “peace” is just cowardice in the face of pure evil which needs to be destroyed before it destroys me. I double, triple, quadruple-down until I rage quit or exhaust myself. Then, only after coming down for my furor do I look back on what I did and realize Yeah. I shouldn’t have done that.
It’s not just here, but other online forums as well. This isn’t the only blog where I unintentionally made a foolish spectacle of myself because I don’t know how keep my emotions in check and a part of me doesn’t want to because it thinks is makes me righteous and genuine as opposed to others who prefer a slow route to progress. It’s affected my work. It’s affected my social connections. It’s started to affect my overall health. While I might think I’m in the right, my behavior isn’t doing me any favors. Therefore, I’ve decided to avoid political and philosophical media and to stop posting on political and religious sites until such time that I can find a way to cope with my mental health issues and behave or the threat of American fascism somehow vanishes and I can approach politics and atheism from a place of safety rather than one of triggered panic.
Until then, I’ll see you all later.
@116. Hang in there, Akira, and get yourself the way you need to be. We’re pulling for you.
Hunter Biden makes surprise appearance at House committee hearing to hold him in contempt
Ancient letter written by Roman emperor leads to “monumental” discovery
Akira, @ 116: I hope the best for you. I, too, wonder sometimes whether my consumption of political news and commentary is good for me, and have occasionally pulled away for a while. I don’t often comment here for similar, deliberate reasons. But
I deeply value the insights I get here from other commenters, particularly on this thread, including yours. Take care!
Akira@116,
Best wishes. I think you’ve made a wise decision.
Akira @116, your post demonstrates a lot of self awareness. Sounds like you have decided on a course that will be best for you. Take care.
Good luck Akira, there has certainly been long periods when news had a bad effect on my mental condition.
I only hope 2025 will see the end of critters like SSAT and Boris Johnson.
.
Nobody understands law & order better than these FoxNews crime experts …
😊
.https://youtube.com/shorts/SzeVdRzd6es?si=D5J9ye-N91e4AmUq
Julie Chavez Rodriguez, President Joe Biden’s campaign manager:
Yes, Trump did say that he hope the economy crashes, and he added: “I hope it’s going to be during this next 12 months, because I don’t want to be Herbert Hoover.”
Akira @116: All the best.
Best wishes, Akira.
Washington Post:
David Kurtz:
Good segment from Chris Hayes last night:
More in the video, which is available at the links:
https://twitter.com/allinwithchris/status/1744888226219770107
https://www.msnbc.com/all
“I believe people when they say that they want to hurt us or kill us. I don’t think they’re idle threats.”
—Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Jill Karofsky
Judge rescinds permission for Trump to give his own closing argument at his civil fraud trial
Link
Yellen says 100,000 firms have joined a business database aimed at unmasking shell company owners
Fox News floated the theory that Taylor Swift is a Pentagon asset.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/is-taylor-swift-a-pentagon-asset
@Akira MacKenzie
Your health matters. Be well.
Republican governors in 15 states reject summer food money for kids.
Washington Post link
Israel-Hamas War
U.S. and U.K. Shoot Down ‘Complex’ Houthi Attack in Red Sea
New York Times link
Al Shabab Terrorist Group Captures U.N. Helicopter in Somalia
Somali officials said the helicopter was carrying nine passengers, one of whom was killed.
New York Times link
Israel faces a genocide case, and comments on displacing Gazans could complicate its defense
Right-wing members of Israel’s coalition government are pushing proposals to relocate Palestinians to other countries, an act watchdogs say could be a war crime. Israel says the South African case is “atrocious and preposterous.”
.Rep. slams GOP for Hunter hearing with Hunter in attendance
.https://youtube.com/shorts/HlTqpJkoMO4?si=qkGkchoQG1MIJBtr
Trump lawyer goes on defense after assassination comment: ‘He didn’t kill anyone’
Habba, who very stupid but is a lawyer, should read up on teh concept of felony murder.
Did I mention that Habba is stupid? Of course a hypothetical is something that does not currently exist. They are brought in to elucidate principles and boundaries of claims that are being made.
Cartoon: American roulette
Republican Rep. Nancy Mace said some incredibly dumb stuff, and then Democrats called her on it:
Link for comment 141
Expert (Me): Copying Big Chunks Of Wikipedia Is Definitely Plagiarism, Whether In First-Year Comp Or Your Dissertation
https://www.wonkette.com/p/expert-me-copying-big-chunks-of-wikipedia
How are we even having this discussion? Oh, right: Bigots.
In order to be a billionaire, is it a requirement that one also be stupid/ignorant?
Former N.J. governor Chris Christie ends long-shot 2024 bid
Washington Post link
NYC decision to move migrants from tent shelter to a school amid storm draws fire
Nearly 2,000 asylum-seekers were bused to a Brooklyn high school to ride out the storm, drawing complaints from some parents, politicians and immigration advocates.
Some reports claimed that there were no beds at the high school, and then the migrants were moved in the wee hours of the morning. Must have been exhausting for the families.
New York Times:
The Hill:
‘Frostbite in under a minute’: Calgary temperatures to plunge even deeper this week
Elon Musk Seems to Endorse Tweet Saying Students at Black Colleges Have Low IQs
I would cross out “Seems to” in that headline. Yes, Mush endorsed that racist comment.
“Keanu Reeves and China Miéville to release collaborative novel The Book of Elsewhere” | Books | The Guardian
(I have tried to read China Mieville. He is too weird for me.)
.https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/jan/10/keanu-reeves-and-china-mieville-to-release-collaborative-novel-the-book-of-elsewhere
“The social housing secret: how Vienna became the world’s most livable city” | Social housing | The Guardian
.https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/jan/10/the-social-housing-secret-how-vienna-became-the-worlds-most-livable-city
“I thought 2024 would be grim and predictable, then I saw the words ‘secret illegal tunnel under Brooklyn’ | Emma Brockes | The Guardian
.https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/10/new-york-secret-illegal-brooklyn-tunnel-religious-diggers
Take care, Akira – may you and
/orour country/world find peace sooner rather than later.Chris Christie drops out of the 2024 presidential race
Hubble Finds Weird Home of Farthest Fast Radio Burst
Small-town Nebraska voters remove school board member who tried to pull books from libraries
Meet the transgender Space Force rocket scientist who’s unimpressed by Libs of TikTok’s attacks
Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos targeted for recall for not supporting Trump
Ukraine Update: The new axis of evil
Followup to comment 159.
Posted by readers of the article:
Link
“Ukraine Update: The new axis of evil”
That’s not an update, that’s just an opinion piece.
I gave up on it pretty quickly, given the quality of that opinion.
Yet the author used it as the title of their opinion.
Weak propaganda, strong hypocrisy.
Cringe indeed.
(Yes, CA7746 — hyperbole! That excuses everything, right?)
Link
Take care, Akira.
AI flips the script on fingerprint lore – maybe they’re not so unique after all
And Israel is busy ensuring there will be a copious supply of Palestinian bodies!
Link
Bomb Threat Reported At Home Of Trump Trial Judge
Boring and not worth watching in my opinion.
Trump, at his Fox town hall event tried to “make light of an earlier pledge to be motived by a desire for retribution,” but then he repeated his plan to be a dictator for one day.
Link
Covid kills nearly 10,000 in a month as holidays fuel spread worldwide, WHO says.
Washington Post link
So, we don’t really know the extent of the problem because people have stopped tracking and reporting … but we know enough to know that the situation is getting worse.
And we know that the situation is bad in Russia.
Followup to comment 169.
Haley and DeSantis did agree on immigration:
JFC.
Link
FCC starts shutting down affordable internet program as GOP refuses to fund it
Trump tells Fox News crowd how ‘proud’ he is of killing Roe
Research reveals mice without immune cells show no SARS-CoV-2 symptoms
.https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-01-reveals-mice-immune-cells-sars.html
.
New smoke exposure model may help determine the effects of cannabis on consumers more accurately
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-01-exposure-effects-cannabis-consumers-accurately.html
NB!
Scathing Atheist 569 Poisonous Edition
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=ND1XjTDZvtg&si=0nyDFbBZLfbiKArk
.
Christie Drops Out | Trump: A President Can Assassinate Rivals | Celebs Ruin RFK Jr;s Birthday
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=lvhDoDqRnlc&si=UUvnX6n1O_kzi3Xr
Kari Lake is in deep defamation doo doo after Court of Appeals ruling
Iran seizes oil tanker off Oman in dispute with US
Another Moms For Liberty school board member is cancelled by woke ideas about shoplifting.
Oldest Fossilized Skin Discovered, Clocks in at 300 Million Years Old
A snake’s teeth predict how fast it will strike
Bulky additives could make cheaper solar cells last longer
https://techxplore.com/news/2024-01-bulky-additives-cheaper-solar-cells.html
https://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/news/2024/01/11/declare_an_uncertainty_level_due_to_glacial_flood_i/
Grimsvotn is underneath an ice cap/glacier, so eruptions tend to throw a lot of ash in the air when the magma hits the ice.
Followup and update for comment 129.
Trump rants that New York civil trial is a ‘fraud on me’ after judge allows him to speak during closing arguments
As Trump began complaining about the prosecutors who brought the case, the judge told Trump’s lawyers to “please control your client.”
FFS. Far rightwing doofuses threatening to shut down the government … again.
Report from NBC News:
Associated Press:
Trump cannot legally qualify for Nevada’s 2024 primary ballot
NBC News:
Link
Texas Gov. Abbott laments he can’t shoot immigrants crossing border
“Trump made an incredible political mistake last night”
.https://youtube.com/shorts/7sSXinOMyRk?si=qjjFFI6n0pu5WfGs
&
Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-us-canada-67952029
Bold original.
@189. Lynna, OM :
So the reason Greg Abbott isn’t a murderer is becuase he fears he’d be caught and charged NOT because he thinks murder (of unarmed people who are no physical threat to him and haven’t done anything wrong) – is wrong?
This man just basically said he’d like to kill people if he can get away with it and he holds the highest office in Texas. Wow.
Will there be any politicla and legal consequences for that staggering admission? I wish I could say there will be. I wish there would be. I doubt it.
Ah, yes… Tomahawks.
As per Wikipedia:
Huge ancient city found in the Amazon
US and UK launch strikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen
Champagne bottle plugs hole in boat after Marlin attack
First the orcas, and now the marlins.
Democrat announces long-shot campaign for North Dakota’s only US House seat
The Proud Boys are collapsing: Surprise! Legal consequences do hurt authoritarian movements
For people with some interest and attention span:
Justice Beyond Borders: Prosecuting War Crimes
https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-fact-check-e829d1dddcc2dad0f5f99cf62ef353ad
Microscopic hero: Bacteria holds promise in rare earth element processing
Weird Ancient Writing Technique
.https://youtube.com/shorts/3_VYLJwyvkI?si=7LXTpXT3RfInWWKs
Mindfulness-oriented recovery enhancement boosts methadone treatment.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-01-mindfulness-recovery-boosts-methadone-treatment.html
Study suggests need to produce and disseminate information on over-the-counter drug abuse.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-12-disseminate-over-the-counter-drug-abuse.html
@21. birgerjohansson : “To simplify watching, I have added times for significant moments. Thanks.
Peaceful, scientific exploration and boldly going into The Black and the binary world we are almost co-planets with but for a little more lunar mass. I love that and think it exemplifies what we do at our best as a species. I wish things had worked out better and peregrine 1 gone to plan.
@ 56. John Morales : Yeah. I followed that and, well, it sucks but Astrobotic are learning and trying and worth a go. Next time. Or the time after maybe. Eventually, if they keep going and keep learning anyhow. Example :SpaceX. It sometines takes a lotta tries..
@72. Lynna OM :
Well, it does cut into their valuable watching Quanon*, PragerU-said-wha.. & various other extremistó’
de-la extremists fringe Conspiracists youtube clips watching and lobbyists order taking-time but, hey. its worth it ain’t it?
(Sarc tag really needed?)
I mean how else are they gunna waste their time and prove that Democracy and actually having govts govern is a terrible idea and convince their bat guano-addicted hyper-uber-mega-ultra partisan base that they can be voted in again to do ..the same crap again which is .. somehow..worthwhile?
Reginald @198, that’s good news.
StevoR @192: “This man just basically said he’d like to kill people if he can get away with it and he holds the highest office in Texas. Wow.”
Unfortunately, that’s correct. Unethical would be an understatement.
From a news summary posted by Steve Benen:
Source is Ron DeSantis has no problem with mass removals of Palestinians from Gaza
Excerpt:
DeSantis sounded bad, is bad.
Link
REPORTER: Do you agree with your lawyers that you could not be prosecuted if you ordered Seal Team 6 to kill a political opponent?
TRUMP: A president has to have immunity
Hayes: We are already living with a version of Trump’s ‘SEAL Team 6’ argument
The video is 8:52 minutes long, and is very good.
Chris Hayes: “The banal, daily version of those politics is here already. It’s not a hypothetical. That version is: people that cross Donald Trump in pursuit of holding accountable law face constant threats of violence and intimidation and harassment, and sometimes actual violence.”
Kyrsten Sinema finds a new way to vote against Democrats
Link
Good news.
Core-shell ‘chemical looping’ boosts efficiency of greener approach to ethylene production
https://phys.org/news/2024-01-core-shell-chemical-looping-boosts.html
Governor Sununu of NH Pledges to Support Trump if He’s the Republican Nominee, Even if Trump is Convicted of a Felony
Rick Hasen / January 12, 2024
State of the Republican Party today:
Election Law Blog
Thousands of “ice roses” form on the surface on a lake in west Sweden.
.https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/vast/vaderfenomenet-sjon-i-partille-full-av-tusentals-isrosor.
ABC News
Americans divided on how SCOTUS should handle Trump ballot access: POLL
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear ballot access arguments on Feb. 8
By Gary Langer / January 12, 2024
This is a very fascinating paper as far as the concepts go. I have not wrapped my brain around it because of other things but I want to. Single eyes becoming two eyes. Relevance to the pineal gland, a former eye.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7531155/
Of course, the Australian lungfish genome has to be the biggest!
“What the lungfishes’ genome teaches us about the vertebrates’ conquest of land”
https://phys.org/news/2021-01-lungfishes-genome-vertebrates-conquest.html
Followup to tomh @213.
Link
Cartoon: MAGA hostages
Link
Texas And Border Patrol Now In Armed Standoff With Each Other, Jefferson Davis Unavailable For Comment Because He’s Dead
https://www.wonkette.com/p/texas-and-border-patrol-now-in-armed
Judge orders Trump to pay nearly $400,000 for New York Times’ legal fees
Followup to comment 221.
Posted by readers of the article:
Maryland elections board member charged with participation in Capitol riot
Washington Post:
The children are squabbling again.
Another bad idea being marketed on TikTok:
New York Times link
Telescope Error Leads to a Discovery of a Mindblowing (primordial) Galaxy J0613+52
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=HeMlpsypaes&si=Z7MglkPh5tKngbNF
Synagogue tunnels discovered in NY (antisemites freak out) , Pope calls to ban surrogacy and much more.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=2gSkfX3cIuQ&si=d8qwogS-AIVsaSQO
Sooo … we have discovered the tunnel network where ze joos are hiding all that gold they are hoarding… or has the Bilderberg Group made off with it?
Florida school bans dictionaries.
NB!
This Simple Test Could Find Half of All Cancers
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=amryk13yP9s&si=ueVkf2ADTmRyj8un
[meta]
Birger, be aware that stupid title or not, clickbait or not, I shan’t be clicking on those links where you include the parameters about who, from which page, and how the link was shared; I really dislike providing my personal info to the engines beyond what I must. Not gonna bother to explain why, but it should be obvious.
Told you already — but again: the
siparameter is purely for tracking and for analytics.Here, for you:
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=amryk13yP9s&si=ueVkf2ADTmRyj8un
and
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=amryk13yP9s
are the same video, only the latter lacks the tracking stuff.
John Morales
Thank you for the info.
BTW
The cancer link is about a certain transposon, whose products show up in half of all cancers. Legit science.
Apostate prophet has a fun podcast: social media claimed aliens with cloaking devices were attacking a mall, then religious nuts like Ali Dawa got on the bandwagon and claimed it was djinn! It is the muslim analog of “alien abductions are really demons!”
It is like one of the better episodes of God Awful Movies.
‘Jinns Are Fighting AMERICA! Muslim Preacher EXPOSES the TRUTH’ 😊
.https://youtube.com/live/jcmIZq2sUuc
[thank you, Birger. Gentleman, you]
Myself, @ 233
Hey muslims, leave alien mischief alone. The Christians called dibs!
With all this shit going down ‘reptilian’ David Icke is looking better.
Not because he is less deranged or bigoted but because the rest of the world is chucking up worse people.
Maybe I should go with the flow and become an omni-bigot*. Or do a Qanon thing and out-crazy everyone.
Like, the slow mail deliveries are caused by the evil spirits trapped underneath the volcanos by galactic warlords. I am practically in the running for a post in the Michigan GOP.
The world falling apart? It’s not the Jews. Its the eskimos!
CNBC:
Good news.
NBC News:
Link
Associated Press:
Ukraine Update: Victory in north as tough fight continues at Krynky, by Mark Sumner
It’s weird to watch a wounded tank lumber around like that.
Mostly good news:
U.S. Strikes at Houthis in Yemen for a Second Day
New York Times
The additional round of strikes aimed to further degrade the Houthis’ ability to carry out more attacks in the Red Sea, according to two American officials.
Mentioned the Golden Pea Bee in my comment here :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2024/01/12/code-415/#comment-2207451
So thought I’d share this – Bringing the Golden Pea Bee back to the ‘burbs clip by Green Adelaide lasting just under 2 minutes with some superb close up footage.
A charming little video to counterbalance the misery: A rottweiler and a black leopard react to a curious fox.
“Guests have come to panther Luna again” 🙈😸
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=vvjLAMU1Efw
Study: Centre-Left Don’t Win Votes With Rightwing Policies
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=EQ0vSAHAcXc
Rage and vice signalling: “Evangelical leaders lose influence as followers find new savior in Trump”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=NDPfl6KIQqI
Veteran: Why The Vietnamese Hated Americans…
.https://youtube.com/shorts/GffSA8y9tMs?si=FqDa2-q2lJGEQf0x
Ukrainian Hacker Group Takes Down Moscow ISP As a Revenge For Kyivstar Cyber Attack
(sounds of carneval in the street, fireworks going off) 🎆🍾🥰😁
“Tory Government Ended By Maths”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=sCWGfikGn_k
Addendum to 249:
“Best Carnival Party Music” | Brazilian Music 🎉🍻🐬😛
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=m1E6L6zphZY
Here are the “shadow aliens” BS that got conspiracy nutters fired up.
“Rumors of ‘shadow aliens’ at Bayside Marketplace go viral”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ek_8t1sdvGc
Governors Are Increasingly Undermining Ballot Measures That Win
IRS has collected more from rich tax cheats as its funding is threatened yet again
The aliens turn up 48 seconds in, delivering well-deserved mockery
“Trump Blurts out his Biggest Wish, Congress Collapses in Chaos” | Alien Super Show
(the intern only got a 2D office)
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=zFTtOnafygY
Followup to comment 253.
Posted by readers of the article:
Not Real News
Republicans try to block Biden administration plan to cut money for anti-abortion counseling centers
The Orange Skidmark loses another lawsuit I’d never heard of
Posted by readers of the article:
Bill O’Reilly Is Furious As His Own Titles Get Removed After Supporting Florida Book Bans
Cartoon: Boeing goes immunity
Reginald @257, those “crisis pregnancy centers” are a religious/rightwing/patriarchal scam. “Crisis Pregnancy Centers” harm women. The Biden administration is right to cut off their funding.
Followup to comment 252: Kansans Voted to Protect Abortion Rights. Republicans Are Still Trying to Ban Them.
Tucker Carlson Planning To Invade Canada
https://www.wonkette.com/p/tucker-carlson-planning-to-invade
Congressman Jared Moskowitz is incredibly cool. Why did I overlook this when it came out four days ago?
“Democratic Star Destroys Trump and GOP Stunts, Right on Target” | Alien Super Show
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=4lQHgiQnB5E
“Sanders warns Biden: address working-class fears or risk losing to demagogue | US elections 2024 | The Guardian”
A valid warning! 🚨
.https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/13/sanders-warns-biden-working-class-voters-presidential-election
Wind turbines are friendlier to birds than oil-and-gas drilling
ROFL!
Bill O’Reilly Is Furious As His Own Titles Get Removed After Supporting Florida Book Bans
.https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bill-oreilly-books-removed-florida-ban_n_65a29bf8e4b06444b222f90e
Biden Official McGurk Pushing Controversial Post-Gaza Plan
.https://www.huffpost.com/entry/biden-saudi-israel-gaza-brett-mcgurk_n_65a19ee2e4b07bd6950cd152
‘It is a time of witch hunts in Israel’: Teacher held in solitary confinement for posting concern for Gaza deaths
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/13/it-is-a-time-of-witch-hunts-in-israel-teacher-held-in-solitary-confinement-for-posting-concern-about-gaza-deaths
The IRS has collected more than $500 million in back taxes from delinquent millionaires
Taiwan elects William Lai president in historic election
Russian infrastructure not looking good: Tens of thousands shiver with no heat in Russian cities, as steaming hot water floods the streets
Jedediah Britton-Purdy of The Atlantic:
Commentary and more Britton-Purdy quotes from Wonkette:
https://www.wonkette.com/p/atlantic-writer-just-doesnt-know
Washington Post link
Navy SEALs missing at sea after ship-boarding mission off Somalia
Congressional leaders reach short-term spending deal to keep government open until March
Some parts of the federal government were set to run out of money on Jan. 19.
Meanwhile, Marjorie Taylor Greene and other rightwing fanatics are threatening to oust Mike Johnson simply because he made an agreement.
Link
I am in the 20 below zero wind-chill area of the country. It feels dangerously cold. My furnace is working hard. Long may it live.
More details:
Long COVID fatigue linked to malfunctioning mitochondria
Trump’s past: Three sexual predators in the same photo.
“Trump’s Horrific Past is Back to Haunt Him”
Goddammit! I forgot to make sure the link would not do that. It is soon two in the morning, sorry.
Well, this is horrific :
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-67944614
Headline : TB Joshua exposé: How the disgraced pastor faked his miracles
Plus :
In addition to :
Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-67944614
On one level I have to say “of course” because, well, of course but, OTOH, still how fucking awful. Also how many other televangelists and “miracle-workers” elsewhere are using the same techniques and how likely is that they’ll eventually be exposed and revealed for the evil, manipulative frauds they are?
A good conclusion & thoughtful article on homelessness inthe USA here via a passing 2024 timepoint in the alternative history now that is Star Trek : Deep Space 9 :
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20240109-star-trek-the-deep-space-nine-episode-that-predicted-a-us-crisis
ISW calls Ukraine disabling over 20 Russian missiles with EW stations a turning point
Female saboteurs who poisoned 46 Russian soldiers in Crimea are on the run after shoot-out with police, say reports
Virginia county admits election tally in 2020 shorted Joe Biden
Norway’s Deep-Sea Mining Decision Is a Warning
WIRED link
Politicians claim the move could provide vital minerals for the green transition. Critics say opening up exploration creates geopolitical headaches and is environmentally unsound.
Signs Suggest ISIS-K Is Growing In Strength, Further Inflaming Middle East
Cartoon: Trump’s weapon of choice
NB: why people oppose new ideas. My comment- this is relevant to why people oppose societal change.
“The fate of novel ideas: Scholar investigates factors that thwart potential innovations from gaining acceptance”
.https://phys.org/news/2024-01-fate-ideas-scholar-factors-thwart.html
Link
https://www.wonkette.com/p/did-nikki-haley-unleash-blizzard
Too much stupidity. I can’t deal with it this morning. Stay warm.
Followup to comment 286.
And this morning The New York Times is featuring an article titled “How College-Educated Republicans Learned to Love Trump Again.”
Excerpt:
JFC
In fairness, the article focuses mostly on why some Republican voters have rejected DeSantis and Haley, and have therefore come back around to being Trump voters. Still an article full of alarming bullshit, with no factchecking of the bullshit.
Josh Marshall, Reaping the Harvest
What Actually Happens to Your Cat on Catnip
(catnip, silver vine and valerian are ‘cat attractants’ )
Reginald Selkirk @ 279, likely they interfered with the missiles by either jamming or hijacking GLONASS signaling.
EW isn’t only jamming, it’s hijacking, corrupting and everything in between. Unlikely that they hacked 20 missiles or more, not at even cruise missile speeds, but overcoming the old Soviet GLONASS signaling and possibly, encryption is possible.
OT a little, considering @ 287, it was windy yesterday during the rain, 35 MPH gusts and all. Today, we’ve got even higher winds and it’s sunny, given the whitecaps I’m seeing on two foot waves, I’d put the winds at 35 – 45 MPH. My normally windproof windows are wolf whistling at me.
Gonna have to buy my windows glasses.
They’re talking an inch of snow Tuesday, Monday night half to an inch, so it’s just broom sweeping away snow. Why, one would almost think it’s winter!
As for the idiot and HAARP, that was transferred to the University of Alaska decades ago, so I guess it’s Alaska trying to push their Democratic Party agenda – both Democrats… After all, anyone not MAGA is a Democrat to them. She’ll probably next claim Haley and DeSantis are really partners with Biden.
Re.@ 290
More cheerful animals – I will be more careful about the link this time. Fur farm rescue foxes.
“Ruby Fox the hair stylist”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=WlKeY6YshhA
.
Lynna, OM @ 287
Nikki Haley is fucking up our weather in northern Sweden as well!
Maybe the Repubs can pay ze joos to warm the the land, you know, lasers.
https://grapevine.is/news/2024/01/14/eruption-has-begun-north-of-grindavik/
Latest eruption in Iceland has started destroying houses.
Me @ 292
Ruby Fox yelps louder than a MAGAhead that sees a brown-skinned immigrant with a well-paid job!
Whheydt @ 293
When a lava stream is near the sea or other sources of water they can pump water through fire hoses to spray the lava and slow it down a bit. Sadly Grindavik seems geographically challenged in terms of water.
Re: birgerjohansson @ #295…
You’re thinking about what Iceland did to the eruption at in the Westman Islands, which resulted in not only saving the port, but actually improving it. Grindavik has plenty of sea water. It’s a fishing port. It’s just that the fissure eruption started something like 100m from the nearest house, and with very fluid lava. Really wasn’t time to implement a water cooling solution.
Whheydt @ 296
Thanks for the info!
.
Britain: You will be aghast to learn that a regressive monster with blood on her hands may have lied!
“Priti Patel’s Post Office Publicity Stunt” #shorts
.https://youtube.com/shorts/-op1F7BjD18
The people coming to the Iowa caucus will crowd indoors to escape the cold. It would be very bad if someone carrying an easily transmitted disease- say, dengue fever- was to attend the event, hint, hint.
A fun thing about dengue fever – if you get one variant, you will not be immune to the other variants. Too bad if the congressmen lose their majority at critical moments because of repeated infections.
This could be prevented by face masks but True Believers know that is just a commie ruse.
The Price of Netanyahu’s Ambition
New Yorker link
Amid war with Hamas, a hostage crisis, the devastation of Gaza, and Israel’s splintering identity, the Prime Minister seems unable to distinguish between his own interests and his country’s.
Excerpts from a longer article by David Remnick:
Link
“NASA Is Giving Money To Develop These Insane New Technologies”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=WFER_6uPwIk
Ah well, I shall never know what these alleged Insane New Technologies are.
(clickbait, that is)
Yes, well; dengue is transmitted by mosquitos. Not many of those in Iowa in January.
Another interesting thing about dengue: A second infection with a different strain tends to produce much worse symptoms. The first infection primes the immune system in a way that goes badly when the second infection hits.
link
Reginald Selkirk @ 303
Damn! Maybe if I insert dengue genetic material in stomach flu…
John Morales @ 302
Scott Manly is one of the more credible podcasters although some of the technologies seem a bit ‘far out’. But I like the lunar optical interferometer.
.
Mike Sadler obituary | Second world war
Last original member of the SAS who used the stars to navigate across the north African desert during the second world war
.https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/14/mike-sadler-obituary
John Morales @ 302
I forgot to mention “Venus surface sample return”. 😊
More background stories about Trump’s creepy past.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=hE9bVL9skIo
Birger, you old dog you.
I concur. Thing is, a naked link shows none of that.
No authorship. No content information. No sources. Nothing.
It’s just a naked link, with a most uninformative title.
Presumably, one of those alleged Insane New Technologies is a lunar optical interferometer.
In what sense is it supposedly insane?
—
Anyway. I just clicked on it.
It would have taken you the very same time to copypaste the description as to do that for the stupid, stupid clickbaity title.
Here:
“Last Week the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program published the latest set of awards, funding technology investigations which may one day lead to new technologies, new missions or solve problems which might be required in future plans.
Most of these are just funding for the investigators to study the problem, do the math and make a presentation of the findings.”
Exactly the same amount of work, but much more informative.
And hell, you could even wrap the link in an anchor tag, thus:
NASA Is Giving Money To Develop These Insane New Technologies.
A tiny, tiny bit more work, but much neater and more informative. Since I included the title parameter in the tag, one can hover on the link and get even more info — particularly useful for sight-impaired people.
With such a link, I have some information regarding whether or not I think I care to click on it.
Yeah, already clicked on the link to the video (obs, autoplay is for other people).
Were I to be interested, I’d just click on the provided NASA link and get it first hand.
From the horse’s mouth, so to speak.
Also, you forgot other things, too:
0:57 Solar system scale VLBI3:30 Lunar Long-Baseline Optical Imaging Interferometer
6:24 Magnetohydrodynamic oxygen separation thingy.
8:11 Thin film radioisotope engine
10:22 sketchy Mars flying solar panel idea
11:35 Agnostic Life Finder (Mars bacteria or something)
13:14 Getting rid of perchlorates on Mars (but why? There's no nitrogen. Terraform Venus instead)
14:35 Swarms of small probes going to Proxima Centauri.
16:58 A "new" kind of antenna, I guess
17:30 Cryosleep for animals and maybe humans though a lot of animals can enter torpor and I think the Russians already did this with dogs?
18:31 Sample return from Venus, also carbon monoxide rocket
20:34 Autonomous tritium micropower sensors.
21:44 Electroluminescently cooled zero boil off propellant depots.
“Q&A: Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 passengers likely would have died if blowout occurred above 40,000 feet, says physicist”
(I imagine the pilots are trained to instantly reach for the oxygen, but many passengers would be at death’s door by the time the aircraft reaced safe altitudes. How quicky can an airliner descend?)
.https://phys.org/news/2024-01-qa-alaska-airlines-flight-passengers.html
.
Researchers use spinning metasurfaces to craft compact thermal imaging system
.https://phys.org/news/2024-01-metasurfaces-craft-compact-thermal-imaging.html
OK naked links bad, get it.
World’s five richest men double their money since 2020 as poorest get poorer | The Guardian
Oxfam predicts first trillionaire within a decade, with gap between rich and poor likely to increase
.https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2024/jan/15/worlds-five-richest-men-double-their-money-as-poorest-get-poorer
Birger, “OK naked links bad, get it.”
You don’t quite get it. Naked, uninformative links bad. Other naked links are fine.
The link @311 is quite informative, for example. It encodes the source, the date, and the topic.
I can tell by looking at it what it’s all about, and its provenance.
The point is that one should at least have some idea of what the link is about.
In line with my earlier posts about the current eruption in Iceland, here is a link to a YouTube stream from a camera near Grindavik. It’s run by an Icelandic news site… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvcP4kVVOnk
Maybe some very cautionous optimism? Like leading Hitler by 3 points.
“Biden Leads Three Crucial Polls By Larger Margins Than 2020 Win”
.https://www.meidastouch.com/news/biden-leads-three-crucial-polls
Um, Biden can’t possibly lead Hitler; Hitler died decades ago.
(To which crucial polls does that link refer? Who posted that link? When was it posted? Who knows?)
Ah, well, let’s bite. I shall click.
“Political strategist Simon Rosenberg on the state of the race and more.”
Credited with that on Jan 14, 2024.
Nothing to do with Hitler (aww). One would think that it would, given the hype, but no. No Hitler.
Nor does it mention which three polls of the multiple ones mentioned are the “crucial” ones.
So. Clicking on that link neither tells me which polls are crucial nor mentions Hitler.
(Called ‘bait and switch’, is that technique)
I found this charming: 8-Year-Old Chess Prodigy Challenges 79-Year-Old British Chess Champion.
(TL;DW: she wins but then she’s (a) young and (b) grown in the computer age)
—
I know, I know.
Multi-page cut’n’paste from sites, no worries.
Literally thousands of words copied, no worries. Just page down multiple times.
Video embedding, bad shit. Presumably, because there’s an image there!
So, I comply. With teeth duly gritted.
Drone video shows Gaza destruction after 100 days of war
Ukraine says it shot down Russian A-50 spy plane
Rare white penguin filmed in Antarctica
Perry High School Principal Dan Marburger dies 10 days after being wounded in school shooting
Trump Makes Plea To ‘Sick As A Dog’ Voters In Iowa: ‘Worth It’ Even if You Die
Houthi-fired missile strikes a US-owned vessel off Yemen in the Gulf of Aden, raising tensions
John Morales @ 318
…But we cannot protest, that would make us “anti-semites”. Like the many Jews around the world that have protested and gotten shunned by friends and relatives.
In 2024 tribal loyalty is still king. And the Republicans naturally back Netanyahu.
When Donald Trump tells his followers that the 2024 race is “the final battle,” it’s a phrase with deeper meaning for a specific group of voters.
The ever-increasing religious tone of Trump’s campaign (and his cult) is disturbing.
As part of their Jan. 6 probe, House Republicans apparently want to go after Cassidy Hutchinson again.
More details at the link.
Loudermilk is Republican Rep. Barry Loudermilk. He is the chair of the House Administration’s subcommittee on oversight. Same guy who conducted a questionable tour of the Capitol the day before the riot.
Josh Marshall:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/nota-bene-7
Donald Trump is filling the God-shaped hole in Republicans’ lives.
Lynna, OM @ 327
För a person that is obsessing about pornography, Johnson sure spends a lot of time fellating Trump.
Britain. “A Different Bias” at Youtube:
‘Home Office Decides Rwanda Isn’t Safe After All’ #shorts
.https://youtube.com/shorts/_TtRSl-RaZk.
Followup to comment 328.
Posted by readers of the article:
This video from Sabine Hossenfelder does not contain any speculations about LBTQ issues.
“Our Universe Will Probably Not Rip Apart, Phew!”
Goddammit ! I forgot to sort out the link again. Senior moment?
Villages-News:
Trumper gets jail time in voter fraud case involving dead father’s ballot
By Staff Report / January 9, 2024
For fans of Mystery Science Theater 2000 -some lighter stuff as contrast to the madness in the world.
“Brandon’s Cult Movie Reviews: Armicron In Outlaw Power”. A rip-off of a rip-off?
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=Zi4sEPhzvyc
Crying Karen begs Trump to save her because she can’t see the American flag anymore.
Or she was exposed to pronouns or something.
Investments in the IRS are paying impressive dividends for taxpayers and law enforcement. So why are Republicans desperate to undo the progress?
Excerpts from President Ulysses S. Grant’s 1875 speech delivered in Des Moines, Iowa:
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-the-ninth-annual-meeting-the-army-the-tennessee-des-moines-iowa
Good comments about schools! Also correct concerning keeping church and state forever separate.
Link
Tacopina did not say why he is leaving Trump’s team.
NBC News:
Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina withdraws from ex-president’s cases
Could be so many reasons.
1) The check bounced.
2) He actually has scruples about allowing a client to perjure himself.
3) That odor.
Despite historic pay discrimination settlement, little has changed for women on Wall Street
re Reginald Selkirk @341: I would guess 1 and 3. If he had any scruples, he would not have agreed to work for The Orange Traitor in the first place.
WaPo:
Half of Americans agree with Trump’s ‘poisoning the blood’ immigration rhetoric
Analysis by Philip Bump, National columnist
January 15, 2024
Judge orders Trump to send New York Times reporters a hefty check
Trump was ordered to pay nearly $400,000 in legal fees to The New York Times and three of its reporters.
Only 40 seats in UK parliament are “safe” for the conservatives!
“YouGov Poll Shows Potential of Tactical Voting”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=yFJ4C7usUpU
Stormy Daniels to testify against Trump.
.https://www.meidastouch.com/news/stormy-daniels-says-shes-set-to-testify-against-trump-in-ny-criminal-trial
A Mountain of Used Clothes Appeared in Chile’s Desert. Then It Went Up in Flames (That’s a WIRED link.)
Hi, all! I hope everyone here had a pleasant and safe holiday season. Just dropping in to say hey and assure everyone I’m still alive. (I hope no one thought I got COVID and died. I did have several friends and family members get it again this year, and fortunately all have recovered despite some cases being risky. I continue to do my damnedest to avoid catching it; no risk factors that I know of, just Do Not Want. Here’s a piece from the John Snow Project which Orac linked to back in November, with apologies if it’s been posted here before: “‘Endemic’ SARS-CoV-2 and the death of public health.”)
I’ve checked into the blog a couple of times over the past few months but by the time I got caught up reading all the news here I didn’t have time to comment! Several reasons for my absence:
I make things, and somehow the things I make started selling, so I had to make more things. I’m not going to quit my day job (not least because I don’t have a day job), but it’s been fun. I was already getting involved in a number of discussions and arguments here that I very much wanted but didn’t have the time or energy to continue, which was incredibly annoying, and then I had even less time, so…
Cats are delightful little time thieves.
I was temporarily overwhelmed by the stupidity of the discourse (not here, but in the world generally!) surrounding many of the topics I care about the most.
I was listening to this episode of Brain Science – “Kevin Mitchell argues for FREE WILL in BS 213”:
They briefly mentioned Carlo Rovelli and the Relational Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, which was total catnip. I’ve now read three of his books, and during the same time (finally) read Ed Yong’s An Immense World, and am still…pondering it all together. It’s more a Groovy Existential Experience than an Existential Crisis.
NBC News:
NBC News:
SC @349, good to see you! I miss you when you are not posting here, but I completely understand the necessity to focus on work that earns some money.
And thank you to Lynna and everyone for keeping up with all of the news!
Cartoon: The debate
Apple to remove pulse oximeters to get around import ban on smartwatches
Before writing a book, one ought to look into the definition of key terms.
SC @353, you’re welcome. [smiles]
Sometimes I keep up, and sometimes I fail to keep up. Like you I am sometimes overwhelmed.
Recent example, courtesy of Steve Benen:
Antifungals are going the way of antibiotics—overused, hitting resistance
Before writing a comment, one ought to consider what specifically one is quoting.
More conservatives kidnapping the ghost of Martin Luther King:
Bill Ackman Says Martin Luther King Would Be ‘Opposed’ to ‘DEI Movement’
Martin Luther probably would.
Then there’s the senior and the junior.
(WB, SC)
Historic step: Ukraine ensures gas self-sufficiency for the first time since independence
I did have several friends and family members get [COVID] again this year, and fortunately all have recovered despite some cases being risky.
Oh! I should note that they are all fully vaccinated. I have little doubt that otherwise probably three people in my life would be dead.
LOL, the most important issue for Iowa Republicans is immigration. In Iowa.
Yes. You would think they might be more worried about emigration.
14 Iowa Towns People Are Fleeing As Soon As Possible
Reginald @362, ahem.
You imagined Russia has been supplying gas to Ukraine until just now?
“On 25 November 2015 Gazprom halted its exports of Russian natural gas to Ukraine.[157] According to the Ukrainian government they had stopped buying from Gazprom because Ukraine could buy natural gas cheaper from other suppliers.[157] According to Gazprom it had halted deliveries because Ukraine had not paid them for the next delivery.[157] Since then, Ukraine has been able to fulfil its gas supply needs solely from European Union states.”
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Ukraine_gas_disputes#June_2014_gas_supplies_to_Ukraine_cut_off)
@SC #364:
Looks like Iowa did have a very slight influx of citizens, foreign and domestic, in recent years.
AtlasObscura – A map of which states people want to stay in, move to, or leave
/Glad you’re okay. =)
* I suppose the Iowa-born portion could instead be shrinking as folks flee.
“Skepticrat 216
Heads Iowan Tails You Lose Edition ”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=uI6Ghq_mPxA
Aussie ABC news piece here – headline pretty much nail it. Albeit they created that alternative reality of theirs a very long time ago. Back in Obama days even.. They just keep trying to drag more people into it :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-16/donald-trump-iowa-republican-primary-win-another-reality/103324746
Except, of course, in reality we all live in reality even if Trump Kultists & other Science Deniers refuse to accept and understand it and know it.
You are the one who is imaging things. And assigning your thoughts to other people, so that you can then argue against them. Technically this is known as the strawman fallacy
Red Sea attacks: Greek vessel hit by missile
Ramaswamy, Hutchinson call it quits after poor showings in Iowa
Why a new, bipartisan compromise on tax policy matters (a lot)
Some good news, some bad news. At least it is not all bad. That’s where I am with news involving Republican congress critters these days.
Nikki Haley boasted that the fight for the GOP nomination is a “two-person race.” That might’ve made more sense if she hadn’t just finished third in Iowa.
Josh Marshall:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/lets-face-it-trumps-iowa-result-was-pretty-weak
Trump’s performance in Iowa is not nearly as good as the media makes it seem, by Mark Sumner
More at the link, including historical context.
Cartoon: Pundits pave the way to hell
Your new favorite winter cocktail is red wine…hot chocolate?
Too hip for me.
Good news: More US pharmacists can now prescribe birth control, and soon, some patients won’t need prescriptions at all, Jacqueline Howard, CNN, January 12, 2024.
CNN link
Good news: Wisconsin GOP’s large majorities expected to shrink under new legislative maps
WaPo Live:
Trump attends opening of E. Jean Carroll defamation trial
@382
“Judge Kaplan is taking exactly zero s**t” from Trump lawyer hours after Carroll trial begins
Ted Cruz Bizarrely Makes Cancun Joke While Telling Texans To Stay Warm
Why shouldn’t Ted Cruz tell jokes about Ted Cruz? Everybody else does.
‘World’s oldest dog’ title under review as claim is investigated
Text quoted by tomh in comment 382:
I don’t understand why media outlets are still repeating that bullshit from Trump. He has already been tried and found to have sexually assaulted Carroll. Trump has already been found to have defamed Carroll, and financial penalties were specified for that defamation. He was found to be lying about Carroll being his “type” when he mistakenly identified her in a photo as one of his former wives.
Now Trump is on trial again because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. He continued to defame Carroll. In fact he was posting about her in disparaging ways today.
Trump has been called on his bullshit and found liable by a jury of his peers. He should not be given a platform to repeat those lies.
New York Times link
More details and photos at the link.
New York Times link
Biden Invites Congressional Leaders to White House to Discuss Aid to Ukraine
Oh, FFS.
Republicans haven’t given up on the “Maybe Obama is secretly in charge of the White House” thing. Sen. Tommy Tuberville is the latest to echo the line.
Bits of political campaign news, as summarized by Steve Benen:
Link
Josh Marshall:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/now-lets-talk-about-turnout
Roger Stone under investigation after recordings of assassination threats go public.
.https://www.meidastouch.com/news/roger-stone-under-investigation-after-recordings-of-assassination-threats-go-public-report
Haley says US has ‘never been a racist country’
Reginald @371:
This is what you quoted, with absolutely no context or comment of your own, my emphasis:
“Ukraine has amassed enough natural gas reserves to meet winter heating needs without Russian imports for the first time since gaining independence, Naftogaz reported… ”
It follows you tacitly endorsed that claim, else you would have put in at least one comment regarding its correctness. I therefore then noted Russia has not been selling gas to Ukraine since 2015.
(This is 2024)
You now claim I’m making a “strawman” claim (falsely claiming I’m indulging in a fallacy of irrelevance), and indignantly attempting to evade the weight of my correction and not conceding you got sucked into posting an incorrect claim. The irony is palpable.
Ah well, cowardice takes many forms. Be aware that textual media such as this is nice for people like me to deal with people like you, and thus expose their claims for what they are.
(Also, I’ve been using ‘straw dummy’ for decades, myself. Try to guess why)
Biden Challenger Phillips Floats Musk and Ackman for Cabinet Roles
FFS, what a complete chucklehead.
@394: Fuck off, troll-boy.
Republicans love stock market crashes
Reginald:
Ah yes, the refuge of the coward. Can’t dispute the facts, so they get personal. Call me a troll.
Last person who persevered thus spent years at it. They no longer post here.
I take it you do not concede that Russia has not been supplying gas to Ukraine for some time, contrary to the claim you posted.
@350
How the Biden administration helped avoid a coup in Guatemala
Culture wars regarding “woke”, another wonderful import from the USA:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/jan/17/conservative-politicians-stoking-australia-day-debate-online-with-paid-ads-analysis-finds
T-shirts and silver balls: Politics get mixed in with the profane at a Trump store
What’s the difference between yams and sweet potatoes?
Reginald @402, one is four letters and a single word, and the other thirteen letters and a compound word.
(So simple!)
I’m going to post some links I’ve saved over the past several months.
First, “The Physics and Philosophy of Time – with Carlo Rovelli” (YT link):
Also, a quote from the John Snow Project article linked @ #349:
Why Ukraine can’t provide a clear strategy to Mike Johnson
Researchers in China create the first healthy, cloned rhesus monkey
.https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2024/01/16/researchers-in-china-create-the-first-healthy-cloned-rhesus-monkey
Some animal- and environment-related links:
Guardian – “‘Food is finally on the table’: Cop28 addressed agriculture in a real way”:
Sentient Media – “4 Key Takeaways for Food Systems From the COP28 Climate Summit”:
Guardian – “Ex-officials at UN farming body say work on methane emissions was censored”:
Guardian – “‘The anti-livestock [sic] people are a pest’: how UN food body played down role of farming in climate change”:
Guardian – “Big oil ‘fully owned the villain role’ in 2023, the hottest year ever recorded”:
Species Unite podcast – “S10. E12: Alexis Gauthier: The Michelin-Starred French Chef Who Turned Vegan”:
There are so many great episodes of this podcast, but this one is especially charming.
Sentient Media – “House Passes Whole Milk Bill, Rejects Bid to Include Dairy Alternatives.”
PCRM – an update to a case I posted about a while ago – “California Student Succeeds in Landmark Lawsuit Challenging Big Dairy’s Stranglehold on School Meals, Speech”:
Assorted links:
I heard about this on Maintenance Phase – NAAFA (National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance) – Campaign for Size Freedom. They note:
Similar bills in other places are coming into being.
MIA – “The WHO and the United Nations: Let Freedom Ring for the Mad.”
MIA – “2023 in Review: A Paradigm Shift Is Underway.”
Some podcast episodes related to authoritarian movements:
Josh Marshall Podcast – “Belaboring The Point: Manly Grievance And The Far Right”:
Josh Marshall Podcast – “Belaboring The Point: What If We’d Been Mean To Robert E. Lee?”:
The Bunker – “How Brexiteers and Trump weaponised shame to corrupt our politics – Alex Andreou speaks to David Keen” (no link, but it’s easy enough to find):
Sorry if this has been discussed here, but I was shocked by how little attention the Tesla recall received. Months ago, I had watched a jawdropping episode of The New York Times Presents and could not believe the government was allowing Tesla to have these cars on the road. The episode definitely existed, and is described on the FX site:
This was the first episode of season 2. The show is available on Hulu, but season 2 has vanished for some reason. You can watch season 1 and season 3, but not season 2.
As soon as I heard the news about the recall, I went to look for analysis by Ed Niedermeyer, who was interviewed last year at Tech Won’t Save Us:
“The Tesla Crash is Only Beginning”:
Here’s Niedermeyer’s piece in Rolling Stone from the time of the recall last month – “Elon Musk’s Big Lie About Tesla Is Finally Exposed”:
And here’s Paris Marx’s 4-part series about Musk at Tech Won’t Save Us – “Elon Musk Unmasked: Origins of an Oligarch (Part 1).”
It’s all worth listening to, but I thought the third and fourth parts were the best.
Speaking of risks on the road…
The War on Cars – “117. Fixing America’s Car Culture with David Zipper”:
Some of what they discuss is covered in Zipper’s recent Slate article – “How Cars Turned Into Giant Killers”:
@SC #410:
Related. Shame’s been widely used since 2011 in developing countries’ campaigns to adopt toilets (demotivating unsanitary norms). Evidence of effectiveness and sustainability turned out to be weak.
Wikipedia – Community-led total sanitation
Musk wants a raise from Tesla. Entertaining, as his last compensation package was so exorbitant that stockholders took Tesla to court over the amount and are awaiting a court decision in Delaware.
Now, having sold off a fair bit of his 20% of Tesla to blow on Twitter, he wants 25% of Tesla stock. Some blather about wanting more say in AI and robot development.
So, he wants more control and well, tons more money. And I want a pony.
Even money, he’ll get what he wants, as usual. My luck, someone will give me a pony I have no way to take care of and minimal knowledge on how to ride.
SC @ 411, the last Tesla recall I recall is a software update for the door locks. They unlock in an accident, which is against highway code.
CNN has an entirely consistent story about Boomers holding onto their multi-bedroom homes, which is bad for the young ‘uns – who can’t afford current real estate prices anyway. Yeah, entirely circular arguments in the article. Apparently, it’d be better for Boomers to get a new mortgage after paying off their homes or just go homeless so the younger generation can drool over the properties that they cannot afford to buy, which would solve housing nothing, hand wave.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain @ 413, are they trying to say that positive reinforcement outperforms negative reinforcement? Obviously commies or something! Only those progressive reprobates that are closet commies don’t beat people over the head to convince them.
Or something.
@wzrd1 #414:
Uh… ixnay on the onypay.
Ah yes, Tesla recalls. Such a hassle!
“The recall is just an automatic over-the-air software update pushed out to the vehicles. Tesla began rolling out the update this week and it will come at no cost to Tesla owners.”
(https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/12/why-is-tesla-recalling-almost-all-its-cars-in-the-u-s.html
17 Dec 2023)
—
I remember back in the day, when a recall actually physically recalled, instead of just doing whatever and having it happen automatically.
(Funny how nobody calls phone software updates “recalls”)
CA7746, good grief!
(It’s hyperbole — which you know all about, since you sought to school me about it)
Come on, CA7746. Don’t be shy.
You do get I’m sometimes https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/elliptical — right?
(And sometimes I am orthogonal. Still, not very often am I https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/parabolic , so there’s that)
:)
But, never obtuse?
Got a chuckle, Tesla got singled out by some news organizations for issues where it’s been well, fairly Arctic in conditions for difficulties in charging, low battery capacity, etc. Only Tesla.
Others actually mentioned it was EV vendor independent, which is true, that whole chemistry thing and all. All seem to have missed that lead-acid batteries have a tough time of it in double digit negative temperatures.
A few organizations did mention pre-conditioning the battery, aka, warm the damned thing up by you know, warming up the car, defrosting, heating, idling to allow the battery to warm up by operating under drain, increasing efficiency, which will give better performance for range and for charging.
Because, ever so many people forget chemistry 101, if it’s really frigging cold, chemical reactions get sluggish.
I’ll not go into how many times over the decades that I went out to start my gasoline engine car and the battery, quite aged at the time, gave up the ghost in either extremely hot or extremely cold conditions.*
*In the olden days, one could literally easily dismantle a lead-acid battery, sand the plates a bit, reline the cells with new separators and refill the battery after reassembly and they would be like new. One can do so now, but one has to break a seal and reseal the damned thing, which is a nuisance, to put it mildly and one has to recast the lead connecting bar assemblies, which snap when the top is removed.
Frequently, what kills a lead-acid battery is lead whiskers shorting out individual cells.
Lithium based batteries, not certain, but possibly similar, with a bit of a higher risk of fire when things go sideways due to shorted cells.
Still, a leading cause of the loss of diesel-electric submarines was battery room explosions, either due to faulty batteries or flooding into the battery room/compartment. Obviously, never dumped the technology, we simply added additional protective measures.
wzrd1:
Ah, I see you are acute. ;)
(“acute what”, you ask…)
Ah, nostalgia.
I was in school (South Australia) and had another lad come to school from Uruguay.
Because I was the one Spanish-speaking kid at school, he was set up in my class and we did become friends for a time. I was amused, of course, because South American “spanish” was his thing — ‘vos’ instead of ‘tu’ or ‘usted’, ‘liseo’ instead of escuela — that sort of thing, which sounded archaic to me. And the “seseo” (‘c’ pronounced as ‘s’ etc). Still, we did become friends, stayed that way until he joined the Army some years later.
Thing is, his dad was a practicing doctor. As in, an MD. Mate-drinking, but Uruguayan, so that was not a thing.
Anyway, during one of my visits (I think around 1976) to his place, I remember his dad and us broke down some car batteries, and in his back yard (nice open air location) lit a fire, got it nice and hot, and melted the ex-battery lead down into fishing weights. Even at the time I thought that a bit odd, but hey.
Certainly pragmatic, no?
Dad used to work as concrete foreman for a tank contractor company, basically put gasoline stations in. Needless to say, he got plenty of used tire weights that we melted down for fishing weights.
Couldn’t get the car batteries, those got recycled for money, so the gas station owners rarely gave those up.
Waste not, want not, as they say.
I learned concrete work, plumbing work, electrical work, which is why I went into electronics and later IT and hell, SF was less strenuous on the joints than working concrete and humping industrial cabling.
wzrd and John Morales, here’s an AP article from the time of the recall (December 17) – “Tesla recalls nearly all vehicles sold in US to fix system that monitors drivers using Autopilot”:
They managed to minimize the damage to such an extent that not only do people (those who noticed it at all, given that it was done in the middle of the holiday season) just see it as a regular recall but many think it was a run-of-the-mill software update when it was neither. (They’ve since had to recall 1.6 million more cars in China.)
This TechCrunch article from last August is amazing – “NHTSA raises more concerns about Tesla’s Autopilot safety”:
So even in the middle of the investigation Musk was talking publicly about reducing the already inadequate safety controls, making the cars even more of a menace. Nothing could make it more clear that this isn’t just an engineering flaw like you’d see in a typical recall. Niedermeyer calls Tesla autopilot users “paying liability sponges” – Musk is using and endangering them the same way Trump does with his followers, and in the process endangering everyone.
A bit more on the lawsuits mentioned in the linked articles above:
Guardian (November 22, 2023) – “Judge finds ‘reasonable evidence’ Tesla knew self-driving tech was defective”:
Autoblog (December 18, 2023) – “Tesla Autosteer recall could bolster lawsuits claiming the feature is dangerous: report”:
SC (Salty Current): I’m very glad to see you back. I admit I was concerned about your welfare in this messed up reality we’re all living (and dying) in.
This series of threads, as I’ve written several times over the years, is a vital connection for me to other sane minds. Well, mostly sane, anyway! It’s not easy to stay balanced when the world just keeps throwing real but so-hard-to-believe things at you day after day.
Guardian – “‘I will pretend not to be me’: Russia cracks down on LGBTQ+ community”:
When carburettors were a thing, getting the car started in deep cold without pre-heating was a dark art.
John Morales @ #417:
Not really, since they’re not recalls. This was a recall. That Musk’s and Tesla’s power meant that it was limited to software changes that could be made remotely such that the story barely registered with the public or even with Tesla owners is hugely damaging to public safety and awareness and corporate accountability.
.Danish research team:
Meet pAblo·pCasso: A new leap in CRISPR technologies for next-gen genome engineering
.https://phys.org/news/2024-01-pablopcasso-crispr-technologies-gen-genome.html
An actual phone recall.
The Tesla recall, in contrast, is half-assed, so the system continues to pose a hazard, but it’s more than the regulators did for the previous several years so I guess that’s something.
Ayodhya: Transforming a flashpoint holy city into the ‘Hindu Vatican’
Christian Nationalists Team Up on Illicit Push to Get Churches to Campaign for Trump
Election Law Blog
“Federal judge allows quick runoffs under Georgia voting law”
January 17, 2024 / Rick Hasen
AJC:
Let me add my voice to the “Welcome Back SC” crowd.
Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, oldest member of Senate, hospitalized with infection
‘Star Trek’ on Mars? Curiosity rover spots Starfleet symbol on Red Planet
To paraphrase The Kinks:
Pareidolia will annoy ya!
Reginald @436: Amusing! Just a rock, but still amusing.
SC@429, thanks for making those points about public safety. All too true.
Text quoted by SC @427: “[…] Russia was not only fighting Ukraine, but was involved in a broader, existential battle against western liberal values it often describes as satanic.”
Just like Trump, Putin is framing his actions and his plans in increasingly religious terms. For some of my neighbors, I see this ploy working. They are happy to be more devoted as cult followers. I imagine that works in Russia too. I watch it happening. So disturbing.
.Stephen Colbert; Idaho’s coldest caucus
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=jqa6C__Szpw
GAM439 “The Devil Conspiracy”
If you scrape Jesus’ DNA off something he touched you can clone him… as a vessel for the antichrist!
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=XudGvr-gtnw
..
Good news from Florida, as summarized by Steve Benen:
See also: Democrat Keen claims victory in Florida House District 35 special election
Link
More free PR for Boeing:
Blinken grounded in Davos as plane has ‘critical failure’
E. Jean Carroll defamation case live updates: ‘You can’t control yourself,’ judge admonishes Trump
very stable genius.
HuffPost:
“DeSantis Warns GOP Will Lose In 2024 If Election Focuses On Trump’s Legal Woes”
Let us hope this particular crook is right this particular time.
I was wrong. It was “1) wreck Tesla, 2) …, 3) get to mars”. I thought it twitter it was Tesla.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/1/17/2217776/-Elon-Musk-wants-Tesla-to-give-him-an-80-billion-raise
Followup to Reginald @443
Link
Link
Cartoon: Mike Luckovich on Trump’s trial
Trump demands networks lose licenses for ‘ignoring’ his victory speech
Aww. Poor Tangerine Toddler saw that he was not the center of attention for a moment.
Interior Department adds six states to western solar-development plan
Good to see you back, SC!
More Republicans promoting child labor:
https://www.wonkette.com/p/indiana-republican-wants-kids-to
Yes, welcome back SC.
Followup to Brony @445.
Canadian climate denier who blamed Quebec wildfires on a government conspiracy admits to arson.
More details at the link.
A government shutdown this weekend remains a possibility despite Senate progress
Update on wannabe Nazi:
In November 2022, after announcing his 2024 run for president, Trump dined with Kanye West and Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago.
“New Flash Proton Therapy tested on Cancer Patients”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=K515uMQQzV4
More of this tired racism from Trump (no new ideas in his head):
Link
GOP Congressman Jeff Duncan won’t run for 8th term in his South Carolina district
Dimon: Democrats should ‘grow up,’ listen to Trump supporters
Well, fuck your feelings.
Democrat Frost challenges GOP to introduce bill to remove Statue of Liberty
CNN host pushes back on Ben Carson saying Trump not ‘highly vindictive’
Carson reinforces his reputation of being clueless and out of touch.
How is Trump not facing multiple Contempt of Court charges?
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-18/donald-trump-trial-e-jean-carroll-new-york-sexual-abuse/103361938
When will this elderly toddler get some actual consequences?
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2024-01-18/jaxa-slim-moon-landing-mission-explained-space/103318856
@465 “is about the size of a small car”
I know they are trying to make it relatable to everyday objects, but “a small car” in the USA is very different from the smallest cars in, say, Japan.
Kei car
StevoR:
Just world fallacy.
Colorado congressional candidate Mike Lynch was arrested for drunken driving in 2022
Thanks for the welcome back, guys! :)
#171:
#394:
#441:
Just a pathetic clown. It’s even more horrifying to watch Republicans now than it was in 2016.
“Donald Trump is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.”
SC @469: “Just a pathetic clown. It’s even more horrifying to watch Republicans now than it was in 2016.”
Yes, Haley is a pathetic clown. And yet, she is better than Trump because Trump is such an abomination that it is hard to find candidates worse than he is. Still, it is awful to watch people make so many excuses for Nikki Haley. They extol her as “normal.” She is not. She is just not as pathologically and publicly demented as Trump.
It is more horrifying to watch Republicans now because we know more. There are no blinders we can wear to shield us from the horror. It’s all there in front of us. As the presidential race heats up and truly normal, or almost normal, citizens start paying attention we will see Trump in front of our faces even more. All the time.
I am, in a way, glad that Nikki Haley is so clueless. She says the dumb stuff in front of the cameras, so at least we don’t have to wonder about her.
Ukraine Update: Russia can probably sustain a stalemate for only 3 more years
Link
Link
[sigh]
Maybe it’s just me, but either that site is getting sillier and sillier over time or the stories chosen are getting sillier and sillier over time.
(Imagine a spherical cow)
Why opinion pieces are considered reportage or analysis is beyond me, but it matches how trivia quizzes are considered intelligence tests.
John @475, I agree that the illustration was silly. I think it was also unnecessary. However, some parts of the rest of the article did contain useful information.
Conservative Supreme Court justices consider weakening federal agency power
The dispute arising from a fisheries regulation is the latest attack on the federal bureaucracy as part of what has been called a war on the administrative state.
See also:SCOTUS blog link.
More details are available at SCOTUS blog.
“Will courts decide these issues as to things they know nothing about? Courts that are completely disconnected from the policy process … and that just don’t have any expertise and experience in an area?” — Justice Kagan on what’s at stake in the debate over Chevron deference
Washington Post:
Source : https://phys.org/news/2024-01-scientists-southern-africa-temps-rhinos.html
New Baltimore Sun owner insults staff in meeting, says paper should mimic Fox45
Source : https://phys.org/news/2024-01-based-choices-cultural-uniquely-human.html
Lynna, you’re right, some parts are OK.
—
[meta]
I know I’m a bit of an imposition; my thing is to critique and critisize more so than to endorse and go along, hence I’m more likely to complain than to enthuse. Makes me seem contrarian, and makes me annoying.
Also, I find it hard to let go of issues until they are sorted. Gets irritating quickly, even in real life.
FWIW, I truly think you’ve done a fine job for quite some time now, so though I complain a bit I do appreciate that and hold you in high regard on that basis. Plus, you’ve tolerated me more than I might deserve. I want you to know that, whether or not you believe me.
Last thing I am is sycophantic, so this is not to stroke you, but to lay it out.
I do wish more people realised that, given I am merciless and blunt and relentless about my complaints, my praise and approval is likewise honest. There is no facade.
—
Belated, but since I’m in this mood, I too like having SC back, much as we’ve contended over lo these many years.
One more from Phys dot org here :
Source : https://phys.org/news/2024-01-wooly-mammoth-movements-earliest-alaska.html
Followup to comment 477.
Gorsuch Gleefully Leads Right-Wing Cohort In Fulfilling Their Federalist Society Quest
“Corporations Have Been Salivating Over This SCOTUS Decision” | Robert Reich
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=83upnDW6Tc
Ah, they spit on it, then.
(Whatever decision it may be)
Researcher uncovers one of the biggest password dumps in recent history
E. Jean Carroll judge bench-slaps Trump’s attorney 14 times over basic lawyering in a single day of testimony
Some journalist is being paid to keep count!
‘The Western world is in danger’: Argentina’s Milei, a self-described ‘anarcho-capitalist,’ urges Davos elite to reject socialism
Sure, Jan. With multiple rich persons topping $100 billion in value, socialism is the problem before us. And Davos, a meeting of the rich and powerful, is where the threat of socialism is coming from.
/s
A Different Bias: “Tory Rebels Capitulate to Sunak”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=1mOI-1qbyfU
.
Google says Russian espionage crew behind new malware campaign
Missouri abortion rights groups launch effort to place constitutional amendment on the 2024 ballot
1,500 kids got bogus homeopathic pellets instead of lifesaving vaccines in NY
Louisiana Illuminator:
Congressional map with Gov. Jeff Landry’s backing clears Louisiana Senate
by Piper Hutchinson – January 17, 2024
[Speaker of the House Mike Johnson continues to try to derail the deal.]
Tom Nichols wrote an article for The Atlantic, and a Daily Kos writer discussed that article.
In 2024, Trump voters are motivated by one thing above all: Revenge
Cartoon: Diner Journalism
A different kind of human trafficking, and a different kind of cybercrime:
Link
House Republicans Held An Immigration Hearing. That Was Their First Mistake.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/house-republicans-held-an-immigration
AOC, Jamie Raskin, Robert Garcia showed up IN FORCE.
House Republicans Held An Immigration Hearing. That Was Their First Mistake.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/house-republicans-held-an-immigration
AOC, Jamie Raskin, Robert Garcia showed up IN FORCE.