Comments

  1. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    suddenly it’s adult novelty stores, billboards for cheese, and roadkill

    kinky

  2. nomaduk says

    Not entirely unlike the change when crossing into New York from Vermont, with the added joy of the roads going straight to shit.

  3. Akira MacKenzie says

    Oh! The hoity toity Minnesotans think they’re too good for our fair-state’s roadside porn shops! Well when you’re driving down I94 and you suddenly need a butt plug or pornographic coloring book, don’t come crying to me!

  4. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Scientists re-create the microbial dance that sparked complex life

    So much of life relies on endosymbiotic relationships, but scientists have struggled to understand how they happen. […] the relationship teeters between infection and harmony. If the bacterium reproduces too quickly, it risks depleting the host’s resources and triggering an immune response, resulting in the death of the guest, the host or both.
    […]
    Rice seedling blight is a disease caused by the toxic by-product of a wild, endosymbiotic affair. At some point in its evolutionary history, the fungus Rhizopus microsporus adopted the bacterium Mycetohabitans rhizoxinica. The bacterial resident produces poison, which the fungus uses to infect rice plants; both partners benefit by absorbing nutrients from the dead and dying plant cells. Over generations, the pair have become so intertwined that now the fungus can’t reproduce without its endosymbiont.

    However, there is a strain of the fungus that lives without the endosymbiont. Vorholt thought she could use it to re-create the poisonous partnership. […] her team had to overcome a basic physical constraint: How do you physically squeeze a bacterium through a fungus’s rigid cell wall? […] a cocktail of enzymes to soften the wall […] a tiny syringe […] [That still wasn’t enough. With just] the microneedle, cytoplasm came rushing out like water from a burst dam. […] [So a] jury-rigged […] bike pump boosted the pressure […] They had to use special sharpened needles and then three times the tire pressure of car tires to push that bacteria inside.
    […]
    Once inside, it divided at an agreeable rate and evaded the immune response. […] The pair had initially accepted each other, but that was only the first step. […] The bacteria had wiggled their way into the fungal spores to hitchhike to the next generation. […] More bacteria survived in each reproductive round, and the spores got healthier and more efficient. For the first time, researchers watched endosymbiotic and host microbes adapt to each other. […] the lab isolated both parties to analyze their genomes. Already, the fungus genome had gained mutations to accommodate the bacteria. Clearly, these relationships can stabilize quickly, the researchers saw. Soon the two species couldn’t live without each other.
    […]
    They also learned that in pairings that work, both partners adapt to each other a phenomenon that has been largely overlooked. It wasn’t just the bacteria adapting […] those findings could lead to a new kind of synthetic biology […] Instead of editing organisms’ genes to create new traits, labs could engineer bacteria to perform specific functions and then slip them into hosts.

  5. Reginald Selkirk says

    Carvana Is Cooking Its Books, Hindenburg Research Claims

    Carvana may be a house of cards. That’s according to investment research and activist short-selling firm Hindenburg Research (never a good sign to be the subject of ire from a company named after a famous disaster), which published a report on Thursday that accuses the online used car seller of “accounting manipulation” stemming from unstable loans that it is using to temporarily prop up its prospects while its father-son ownership team cashes out.

    The report, titled “Carvana: A Father-Son Accounting Grift For The Ages” claims that Carvana’s miraculous turnaround over the last two years, which has seen the company’s stock nearly 10x in 2023 and climbed another 300% in 2024 after staring down bankruptcy in 2022, is nothing but a “mirage.” Hindenburg Research claims that as the share price has skyrocketed, the father of Carvana’s CEO has cashed out more than $1.4 billion in stock…

    What exactly is happening in Carvana’s underwriting process? Basically, a rubber stamp, according to the report. A former director at Carvana told Hindenberg, “We actually approved 100% of applicants we didn’t decline for compliance reasons.” …

    All that to say, Carvana car loans are a major risk. Yet the company has found a new buyer for them even as Ally and others turn away. According to Hindenburg’s research, Carvana has sold $800 million in auto loans to what the company has called an “unrelated third party.” The thing is, though, Hindenburg doesn’t think this buyer is “unrelated.” The firm believes Carvana is selling its loans to an affiliate of DriveTime, a private car dealership that is owned by Ernest Garcia II—the father of Carvana CEO Ernie Garcia III and the largest shareholder in the car seller.

    Hindenburg believes that this loan servicer is granting loan extensions to its borrowers in order to make it appear like more of the company’s loans are in good standing when they would otherwise be considered delinquent and risk-laden.

    So per Hindenburg’s digging, it seems like Carvana may have manufactured its incredible turnaround by simply approving practically every loan request that came across its desk. This juiced sales and investors rallied behind the company, pushing its stock price to new highs. Meanwhile, Ernest Garcia II started selling off his stock, pocketing over a billion as bag holders poured in…

  7. Reginald Selkirk says

    The FDA will test aged raw milk cheese for bird flu in the wake of outbreak

    The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has begun collecting and testing samples of aged, raw cow’s milk cheese for the presence of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (H5N1), better known as bird flu, Food Safety News reported.

    The agency plans to collect 300 samples of raw milk cheese from warehouses and distribution hubs, along with their label information. Samples will come from cheese that has been aged a minimum of 60 days — the timeframe that the U.S. requires raw milk cheese to be made in order to reduce the risk of any pathogens. Sample collection is slated to last until March, but there’s a possibility it may last longer.

    The testing comes amid an ongoing, multistate outbreak of bird flu in dairy cows that was first reported on March 25, 2024, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC reported that 66 cases of bird flu in humans have been confirmed nationwide. Approximately two-thirds of those cases were linked to dairy herds…

  8. Reginald Selkirk says

    New Mexico Cheese Factory Releases Toxic Gas – Injures 20

    Who cut the cheese? An accident at a cheese factory in Clovis, New Mexico released a toxic gas that injured 20 with at least 2 injured critically.

    Southwest Cheese, located in Clovis, New Mexico was the site of the accident that happened December 30th. The gas appears to have been contained within the building. Clovis is about 300 miles from El Paso.

    Fox News reported an equipment malfunction spilled chlorine which then mixed with acid, creating the toxic gas…

  9. Reginald Selkirk says

    How One Company is Revolutionizing Vegan Cheese with Fermentation

    Berlin-based biotech company Formo may have found a breakthrough in vegan cheese, tapping into the power of Koji, a fungus used in Japanese cuisine for centuries. This tiny organism, known for its role in soy sauce and miso, is now the foundation of Formo’s dairy-free cheeses…

    Formo’s solution lies in fermentation. By placing Koji in a tank with oxygen, sugar, and nutrients, the company cultivates proteins in large quantities. These proteins are extracted and dried into a powder that forms the base for various cheeses, including cream cheese, blue, and feta varieties. According to Wohlgensinger, the Koji protein provides a creamier texture that plant proteins struggle to match…

    If it’s fungus-based, does it actually count as vegan? Fungi are not plants.

  11. birgerjohansson says

    The Scathing Atheist “Double D Edition” became available at Patreon yesterday and should turn up at Youtube in a couple of days.
    .
    Pope makes dead king a saint.
    -An 88-year-old grifter preacher announces that he has made a compact with god to live until 120.
    -Self-own by dude who opposes gay sex with his wife proudly announces that he has never given his wife an orgasm.
    -Michael Marshal tells the story of the beginning of the chiropractic movement (it involved grifters, child marriages and even a young Ronald Reagan)

  14. Reginald Selkirk says

    US Supreme Court’s Thomas will not be referred to Justice Department

    A judicial policymaking body on Thursday rejected a request by Democratic lawmakers to refer conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to the Department of Justice to examine claims that he failed to disclose gifts and travel provided by a wealthy benefactor.
    The secretary to the U.S. Judicial Conference, the federal judiciary’s top policymaking body, in a pair of letters
    , opens new tab cited amendments Thomas had made to his annual financial disclosure reports that addressed several issues raised by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Representative Hank Johnson.
    The conference also in a separate letter
    , opens new tab rejected a conservative group’s request to similarly refer liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Justice Department based on omissions in her own disclosure reports.
    Jackson has since amended her reports, the letter noted. The letter was addressed to the Center for Renewing America’s president, Russell Vought, Republican President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to lead the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.
    In a statement, Whitehouse criticized the judicial branch’s response to his request concerning Thomas, saying it was “shirking its statutory duty to hold a Supreme Court justice accountable for ethics violations.”
    The justices and the Center did not respond to requests for comment…

  15. Reginald Selkirk says

    Finnish court upholds seizure of oil tanker in undersea cables probe

    A Finnish court on Friday denied a request for the release of an oil tanker suspected by police of damaging an undersea power line and four telecommunications cables in the Baltic Sea last week…

    A lawyer representing United Arab Emirates-based Caravella LLC FZ, which owns the tanker, had sought the release of the vessel and crew.
    “This district court has rejected the claim of the defendant, which means that this seizure remains in force,” Helsinki District Court Judge Tatu Koistinen said.
    Finnish lawyer Herman Ljungberg, who represented Caravella, said the company now planned to file a new motion for the vessel’s release.
    Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation has impounded the vessel and the Finnish customs office has seized its cargo of 35,000 tonnes of unleaded petrol while it investigates whether sanctions against Russia have been breached…

  16. Reginald Selkirk says

    Space debris crash in Kenya village believed to be from leftover rocket hardware

    Kenya Space Agency (KSA) officials in Nairobia, Kenya, East Africa, are reporting that on Dec. 30 a large metallic ring roughly 8 feet (2.5 meters) in diameter and weighing some 1,100 pounds (500 kilograms) fell from the sky, reportedly “red-hot” and crashed into Mukuku village, in Makueni county – in the country’s south.

    Investigators think the object is space debris, believed to be rocket leftovers that came crashing down, reportedly within the village at roughly 3 p.m. local time…

  18. says

    Trump makes a curious appeal to the CIA ahead of his inauguration

    “[Trump] wants the intelligence agency to “get involved” immediately, ‘before it is too late.”\’ Get involved, how? It’s not at all clear.”

    Donald Trump has had quite a bit to say in the aftermath of the deadly attack in New Orleans, though most of the president-elect’s rhetoric has been deeply unfortunate. In a series of social media missives, [Trump] has peddled ugly misinformation in ways that should do lasting harm to what remains of his credibility.

    But one element of Trump’s reaction to the violence stood out as especially strange. From one of his online messages:

    The DOJ, FBI, and Democrat [sic] state and local prosecutors have not done their job. They are incompetent and corrupt, having spent all of their waking hours unlawfully attacking their political opponent, ME, rather than focusing on protecting Americans from the outside and inside violent SCUM that has infiltrated all aspects of our government, and our Nation itself. Democrats should be ashamed of themselves for allowing this to happen to our Country. The CIA must get involved, NOW, before it is too late.

    We’ve already discussed why most of Trump’s post deserves to be discarded as ridiculous. [See comment 331 in the previous set of Infinite Thread comments: “Within hours of the New Year’s attack in New Orleans, [Trump] simultaneously flunked tests of accuracy, decency and credibility.”] Trump has no evidence of widespread prosecutorial corruption; “violent scum” has not infiltrated the government, and so on.

    But it was that last sentence that deserves some follow-up scrutiny: The Central Intelligence Agency, according to the president-elect, must “get involved” immediately.

    Get involved, how, exactly?

    In context, it was not all clear who or what Trump expects the CIA to investigate. Does he envision a scenario in which the intelligence agency examines the attack in New Orleans? If so, that would be bizarre, given that it would have no jurisdiction — the CIA’s remit is international intelligence gathering — and the matter can be handled by state, local, and federal law enforcement.

    Maybe he envisions a scenario in which the agency targets state, local and federal prosecutors? If so, that would probably be illegal given the scope of the CIA’s responsibilities.

    Or perhaps Trump would like to see the CIA hunt for the “violent scum” that, in Trump’s overactive imagination, has “infiltrated all aspects of our government”? It’s possible, though once again, these people don’t appear to exist in reality, and the CIA has no such authority to launch a scum search.

    To be sure, there’s no reason to assume that Trump knows what the CIA does or the limits of the agency’s authority. But therein lies part of the problem: He might soon start directing the CIA to initiate the kind of investigations that it cannot legally conduct.

    For his part, far-right media personality Steve Bannon apparently saw the president-elect’s message and said on his podcast, “[N]o, we don’t want the CIA involved in anything domestically, they’re involved too much domestically as is.”

    Sheesh.

  19. says

    “It absolutely sends a chill up my spine to imagine what his response will be if we have the misfortune of having another major crisis—like another pandemic or financial panic or massive terrorist attack,” says @chrislhayes.bsky.social discussing Trump’s response to the New Orleans attack.

    https://bsky.app/profile/allinwithchris.bsky.social/post/3lesgn5xptt2s

    Full video of the Chris Hayes segment is available on YouTube. The presentation is excellent. Hayes includes a roundup of the bonkers (and incorrect) responses from rightwing legislators, rightwing media, and Trump.

  20. says

    South Korea Update

    “South Korean investigators arrived at the presidential residence with a warrant to detain impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol over his short-lived imposition of martial law, but faced resistance from presidential security staff as hundreds of Yoon’s supporters gathered outside vowing to protect him.”–AP

    “South Korean investigators failed to arrest the country’s impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol, thwarted by his armed Secret Service bodyguards in another tense showdown resulting from his short-lived martial-law decree last month.”–WSJ

    “The agency, accompanied by some 2,700 law enforcement officials on Friday, abandoned its five hour-long effort to arrest Yoon after it was blocked by a security team that includes a military unit designated with guarding the South Korean leader. Clashes ensued during that standoff, the CIO said, and it will demand Yoon’s head of security appear for questioning on Saturday.”–Bloomberg

    Link

    Text quoted above is one of several reports included in TPM’s “Morning Memo.”

  21. says

    From the WE TOLD YOU SO file. Cartoon and commentary at the link.

    There is minor joy, but joy nonetheless, in watching MAGA trying to figure this one out.

    After telling themselves that their concern for illegal immigration was because the rapes and the crime they think ensues from every man woman, and infant, they now have to face the anti-American-worker bigotry that the man they voted for [Trump] endorses from two wealthy immigrants [Musk and Ramaswamy] who seek cheap immigrant labor.

  22. Alverant says

    My cat, Buddy, is making a trip to the vet today. His health is getting worse. It could very well be his last trip.

  24. birgerjohansson says

    Did Rudy Giuliani turn up at one of the sex shops to hold a press conference?

  25. birgerjohansson says

    Alverant @ 22
    The last trip to the vet is always horrible. I grieve as deeply as when uncles and aunts pass.

  27. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/costco-and-meta-facebook-both-commit

    “Costco And Meta (Facebook) Both Commit To Diversity, With Hilariously Diverse Results”

    How much time has American public discourse spent on debating Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives the last few years? It has been one long string of wingnuts bulldozing and bullying every college, media company, retail chain, sports team, and politician into adopting their preferred worldview that a universe with white men at the top and anyone non-white or in possession of a vagina or both far down on the ladder is the only acceptable way for society to order itself. [Yep. Unfortunately, that’s a good summary.]

    Quite frankly, we’re exhausted by all of it. So it is nice when a company tells the anti-DEI crowd to go fuck itself […] if they use much more polite wording.

    Thus we would like to give a big old Wonkette round of applause and hoots and “fuck yeahs” to Costco. The board of the giant warehouse retailer with the best prices if you want to buy a pallet of toilet paper or a 55-gallon drum of pretzel sticks recently fought off a group of activist shareholders that wanted the company to abandon its DEI efforts. This standing of their ground not only was the morally correct stance, but it also pissed off some of the MAGA crowd enough to threaten a boycott of the company.

    What a bonus! The lines for the $1.50 hot dogs will be so much shorter next time we’re at Costco […]

    The demand that Costco abandon DEI came from some conservative “think tank” called the National Center for Public Policy Research, an anodyne name for a group that spends its time trying to get companies to pretend problems such as climate change and bigotry don’t actually exist. Which is about the level of intellectual robustness we would expect from an organization that puts a hack like Peter Schweizer, the nativist who wrote Clinton Cash and has worked on documentaries with Steve Bannon, on its board.

    Costco’s board, to its credit, did not cave into this swill the way other companies have done in a never-ending quest to satisfy the perpetually unsatisfied dipshits of the Right. It’s worth quoting at length:

    Our success at Costco Wholesale has been built on service to our critical stakeholders: employees, members, and suppliers. Our efforts around diversity, equity and inclusion follow our code of ethics:

    For our employees, these efforts are built around inclusion – having all of our employees feel valued and respected. Our efforts at diversity, equity and inclusion remind and reinforce with everyone at our Company the importance of creating opportunities for all. We believe that these efforts enhance our capacity to attract and retain employees who will help our business succeed. This capacity is critical because we owe our success to our now over 300,000 employees around the globe.

    God, yes. It is crazy how some anodyne corporate gobbledygook about respect and diversity can actually serve as an emotional release of sorts. But restating basic values of human dignity and respect is something so few people in power do anymore, and won’t happen very often in our emerging tech broligarchy.

    Let’s have some more:

    We welcome members from all walks of life and backgrounds. As our membership diversifies, we believe that serving it with a diverse group of employees enhances satisfaction. Among other things, a diverse group of employees helps bring originality and creativity to our merchandise offerings, promoting the “treasure hunt” that our customers value. That group also helps to provide insights into the tastes and preferences of our members. And we believe (and member feedback shows) that many of our members like to see themselves reflected in the people in our warehouses with whom they interact.

    Of course MAGA is reacting the same way it reacts every year when Target uses Pride Month to acknowledge the existence of gay people: by screaming about this illegal discrimination against white people. […]

    At the other end of the spectrum of companies with actual self-respect, you have Meta. The parent of Facebook and Instagram announced it would soon start rolling out AI-created user profiles, because if there is anything that says social media, it’s chatting with people who do not actually exist.

    On Friday, sharp-eyed users noticed that Instagram had already posted an AI profile that truly has to be seen to be believed: [Screengrab of the post is available at the link: “Proud Black queer momma of 2 […]”]

    […] Lord, if that doesn’t hit every single talking point of how the cloistered minds of Silicon Valley think about diversity, we don’t know what does: She’s Black! And queer! But has kids! And she keeps it real, yo! […]

    The writer Karen Attiah tried to have a conversation with “Liv,” and boy was it hilarious: [Screengrab is available at the link]

    How does Liv the Meta chatbot celebrate her African-American heritage? Boy, is she glad you asked: [Screengrab available at the link]

    This was all hilarious until the writer Parker Molloy got Liv to admit that AKSHUALLY she’s Italian, but her Black wife’s family taught her to say “spill the tea” and now we are dead from hitting our head against the wall [Screengrab available at the link]

    So Liv the Black chatbot is actually Liv the Italian chatbot, and she’s code-switching and faking her identity like a virtual Rachel Dolezal. We can’t decide if we are offended by this cringe-worthy view of diversity, or horrified by it, or find it hilarious. […]

    Welcome to the AI future of social media. We hate it.

  28. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/house-republican-priorities-immigrants

    “House Republican Priorities: Immigrants And Genitals

    Wednesday, the House Republicans released their top 12 legislative priorities for the 119th Congress, assuming the far-right wing of yapping hyenas allows them to keep Mike Johnson as House speaker, of course. They include more mental health care for veterans, lowering the price of eggs, and doing something about housing costs, those kitchen-table economic issues that voters said they cared the most about. Ho ho ho, just kidding! <bPick the most performative and morally bankrupt things you can think of, and there they are.

    The Republicans haven’t had control of both the House and Senate since 2019, so oh boy are they hepped up to remake Congress in their genital-fixated, immigrant-obsessed image.

    But, first points of business are the swearing-in and power grabbin’, of course! Making it so that only the “majority party,” Republicans, can vote on speaker of the House, and requiring nine members to vote the House Speaker out instead of one, and changing the rules so there are no amendments allowed.

    They plan to remove any references to ‘‘the Office of Diversity and Inclusion,” which the House dissolved in March. And for the first time in two decades there’ll be no women leading any House Committees, so that those magnificent white he-men above [photo at the link] can do all the work, and the little ladies of the House will be free to go get their hair and nails done, or whatever.

    Also in the rule changes, making sure House Resolution 1096, which extends collective bargaining rights prescribed in the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995 to employees and staffers of the House, “shall have no force or effect.” They call that “restoring legislative branch accountability” because everything in GOP-land is opposite day.

    Oh, and they want to make all of their bills electronic so AI can do the bill reading, analysis, and drafting for them, because heaven fucking forbid they have to do the jobs they were elected to do. [Yet another way for Republicans to avoid actually doing any work!] And of course they want to subpoena Merrick Garland for Hunter Biden stuff, how else do you think they’ll be spending all that spare time, now that robots will be doing their actual work?

    Anyway, on to the shitty priority bills!

    1. The gender of athletes competing in college and university sports would be determined by that which they were declared at the time of birth under the Title IX law.

    Yes, this is number one. There are fewer than 10 transgender NCAA athletes out of more than 500,000 players, 0.0018 percent. More people have been to the moon or won Powerball. (Although as our own Crip Dyke points out, that’s bad actually. Because if we hadn’t so thoroughly chased trans children out of public life, there would be a hell of a lot more girls playing volleyball with their peers.)

    2. The Department of Homeland Security secretary would be required to have federal law enforcement arrest any illegal immigrant who has been charged, not just those convicted, of theft.

    3. Any illegal immigrant encountered attempting to enter illegally at the border would be barred from being released into the country if he or she has a conviction or has been charged with a sex offense or domestic violence. Additionally, a person with that charge or conviction within the US would be susceptible to deportation.

    4. The assault by an illegal immigrant of a police officer at the local, state, tribal, or federal level would be grounds for deportation.

    5. Sanctuary cities and states, or jurisdictions that do not cooperate with federal immigration law enforcement, would receive no federal funding “intended to benefit such aliens.”

    6. Any US citizen or immigrant arrested for intentionally fleeing a federal police officer while operating a motor vehicle would face criminal and immigration charges.

    Illegal immigrants can already be deported. Fleeing or assaulting the police is already illegal. Non-citizens are already ineligible for federal public assistance, with the exception of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) which provides a whopping $26 to $52 per month cash-value benefit for nutrition assistance for young children and pregnant and postpartum women. Every fetus is equal, but some fetuses are more equal than others.

    Hey, what about that big sweeping border security bill they were going to do? Guess it’s coming sometime, shrug emoji.

    7. Ensuring health care practitioners exercise the proper degree of care in the case of a child who survives an abortion or attempted abortion.

    Vague, performative bullshit over a thing that does not happen.

    8. Sanction the International Criminal Court for its efforts investigating, arresting, detaining, or prosecuting a protected person from the US or allied nations.

    They are mad about ICC arrest warrants against Israeli leaders over the war in Gaza.

    9. The Internal Revenue Service would issue special rules for certain residents of Taiwan who earn income from sources within the US.

    Not sure who exactly this is for, but the US has a lot of Taiwanese-American dual-citizen rich people, such as Jen-Hsun “Jensen” Huang, CEO and founder of Nvidia, the world’s largest semiconductor company.

    10. The National Voter Registration Act would be changed to require proof of US citizenship in order to register to vote in elections for federal office.

    Oh, look at that, they would like to make voting as cumbersome as possible, of course. Better renew that passport and/or hurry up and get that RealID. The deadline for everybody is now May 7, and it is a huge pain in the ass. You will need a Social Security card, W2 or 1099. If you are someone who doesn’t have those particular tax forms, and you’ve misplaced your original Social Security card, buckle the fuck up for a bureaucratic document-a-roo that can take weeks, ask me how I know. If you don’t already have a driver’s license, you’ll need to make an appointment with the Social Security office to get the card to get the ID. Hope you’ve got some vacation days at work saved up!

    11. The Controlled Substances Act would be updated to include and schedule fentanyl-related substances.

    Sure.

    12. Temporary moratoriums on the use of hydraulic fracturing would be banned.

    But states’ rights, AMIRITE?

    Can they get it together to pass these nimbledy-shit priorities? Can they even get it together to elect Mike Johnson as speaker? Guess we shall soon find out.

  29. says

    Johnson fails to secure enough votes on first Speakership ballot

    […] Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) just left the House chamber with Reps. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) and Keith Self (R-Texas), two of the three Republicans who voted against him on the first ballot.

    Norman voted for House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) while Self voted for Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.).

    The third Republican to vote against Johnson, Thomas Massie (Ky.), has been his most outspoken opponent and is widely seen as immovable, but Johnson is likely hoping to sway the other two.

    The Louisiana Republican can only afford to lose one GOP vote and keep the gavel.

    The House is expected to move to a second ballot for the Speakership race shortly, according to House Majority Whip Tom Emmer’s (R-Minn.) office.

    Lawmakers are still waiting for the clerk to read the official results from the first ballot, but it appears that Johnson fell short of the gavel after three Republicans voted for someone other than him. […]

    House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) seemingly leaned into the chaos as Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is fighting to keep the gavel in the 119th Congress.

    “The GOP Civil War is in full swing,” he wrote on the social platform X. “And it’s only Day 1.”

    The mocking comes after Jeffries warned Johnson late last month that Democrats would not come to his aid on the House floor .[…]

  30. mizzi says

    Alverant @ 22
    Losing a cat or other animal companion is a nightmare. I wish you both the best you can get under the circumstances.

  31. whheydt says

    As regards dying cats… One of my promises to my late wife before she died was that I would take care of the cats for the rest of their natural lives. They are coming up on 5 years old, so it’s going to be a while. (Our daughter has assured me that if I die before the cats, she’ll take care of them.)

  32. says

    Well that changed quickly.

    Mike Johnson re-elected as House speaker on first ballot
    Video at the link.

    “The Louisiana Republican hoped and expected to prevail on the first ballot. Following a dramatic and highly unusual process, he succeeded.”

    […] Following a highly unusual process, Johnson prevailed by the narrowest of margins, receiving 218 votes — the bare minimum for success — three more than the total for House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

    Based on the initial tally, it appeared that the speaker had come up short: He could only afford to lose two of his own members, and three House Republicans — Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Rep. Keith Self of Texas — threw their support behind other GOP lawmakers.

    It was at that point when a series of press releases went out responding to Johnson’s first-round failure.

    They proved premature. While congressional clerks reviewed the initial balloting, several House Republicans, including Johnson, huddled with Norman and Self. (Massie was apparently deemed unreachable.) We’ll learn soon enough what was said behind closed doors, but the message proved persuasive: Before the gavel came down on the first ballot, the Texan and South Carolinian agreed to change their votes, giving Johnson the support he needed.

    This is, of course, the outcome Donald Trump was hoping for: The president-elect not only endorsed the Louisianan, he also invested political capital, making direct appeals to individual members in the run-up to the vote.

    If recent history is any guide, Trump will likely claim credit for the outcome fairly soon. What’s more, Johnson, whose fate was closely tied to the president-elect’s wishes, will likely feel indebted to the incoming White House. […]

  33. says

    https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2025/01/113_389678.html

    WTF? “Yoon’s team claims immunity from insurrection charges, citing Trump ruling”

    The legal team of suspended President Yoon Suk Yeol claimed Friday that Yoon’s impeachment trial does not warrant a ruling as he should have immunity from prosecution, citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on Donald Trump.

    In a document presented to the Constitutional Court in Yoon’s impeachment trial, the legal team said Yoon exercised his due presidential power to handle a “national emergency situation” while declaring martial law on Dec. 3.

    “As martial law was lifted in six hours, it did not restrict the people’s basic rights,” the document read. “Things were fully restored so that there is no need to judge the declaration itself.”

    Yoon’s side pointed to the U.S. court ruling in July last year that said Trump cannot be prosecuted for actions that were within his constitutional powers as president.

    In a 6-3 ruling, the justices threw out a lower court’s decision that had rejected Trump’s claim of immunity from multiple criminal charges, including his moves to undo his election failure to Joe Biden. It was the first decision recognizing any form of presidential immunity from prosecution.

    Yoon has said his martial law imposition was an act of governance and cannot be subject to a court judgment.

    The Constitutional Court said it would hold the first oral arguments for Yoon’s impeachment trial on Jan. 14, as it wrapped up its preparatory proceedings earlier in the day.

    On Dec. 14, the National Assembly voted to impeach Yoon. The Constitutional Court has up to 180 days to determine whether to remove Yoon from office or restore his powers.

    Yoon is under probe for inciting an insurrection and abusing his presidential power with the martial law declaration.

  34. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/if-we-cant-blame-teachers-unions

    “If We Can’t Blame Teachers Unions For Terrorism (Yes, Really!), Then The Terrorists Will Win”

    “It’s all a game of gotcha. With bodycounts.”

    As soon as the news hit that a man had driven through a crowd of people in New Orleans on New Year’s Day, killing 14 and injuring 30, Trump and friends were quick to blame the tragedy on immigrants and the “open borders” policy that we actually do not have here in the US.

    [I snipped Trump’s comments.]

    “New Orleans terrorist attacker is said to have come across the border in Eagle Pass TWO DAYS AGO!!! Shut the border down!!!” Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote in a now-deleted post on Xitter.

    “With the Biden ‘Open Border’s Policy’ I said, many times during Rallies, and elsewhere, that Radical Islamic Terrorism, and other forms of violent crime, will become so bad in America that it will become hard to even imagine or believe,” Trump wrote in a follow-up post. “That time has come, only worse than ever imagined.”

    It turned out, of course, that Shamsud Din Jabbar, the perpetrator of the attack, was a Texas native and US Army veteran. He did say that he had recently “joined ISIS” and that he had initially planned to kill his own family, but decided later that driving a truck into people would better highlight the “war between the believers and the disbelievers.” So yes, he was a Muslim, he had radical fundamentalist beliefs, but he was also a US citizen who served in the armed forces — because we are just as capable of producing violent psychopaths as any other country on earth, perhaps even moreso.

    A similar pattern followed when, later that day, a man blew up his rented Cybertruck in front of a Trump hotel in Las Vegas. Surely it was a leftist angry about Trump being elected! [Screengrabs of X posts are available at the link: “ISIS is bought and paid for by the American Left.” “The suspect in the Cybertruck explosion was an obvious leftist extremist.” etc. Same old stuff, all of it factually incorrect.]

    Right-wing site RedState ran an incredibly smug article with the title “Cringeworthy TDS Speculation on the Vegas Cybertruck Attack Proves Once Again CNN Has Learned Nothing” — about a CNN panel with national security analyst Beth Sanner, who stated, “we don’t know whether this person was, you know, pro-Trump, anti-Trump” instead of definitively saying that the person was anti-Trump, despite not knowing anything about him at that point. You know, like a responsible analyst would do!

    Via RedState:

    Is this woman implying that if Livelsberger is a Trump supporter, that this is somehow Donald Trump’s fault? Let’s examine this truly impressive demonstration of TDS acrobatics. So, a guy (who happens to be in the military) drives a vehicle right up to a high-rise building that bears the name “Trump.” The vehicle promptly explodes. Wouldn’t the first thought of rational people be that he wants to do damage to the building because it is a Trump building? The operative word here is clearly “rational.”

    Except … it was, in fact, a Trump supporter who did it. RedState has not had any follow-ups on this one.

    It was 37-year-old Matthew Livelsberger, an active duty Green Beret who loved Trump and was described by his uncle as “a 100 percent patriot” who was “like a Rambo-type, for lack of a better word.”

    For his part, Ryan Walters, the Oklahoma schools chief who has been trying to Jesusify the state’s entire public school system, was pretty sure that these men committed these acts because the US school system taught them to hate America — to hate America so much that, again, they both joined the Army. Like big America-haters often do. [video at the link]

    Walters said:

    What a terrible day when we see terrorist attacks on American soil. It’s absolutely tragic and we’ve got to look as a country on how these things happen. We absolutely have to shut down the border, we can’t allow terrorists to come across the border. We also have to take a look at how are these terrorists coming from people that live in America?

    You have schools that are teaching kids to hate their country, that this country is evil, you have the teachers unions pushing this on our kids, the radical Left wants people to hate this country. They’ve completely destroyed the integrity of the FBI by making them more concerned about DEI than about protecting Americans. It’s a major part of this.

    And look, this is a real uncomfortable truth, and I know the Left is going to lose their mind, but listen: We cannot allow our schools to be terrorist training camps. We cannot allow our schools to teach our kids to hate this country. We cannot allow our kids to be taught that this is an evil country.

    That’s why we’re getting back to the basics in Oklahoma, to make sure that our kids love this country, understand American values, understand the role that the Constitution, the Bible, the Declaration of Independence played in American history. Because we want patriots, and that’s going to be the focus of our schools.

    […] Jabbar, certainly, had a bit more in common with a religious fundamentalist like Ryan Walters than he did with secular liberals looking to advance diversity, equity and inclusion. He, like Walters, believed that the problems of this world were caused by people not sharing his religious beliefs. Perhaps if he’d actually had a little more DEI training, he’d have been able to accept and tolerate people’s differences.

    It could be possible that Livelsberger was very upset about the recent H-1B VISA scuffle between Trump and Elon and their supporters, it’s possible he was upset about the price of eggs, even — but the guy also had kind of a lot going on in his personal life. Like how his second wife kicked him out around Christmastime after he got caught cheating, and how he immediately started reaching out to ex-girlfriends, texting one of them all about how driving the Cybertruck made him feel like “Batman or halo.”

    […] Now, again — we may never know what Livelsberger’s exact motive was in killing himself by setting fire to his Cybertruck in front of a Trump hotel, but if I had to guess, I would say it likely had more to do with what was going on in his own life and his own mind than with some grand political statement for which he did not even bother to write a manifesto (that we know of).

    To be fair, this tactic does work for them.

    A few months ago, 14-year-old Colt Gray went on a shooting spree at at Apalachee High School, in Winder, Georgia, killing two teachers and two students and injuring nine others. Almost immediately afterwards, frothing transphobes took to social media to claim that Gray was transgender, trying to make the whole incident into a discourse on the incredible danger of trans people. Gray, however, like the vast, vast majority of mass shooters before and after him, was a cisgender male. In fact, it would also turn out that Gray, himself, was very upset about the existence of trans people.

    Once that was clear, they didn’t walk it back, they just stopped talking about it altogether.

    […] It’s almost as if they don’t care what is true and what isn’t, so long as it makes them feel good. […]

    Speaking of facts and statistics, there are traits that many of these criminals share — they’re just not the ones conservatives want to hear about. Sixty-eight percent of mass shooters, rather than being fervent supporters of equality, usually have a history of domestic violence or violence against women. There have been multiple mass shootings committed by men who felt rejected by women or by a woman in particular, who were angry about our increasingly multicultural society, who were angry about immigrants being here, LGBTQ+ people existing, Black people existing or Jewish people existing. Also, studies have shown that the strongest predictor of acts of violent extremist acts is US military service, not “being an immigrant or just looking like one (to people who think all brown people are from somewhere else).”

    I’m also going to note, for posterity’s sake, that just last week, a 22-year-old Michigan man plead guilty to planning a mass shooting of gay people at both “a political party’s headquarters” and a nearby gay bar. While his journals were filled with endless anti-LGBTQ+ tirades and praise for other mass murderers, there was very little about having learned to hate America from his teachers. He is also not an immigrant.

    I am not a mind reader, but I strongly suspect that these people desperately want to be able to blame acts of terrorism, mass shootings and other tragedies on immigration, accurate United States history classes, and transgender people because they want very badly to have their big “I told you so!” moments. I think there were a lot of years there where they got very huffy about us supposedly “politicizing” tragedies by saying we wanted better gun control laws so that they didn’t happen again or by pointing out the way the hateful ideologies of those who committed them had been promoted by right-wing media — and that they now think that they are “giving us a taste of our own medicine.” I think they think this is about PR and “winning.”

    Luckily for them, they can frequently count on people only paying attention in the beginning of the news coverage for things like this and tuning out afterwards, never actually finding out the whole story or learning they are wrong.

    The whole purpose of terrorism is to scare people into doing what the terrorist wants or to punish them for not doing that. Purposely lying about a tragedy or act of terrorism in order to achieve a political aim, or claiming that the perpetrator is a member of a group you don’t like without any evidence (or desperately wanting that person to be, in order to help you further demonize that group), isn’t exactly terrorism itself, but it’s sure as hell done in the same spirit and with the same intent.

    True.

  35. JM says

    Raw Story: ‘No’: Trump’s latest demand gets curt shutdown from White House spokesperson
    Quote from Trump’s TruthSocial post

    “In any event, because of the death of President Jimmy Carter, the Flag may, for the first time ever during an Inauguration of a future President, be at half mast. Nobody wants to see this, and no American can be happy about it. Let’s see how it plays out. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

    Trump is upset because flags will be at half mast during his inauguration. Didn’t directly demand that it be changed but that is clearly what he is asking for. The White House spokesperson said no to reconsidering it. 30 days after the death of a president is traditional and set in the US Flag Code. Even for Trump this is amazingly petty.

  36. Reginald Selkirk says

    Californians Say X Blocked Them From Viewing Amber Alert About Missing 14-Year-Old

    Earlier this week, the California Highway Patrol sent an Amber Alert push notification to phones in the Los Angeles area about a 14-year-old girl that authorities believed had been abducted. But instead of conveying vital information that could help locate the victim within the notification itself, the law enforcement agency linked to a post from its official X account, a practice it adopted six years ago. But this time, many people reported they could not view the alert because they hit a screen that prevents users from seeing any content on X until they sign in to their account…

  37. says

    Fox News hosts clash over New Orleans attack misinformation

    Fox News’ Jessica Tarlov went head to head with “The Five” cohost Jeanine Pirro Thursday after Pirro attempted to bash President Biden’s response to the New Year’s Day terrorist attack in New Orleans.

    “When you say, ‘I’m embarrassed watching Joe Biden,’ I’m not embarrassed seeing someone stand up there and say, ‘Let’s wait for some facts here,’ because Donald Trump went out there and he said…” Tarlov stated before getting cut off by Pirro.

    “No, he assured Americans all was well,” Pirro retorted.

    Snapping back, Tarlov said, “No, listen to all of the comments that he made and the statements which said we need to make sure we have the right facts, and the right facts were that the guy in New Orleans was an American. He wasn’t an illegal.”

    As of Jan. 2, at least 14 people died after Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a Texas-born U.S. citizen, drove a rented truck into a crowd of revelers on the popular Bourbon Street.

    When Pirro tried to argue that “no one” had been claiming the attacker was in the U.S. illegally, Tarlov spouted, “That’s not true! There have been Republicans who have been on TV today talking about how this was an open border problem.”

    And in a rare statement from Daily Kos—one Fox News host is right.

    Republicans and felon-elect Donald Trump almost immediately jumped on the New Orleans attack as an opportunity to share anti-immigrant conspiracies and blame immigration policies despite the attacker being an American citizen from Texas.

    “When I said that the criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we have in our country, that statement was constantly refuted by Democrats and the Fake News Media, but it turned out to be true,” Trump wrote via Truth Social in a statement following the attack.

    Later that day, Trump went on to call the U.S. a “disaster” and a “laughing stock all over the world.”

    “This is what happens when you have OPEN BORDERS, with weak, ineffective, and virtually nonexistent leadership,” he wrote.

    The following day, Trump doubled down on his blatantly racist claims, writing, “With the Biden ‘Open Border’s Policy’ I said, many times during Rallies, and elsewhere, that Radical Islamic Terrorism, and other forms of violent crime, will become so bad in America that it will become hard to even imagine or believe. That time has come, only worse than ever imagined.”

    While Trump is shouting about open borders, data shows otherwise.

    In October, USA Today reported data showing that migrant apprehensions dropped by 75%, making the number of illegal border crossings the lowest the U.S. has seen since 2020.

    And while Trump and his cronies are latching onto misinformation to spread anti-immigration rhetoric, even the occasional Fox News’ host is finally getting fed up with the lies. [video at the link]

    Yep. Discouraging … but at least a few facts are getting through, even if only occasionally.

  38. says

    Judge sets Trump’s sentencing in hush money case—but signals no jail time

    In an extraordinary turn, a judge Friday set President-elect Donald Trump’s sentencing in his hush money case for Jan. 10 — little over a week before he’s due to return to the White House — but promised not to jail him.

    Judge Juan M. Merchan, who presided over Trump’s trial, signaled in a written decision that he’d sentence the former and future president to what’s known as a conditional discharge, in which a case gets dismissed if a defendant avoids rearrest.

    The development marks yet another twist in the singular case.

    Trump was convicted in May of 34 counts of falsifying business records. They involved an alleged scheme to hide a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels in the last weeks of Trump’s first campaign in 2016. The payout was made to keep her from publicizing claims she’d had sex with the married Trump years earlier. He says that her story is false and that he did nothing wrong.

    After Trump’s Nov. 5 election, Merchan halted proceedings and indefinitely postponed the sentencing so the defense and prosecution could weigh in on the future of the case.

    Trump’s lawyers urged Merchan to toss it. They said it would otherwise pose unconstitutional “disruptions” to the incoming president’s ability to run the country.

    Prosecutors acknowledged there should be some accommodation for his upcoming presidency, but they insisted the conviction should stand.

    They suggested various options, such as freezing the case during his term or guaranteeing him a no-jail sentence. They also proposed closing the case while formally noting both his conviction and his undecided appeal — a novel idea drawn from what some state courts do when criminal defendants die while appealing their cases.

    Trump takes office Jan. 20.

    Posted by a reader of the article:

    THIS is what twelve brave jurors got doxx’ed by MAGA*s and risked bodily harm to themselves and/or their families for?!?

    The American justice system is teaching us ALL the lesson that honesty and following the law and the rules, sacrificing, and doing your civic duty is just for “suckers and losers”. Our country is going to hell…and Americans themselves are taking it there.

  39. says

    WTF?

    Mr Merchan wrote that a sentence of “unconditional discharge” – meaning no custody, monetary fine, or probation – would be “the most viable solution.”

    Link

  40. says

    New York Times:

    New York judge on Friday upheld President-elect Donald J. Trump’s criminal conviction but signaled that he was inclined to spare him any punishment, a striking development in a case that had spotlighted an array of embarrassing misdeeds and imperiled the former and future president’s freedom.

    The judge, Juan M. Merchan, indicated that he favored a so-called unconditional discharge of Mr. Trump’s sentence, a rare and lenient alternative to jail or probation. He set a sentencing date of Jan. 10, and ordered Mr. Trump to appear either in person or virtually.

    An unconditional discharge would cement Mr. Trump’s status as a felon just weeks before his inauguration — he would be the first to carry that dubious designation into the presidency — even as it would water down the consequences for his crimes.

    Unlike a conditional discharge, which allows defendants to walk free if they meet certain requirements, such as maintaining employment or paying restitution, an unconditional discharge would come without strings attached.

    That sentence, Justice Merchan wrote in an 18-page decision, “appears to be the most viable solution to ensure finality and allow defendant to pursue his appellate options.”

    Mr. Trump, who could ask an appeals court to intervene and postpone the sentencing, was facing up to four years in prison. A Manhattan jury convicted him in May on 34 counts of falsifying business records, concluding that he had sought to cover up a sex scandal that threatened to derail his 2016 campaign for president.

    Justice Merchan declined on Friday to overturn the jury’s verdict, rebuffing Mr. Trump’s claim that his election victory should nullify his conviction.

    And last month, the same judge rejected another argument Mr. Trump had mounted in hopes of getting the case dismissed: that his conviction had violated a recent Supreme Court ruling granting presidents broad immunity for their official actions.

    Together, Justice Merchan’s two rulings picked apart Mr. Trump’s legal maneuvers, upholding the first criminal conviction of an American president and denying him the opportunity to clear his record before returning to the White House.

    “To dismiss the indictment and set aside the jury verdict would not serve the concerns set forth by the Supreme Court in its handful of cases addressing presidential immunity nor would it serve the rule of law,” Justice Merchan wrote in the Friday ruling. “On the contrary, such decision would undermine the rule of law in immeasurable ways.”

    The judge’s ruling does not guarantee that Mr. Trump will face sentencing on Jan. 10 as planned. In the coming days, his lawyers could ask an appeals court to grant an emergency pause of the sentencing. The appeals court could then rule within a matter of hours.

    Alternatively, now that the judge has disclosed that he is unlikely to sentence Mr. Trump to jail, the president-elect could decide not to fight the sentencing. There is some benefit to Mr. Trump accepting his sentence. Once sentenced, he is free to appeal his conviction and mount a drawn-out legal battle across his second presidential term.

    While New York appeals courts might resist his efforts, he may ultimately fare better at the Supreme Court, where the 6-to-3 conservative majority includes three justices whom Mr. Trump appointed in his first term.

    […] If the sentencing proceeds as planned, an unconditional discharge would mark a highly unusual conclusion to the landmark case.

    A New York Times review of the 30 felony false-records convictions in Manhattan since 2014 revealed that no other defendant received an unconditional discharge. They instead received jail and prison sentences, probation, conditional discharges, community service or fines.

    The lenient sentence would reflect the practical impossibility of jailing a president-elect or sitting president — or even holding the threat of jail over his head during his term.

    It would also cap a stunning turnabout for Mr. Trump, who last year faced four criminal cases in four different jurisdictions, each carrying the threat of years in prison. Now, he is poised to avoid spending even a day behind bars, thanks to an election that returned him to the White House.

    The federal special counsel who brought two of those cases, one in Washington, D.C., and the other in Florida, recently shut them down, yielding to a Justice Department policy prohibiting federal prosecutions of sitting presidents.

    […] It is also unclear whether the federal policy against prosecuting sitting presidents applies to local prosecutors in the district attorney’s office — or to a defendant like Mr. Trump who was not a sitting president when convicted.

    In detailing the policy against prosecuting sitting presidents decades ago, the Justice Department described it as “a temporary immunity,” suggesting it did not apply before or after a president’s term in office. […]

  41. says

    NBC News:

    The judge presiding over the hush money case against President-elect Donald Trump on Friday denied his bid to dismiss the case and said he’ll sentence him on Jan. 10, ten days before his inauguration as the 47th president.

    Judge Juan Merchan said Trump can appear in person or virtually for the sentencing, and that he won’t order Trump jailed.

    “While this Court as a matter of law must not make any determination on sentencing prior to giving the parties and Defendants opportunity to be heard, it seems proper at this juncture to make known the Court’s inclination to not impose any sentence of incarceration, a sentence authorized by the conviction but one the People concede they no longer view as a practicable recommendation,” the judge wrote in his ruling.

    Merchan said that “a sentence of an unconditional discharge appears to be the most viable solution to ensure finality and allow Defendant to pursue his appellate options,” but he would not grant Trump’s request to vacate the verdict.

    “Here, 12 jurors unanimously found Defendant guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records with the intent to defraud, which included an intent to commit or conceal a conspiracy to promote a presidential election by unlawful means,” he wrote.

    Trump was convicted in May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment his then-attorney Michael Cohen paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels in the closing days of the 2016 presidential election.

    “It was the premediated and continuous deception by the leader of the free world that is the gravamen of this offense,” Merchan wrote.

    “To vacate this verdict on the grounds that the charges are insufficiently serious given the position Defendant once held, and is about to assume again, would constitute a disproportionate result and cause immeasurable damage to the citizenry’s confidence in the Rule of Law,” the judge added.

    Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung called the ruling “a direct violation of the Supreme Court’s Immunity decision and other longstanding jurisprudence. This lawless case should have never been brought and the Constitution demands that it be immediately dismissed.” [Bullshit.]

    “There should be no sentencing, and President Trump will continue fighting against these hoaxes until they are all dead,” he added. [Not a “hoax.”]

    It’s unclear whether Trump plans to appear for the sentencing, either in person or virtually. The judge left open the possibility of sentencing him when his term in office is done — an alternative that had been suggested by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office.

    Merchan said he found that option “less desirable than imposing sentence prior to January 20, 2025. The reasons are obvious. However, if the Court is unable to impose sentence before Defendant takes his oath of office, then this may become the only viable option.”

    The DA’s office declined to comment.

    Merchan denied another bid to dismiss the case last month, when Trump argued he was already protected by presidential immunity given his status as president-elect.

    Trump was initially scheduled to be sentenced in the case back in July, but the proceeding was delayed multiple times at the request of Trump’s lawyers, first because of a Supreme Court ruling that created a new standard for presidential immunity and later because of Trump’s election win.

    Link

    Video available at the link.

  43. Reginald Selkirk says

    Canada listing Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as terrorist group after years of pressure

    The federal government is listing Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization under Canada’s Criminal Code after years of mounting pressure.

    Federal ministers delivered the news Wednesday afternoon, hours after CBC News first reported the government was preparing to make the announcement.

    “This action sends a strong message that Canada will use all of the tools at its disposal to combat the terrorist entity of the IRGC,” Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc told reporters. “Our government will ensure that there is no immunity for Iran’s unlawful actions and its support of terrorism.”

    Once a group is placed on the country’s terror list, police can charge anyone who financially or materially supports the group and banks can freeze its assets…

  44. Reginald Selkirk says

    Dark Energy May Not Exist: Something Stranger Might Explain The Universe

    There might not be a mysterious ‘dark’ force accelerating the expansion of the Universe after all. The truth could be much stranger – bubbles of space where time passes at drastically different rates.

    The passage of time isn’t as constant as our experience with it suggests. Areas of higher gravity experience a slower pace of time compared with areas where gravity is weaker, a fact that could have some pretty major implications on how we compare rates of cosmic expansion according to a recently developed model called timescape cosmology.

    Discrepancies in how fast time passes in different regions of the Universe could add up to billions of years, giving some places more time to expand than others. When we look at distant objects through these time-warping bubbles, it could create the illusion that the expansion of the Universe is accelerating.

    Two new studies have analyzed more than 1,500 supernovae to investigate how likely the concept could be – and found that the timescape model might be a better fit for observations than our current best model…

    Consider this to be highly speculative.

  46. Reginald Selkirk says

    Trains halted, FBI involved: Explosive device found on train car in Treasure Valley

    Police halted train activity for hours after footprints in the snow led officers to an explosive device on a train car on New Year’s Day.

    The Payette Police Department said it received a report “regarding a suspicious subject” who was seen “attempting to light something on fire” near a parked railroad car in the 600 Block of North 8th Street in Payette.

    Officers arriving at the scene just before 6 p.m. found fresh footprints leading to a train car that had a “suspected undetonated improvised explosive device,” also known as an IED, a Payette Police Department news release said.

    Payette Police Chief Gary Marshall told the Idaho Statesman that the explosive was a “pipe bomb-style device” made out of polyvinyl chloride plastic, and it was found on a step connected to the outside of the train car.

    Further footprints led to a camp trailer parked near a residence in the 600 block, according to police. Officers apprehended Brent Sharrai, 40, of Payette, after a short foot pursuit, police said…

  47. Reginald Selkirk says

    Matt Gaetz Debuts His New OANN Show

    Scandal-plagued former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) made his hosting debut on One America News Network on Thursday night after his failed attorney bid and the release of a damning House Ethics Committee report.

    The controversial right-wing network announced last month that Gaetz would be joining its prime-time lineup with “The Matt Gaetz Show” in a 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. slot, weeks after he withdrew as Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Justice Department.

    Among other guests, Gaetz hosted fellow pro-MAGA extremists Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) to discuss House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) battle to hold on to his gavel in a congressional vote this Friday.

    But after the network released a teaser clip on Thursday, a large portion of the feedback focused on a totally unrelated subject.

    “lol to whoever did his concealer,” one person wrote.

    “Blending, this diva needs blending,” said another social media user.

    “However much you might despise Matt Gaetz, his makeup person has you beat,” wrote another…

  48. Reginald Selkirk says

    Nassau County executive refuses to fly flags at half-staff

    Flags are flying at half-staff across the country to commemorate former President Jimmy Carter — except for in one New York county.

    Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman has refused to lower flags at government buildings in his district, according to a county legislator.

    “Whether it’s pettiness, laziness, or pure ignorance, Nassau deserves a county executive who understands that honoring a former president transcends partisan politics,” said Nassau County Legislator Seth Koslow in a statement on Friday.

    PIX11 News reached out to Blakeman’s office for a statement but did not receive a response…

  49. birgerjohansson says

    The Ring Of Fire w. Farron Cousins:
    “Pro Life” Republicans SILENT As Babies Being Found In Texas Dumpsters

    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=i_0GbDWOEHw
    Texas has ‘safe haven’ laws that mean you can leave babies to authorities no questions asked, but there is no effort to publicize this.

  51. Bekenstein Bound says

    Within hours of the New Year’s attack in New Orleans, [Trump] simultaneously flunked tests of accuracy, decency and credibility.

    I’m pretty sure that within hours of any random moment in time Trump will do this.

    “I think we truly had some very disturbing things happen with the FBI and their involvement. They created many entrapment scenarios on American citizens who just simply were patriotic and wanted to express their First Amendment rights. Instead they were enticed and encouraged to, you know, do things that they didn’t even know might be illegal.”

    […] The problem with this bizarre line isn’t just that the GOP congressman has no evidence to support his claims. The problem is made worse by Burlison’s timing. Just a couple of weeks before the Republican’s on-air comments, the Justice Department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, unveiled the detailed findings of a four-year investigation, which concluded that while there were FBI informants at the Capitol, no FBI officials were responsible for instigating the attack.

    One thing that makes this worse is that the FBI has damaged its own credibility by actually doing those sorts of entrapment schemes against an assortment of non-white and non-right-wing activists and organizations. Now when genuinely guilty far-right extremists accuse the FBI of doing the same thing to them it has a thin veneer of plausibility that it otherwise would have lacked.

  53. StevoR says

    @44. Reginald Selkirk : “Dark Energy May Not Exist: Something Stranger Might Explain The Universe.”

    Thanks for that. Fascinating and quite trippy stuff with litrally cosmic implications. I reckon they may well be right..

    @22. Alverant : Best wishes to your cat and hope all goes as well as possible. Pets are family.

    @ Lynna, OM : Seconding (thirding, fifthing? Five hundred and fifty=fifthing?) the thanks for your work onthis thread and making this thread happen. FWIEW linked one of your commenst fromthelast one here :

    https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/01/01/i-was-going-to-call-in-a-haruspex-but/#comment-2248781

    Hope that’s okay.

  54. StevoR says

    Seems we might be in for more aurorae :

    Supercharged auroras possible this weekend as colossal ‘hole’ in the sun spews solar wind toward Earth
    News
    By Daisy Dobrijevic published 16 hours ago

    Fast solar wind from a massive coronal hole in the sun could trigger dazzling auroral displays as geomagnetic activity is predicted to ramp up again over the weekend.

    Headline bolded.

    Source : https://www.space.com/stargazing/aurora-borealis/supercharged-auroras-possible-this-weekend-as-colossal-hole-in-the-sun-spews-solar-wind-toward-earth

    Something to look out for. Seems we’re having a good or at least powerful solar maximum this cycle.

  57. StevoR says

    Also via space dot com news :

    The first launch of New Glenn (Rocket – ed.) could occur between Jan. 6 and Jan. 12, according to the FAA.Blue Origin, the private spaceflight company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, is on the cusp of launching into the big booster market with the debut of its New Glenn rocket next week, but exactly when the test flight will lift off is unclear.

    After years of development —  Jeff Bezos first announced the new rocket in 2016 —  Blue Origin is expected to launch its first New Glenn booster as early as Monday, Jan. 6, from a pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. That’s based on an FAA alert to pilots that states the opening of Blue Origin’s New Glenn launch window. Liftoff would be at 1 a.m. EST (0600 GMT), according to that notice. But Blue Origin has not publicly announced the specific launch date and time, only that is nearing the first launch of New Glenn

    Source : https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/blue-origin-ready-to-launch-1st-new-glenn-rocket

  60. lumipuna says

    Addendum to 15 (Reuters news quoted by Reginald Selkirk on the Finnish cable breach investigation):

    A Finnish court on Friday denied a request for the release of an oil tanker suspected by police of damaging an undersea power line and four telecommunications cables in the Baltic Sea last week…

    A lawyer representing United Arab Emirates-based Caravella LLC FZ, which owns the tanker, had sought the release of the vessel and crew.
    “This district court has rejected the claim of the defendant, which means that this seizure remains in force,” Helsinki District Court Judge Tatu Koistinen said.
    Finnish lawyer Herman Ljungberg, who represented Caravella, said the company now planned to file a new motion for the vessel’s release.

    This investigation will take a long time, and Finnish media are reporting all kinds of minor developments. The seized ship was, after a few days, moved from the open sea to a more sheltered anchoring place in the coastal archipelago near Helsinki. Reportedly, eight members of the 20-ish crew of Georgian and Indian nationals are thus far suspected of being involved in sabotage. Apparently, none of the crew are able to leave the ship, although not all are officially detained.

    BTW, Caravella is (according to Finnish media) an apparent “mailbox” company that only owns this one ship. That’s one of the suspicious aspects characteristic of Russian shadow fleet vessels. I imagine a regular lawyer for some shady Russian company is tasked with contracting a temporary lawyer in the Emirates or London or somewhere to represent Caravella in the case something happens. Then that lawyer is tasked with contracting a local lawyer who knows the relevant laws, official procedures and (if possible) bribery channels.

    Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation has impounded the vessel and the Finnish customs office has seized its cargo of 35,000 tonnes of unleaded petrol while it investigates whether sanctions against Russia have been breached…

    I can’t even keep track of what sanctions are possibly being violated and how. As is standard in modern maritime trade, there are like half dozen different countries involved in owning the ship, registering it, operating it, crewing it and trying to buy the petrol that was exported from Russia. Finnish media are mainly talking about the breaches of one power cable and several data cables, all connected to this ship.

  62. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Re: birgerjohansson @49:
    I’d seen the article your youtube video sourced.

    Newborns are being left in dumpsters in Texas, but Republicans don’t seem to care

    Because the goal is punishment, there’s no reason for Republicans to invest in safe haven laws, which shield young women from legal consequences for abandoning a newborn. When a young woman throws a baby in a dumpster, however, that’s a crime and she can be arrested. More resources into the safe haven program would save lives, but would reduce the number of women that can be thrown in jail. Given a choice between living babies or imprisoned women, Republicans pick the latter.

    But I declined to share it myself when I saw the author.
    Amanda Marcotte “once advocated for the coercive imprisonment of rape victims who did not wish to press charges. Because that would totally solve the problem of un-prosecuted sexual assault.”

    That article in 2014. Various rebuttals. Never retracted.
    /Props to SallyStrange for remembering.

  63. KG says

    Reginald Selkirk@44,

    The possible significance of variation over large spatial scales in the rate time passes seems like something that should have been obvious, once it’s pointed out. But that in itself makes me wonder if these “timescape” folks are missing something the “dark energy” crew have already thought of. It’ll be interesting to see what response the latter make.

  64. Reginald Selkirk says

    @44, 53, 63

    Wait a minute – isn’t there something in Life, the Universe, and Everything about a “slow time envelope”? I recall a phrase similar to “the Committee for Slow Time” but the search engines don’t back me up.

  65. Reginald Selkirk says

    @64
    Well crap, I can’t find my copy to check it out. This is a dilemma. Do I buy a new copy, or do I organize my library?

  66. Reginald Selkirk says

    New device’s radio waves reveal lead contamination in soil

    A Cornell Tech-led research group is in the early stages of developing a portable, inexpensive device that uses radio frequency signals and machine learning for another important job: measuring lead contamination levels in soil.

    The lab of Rajalakshmi Nandakumar, assistant professor at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech, has developed SoilScanner, which sends radio waves of different frequencies from an RF transmitter, through a soil sample to an RF receiver, which reveals the effect the soil—and how much lead is in it—has on the signal.

    Nandakumar is senior author and Yixuan Gao, a doctoral candidate in computer science, is lead author of “Feasibility of Radio Frequency Based Wireless Sensing of Lead Contamination in Soil,” which won a best-paper award at the International Conference on Embedded Wireless Systems and Networks (EWSN ’24), held Dec. 10–13 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates…

    Testing for lead in soil generally involves either sending samples to a lab for analysis, which relies upon harsh chemicals and can be expensive, or using a portable X-ray fluorescence device, which is cost-prohibitive for many communities.

    The group’s device is simple: Dirt is placed in a one-liter plastic container between the transmitter and receiving antenna. The transmitter sends short bursts of single-tone RF signals at low and high frequencies (700 to 1,000 megahertz and 2.3 to 2.5 gigahertz) through the soil sample.

    The receiver’s power spectrum reading is passed to a machine-learning model for further analysis.

    SoilScanner was calibrated and tested on two different sets of samples: 23 lab-prepared samples of dirt, spiked with lead; and 22 field samples of varying compositions. It was able to detect lead contamination in natural field samples with 72% overall accuracy, and became even more accurate as the ppm value rose. It had a zero-error rate when lead levels were greater than 500 ppm…

    That doesn’t sound like sufficient testing. My first question is: is it specific for lead, or is it thrown off by other metals?

  67. Reginald Selkirk says

    Names of 425,000 suspected Nazi collaborators published

    The names of around 425,000 people suspected of collaborating with the Nazis during the German occupation of the Netherlands have been published online for the first time.

    The names represent individuals who were investigated through a special legal system established towards the end of World War Two. Of them, more than 150,000 faced some form of punishment.

    The full records of these investigations were previously only accessible by visiting the Dutch National Archives in The Hague…

  68. says

    StevoR @53:

    @ Lynna, OM : Seconding (thirding, fifthing? Five hundred and fifty=fifthing?) the thanks for your work onthis thread and making this thread happen. FWIEW linked one of your commenst fromthelast one here :
    https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/01/01/i-was-going-to-call-in-a-haruspex-but/#comment-2248781
    Hope that’s okay.

    Thank you for the note of appreciation. It’s always good to know when one’s work is valued by others.

    And, yes, of course it is okay to cross post information from one thread to another. I do that myself fairly frequently.

  69. says

    Why Are Publications Sugar-Coating Livilsberger’s Political Minifestos?

    Over the last four days the bizarre Cybertruck fire outside a Trump hotel in Las Vegas has run from comical interlude to possible terrorist incident to tragic suicide of another veteran of America’s forever wars. Each of these descriptions still captures an important part of the story. As I noted yesterday, while Matthew Livelsberger appears to have had a series of combustible and likely abusive relationships going back many years he appears to have suffered from PTSD and possibly a traumatic brain injury since returning from a tour of duty in 2019. (I’m tentative on the spousal abuse front only because for now the direct evidence for that that I’m aware of comes only from the friend of his ex-wife.)

    But at least for the moment there is a pretty striking lack of attention to the political motives he expressed in at least two documents or what I guess we might call minifestos that investigators found on his iphone.

    They denounce Democrats and demand they be “culled” from Washington, by violence if necessary, and hopes his death will serve as a kind of bell clap for a national rebirth of masculinity under the leadership of Donald Trump, Elon Musk and Bobby Kennedy Jr. [!!!]

    Did you miss that stuff? Yeah, me too!

    In the headlines the latest news has only been that he warned of national decline and bore “no ill will toward Mr. Trump” in the words of one of the investigators. That gloss on Donald Trump is, shall we say, a bit of an understatement as you can see in these excerpts.

    Military and vets move on DC starting now. Militias facilitate and augment this activity.

    Occupy every major road along fed buildings and the campus of fed buildings by the hundreds of thousands.

    Lock the highways around down with semis right after everybody gets in. Hold until the purge is complete.

    Try peaceful means first, but be prepared to fight to get the Dems out of the fed government and military by any means necessary. They all must go and a hard reset must occur for our country to avoid collapse.

    We must end the war in Ukraine with negotiated settlement. It is the only way.

    Focus on strength and winning. Masculinity is good and men must be leaders. Strength is a deterrent and fear is the product.

    Stop obsessing over diversity. We are all diverse and DEI is a cancer. Thankfully we rejected the DEI candidate and will have a real President instead of Weekend at Bernie’s.

    Consider this last sunset of ‘24 and my actions the end of our sickness and a new chapter of health for our people. Rally around the Trump, Musk, Kennedy, and ride this wave to the highest hegemony for all Americans! We are second to no one.

    I encourage you to read the two minifestos all the way through. They’re not long. I excerpted at least half above. You can find them here.

    […] He also rails against the 1%, excessive screen time for kids, wars with no clear strategic purpose, obesity. We should also note explicitly that Livelsberger can both be a violent extremist and a victim of PTSD and in a broader sense part of the human collateral damage of the wars that occupied the US military through the first two decades of the 21st century. Our minds should be big enough for both those realities. But the through-line is pretty clear: If you’re a Democrat or someone who is Democrat-coded, Livilsberger’s version of national rebirth probably isn’t a fun one for you.

    At least when I looked last night the only places I saw these parts of Livelsberger’s writings in any detail were relatively obscure publications. I was worried that maybe they were hoax documents that had somehow found their way into a few publications. So I traced them back to yesterday’s police press conference. They are indeed real. [!!]

    As a final point let me return to the question we’ve discussed over the last few days: what was the political message of torching a Cybertruck in front of a Trump hotel? He actually answers that more or less clearly in the second minifesto: “This was not a terrorist attack, it was a wake up call. Americans only pay attention to spectacles and violence. What better way to get my point across than a stunt with fireworks and explosives?”

    One might quibble over whether it was a terrorist attack. But I will give Livelsberger his due inasmuch as he does not appear to have intended to injure others, at least not in the vicinity of a Trump venue. He’s pretty clear: making something go boom around big Trump and Musk identifiers would get everyone’s attention. As indeed it did.

  70. says

    Some good, or at least hopeful, news: Attorneys general to watch fight Trump in 2025

    Democratic attorneys general are preparing for the fight of their careers against President-elect Donald Trump, who plans to begin mass deportations on “day one,” among many other cruel policies.

    These top legal public servants are vowing to protect the constitutional rights of their residents, and some are crossing state lines to team up for the fight.

    […] Kris Mayes, Arizona
    Mayes assumed office in 2023, after beating the Republican candidate by 511 votes. The race involved significant attention to voting rights and election integrity. Her focus is on fighting fraud, cyber scams, and elder abuse as well as pushing back against extremist attacks on reproductive rights, prosecuting political corruption, and protecting voting rights.

    “I do not believe, in electing Donald Trump, Arizona voters voted to shred the U.S. and Arizona constitutions,” she said shortly after the presidential election. “And if Donald Trump tries to do that, he’ll have to go through me first.”

    Rob Bonta, California
    California Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed Bonta in 2021. He’s the first person of Filipino descent and only second Asian-American to be the state’s attorney general. His top priorities are stopping gun violence, helping victims of crime, and protecting civil rights and reproductive rights.

    Bonta has a $25 million legal war chest to fight Trump.

    “Let me be clear, President-elect Trump’s immigration agenda is draconian and his rhetoric, xenophobic,” said Bonta at a recent press conference. “We’re issuing updated policies to guide institutions and their staff in complying with California law limiting state and local participation in immigration enforcement activities.”

    Phil Weiser, Colorado
    Weiser has been Colorado’s attorney general since 2019 and was reelected in 2022. He has used his office to protect the Endangered Species Act, fight fraud, ensure the state’s right to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars, and hold the Sackler family—which owned Purdue Pharma, maker of the highly addictive drug OxyContin—accountable for their role in the opioid epidemic.

    “It’s hard to know exactly what’s coming. We’re going to be ready for a range of scenarios,” he told ABC News on Nov. 21 regarding Trump’s mass deportations. “We’re going to make sure that we operate by the law. … We’re worried about citizens. We’re worried about people’s spouses, grandparents, getting swept up in these indiscriminate raids.”

    Anne Lopez, Hawaii
    Lopez has served the Aloha State since 2022. Her top priorities are increasing access to health care and expanding affordable housing. Lopez and Hawaii Gov. Josh Green are amassing a $10 million legal war chest against Trump. They joined other blue states in preparing a coalition against the Trump administration.

    Aaron Ford, Nevada
    Ford has served since 2019 and was reelected in 2022. He’s the first Black person to hold the office in Nevada’s history.

    “It would be a lie to say that President-elect Trump’s upcoming term does not concern me, based on his prior disregard for the law,” Ford said. “Though there are many areas which concern me, including reproductive rights and antitrust protections, I will pay close attention to any action that seems like it may run afoul of the law.”

    Raúl Torrez, New Mexico
    Torrez was sworn into office in 2023. His priorities are protecting democracy, crime prevention, and reproductive health care access. Earlier this year, he released a report on the criminal investigation into New Mexico’s fake-elector scheme, which Trump promoted.

    “It is disgraceful that New Mexicans were enlisted in a plot to undermine democracy and thwart the peaceful and orderly transfer of power,” he said in a statement in January.

    Dan Rayfield, Oregon
    Rayfield will be sworn into office in January 2025. His incoming priorities are gun violence, substance abuse and homelessness, reproductive health care access, consumer and worker protections, and environmental policy. […]

    Nick Brown, Washington
    […] “Make no mistake, I do view the threats from the next Trump administration as profoundly serious and as uniquely dangerous to some of the protections and interests here in Washington state,” he said on Dec. 3.

    Kwame Raoul, Illinois
    Raoul has served as attorney general since 2019. His focus is on climate laws, such as energy efficiency standards, and fighting against unlawful pharmaceutical practices.

    […] He and Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser have drawn up a playbook to fight Trump. “For years, Trump Tower failed to follow state and federal regulations that protect the health of the Chicago River and the balance of critical aquatic ecosystems therein,” Raoul said. “All entities—no matter who they are—must be held accountable when they willfully disregard our laws.”

    Dana Nessel, Michigan
    Nessel assumed office in 2019 and was the first openly gay person to be elected to statewide office in Michigan. She has gained national attention for her work on consumer protection, criminal justice reform, LGBTQ+ issues, and political corruption. This year, Nessel spoke at the Democratic National Convention in support of Harris. […]

    Keith Ellison, Minnesota
    Ellison began serving in 2019 and was reelected in 2022. He’s the first Black American and Muslim American to hold the office in Minnesota’s history. Ellison has worked on issues related to the protection of workers and environmental advocacy, and played a prominent role in the prosecution of Derek Chauvin, the former police officer convicted of the murder of George Floyd in 2021. “If [Trump] violates the rights of people, we’re gonna sue, it’s simple as that,” he told reporters. […]

    Much more at the link.

  71. says

    Incompetent-elect Donald Trump made headlines last month with his ridiculous remarks about Panama and its Canal. Many news organizations focused on his bogus claims about Chinese troops controlling it, among other of his prevarications.

    I’ve been following up on his recent huge lie that “38,000 Americans” died building the Canal, which even Fox called out as untrue. Historians agree that during the American-controlled construction phase from 1904 to 1914, the death toll was less than one-sixth of that—less than 6000. Records indicate just a small portion of those who died were white. Additionally, to claim only Americans died erases the enormous number of deaths of West Indians and other not-white workers who actually did the building and most of the dying during this period—as well as the roughly 22,000 workers who died during the French attempt during the 1880s.

    The racism that was locked in place and practiced in the Canal Zone by U.S. overseers are a critical part of Canal history that should never be forgotten. Erasing Black history has long been a key part of the MAGA agenda, and we must continue to push back against it.

    Georgia State University professor Lia T. Bascomb, writing for Picturing Black History, addressed the demographics of the Canal labor force after the U.S. took control of construction.

    Black Laborers on the Panama Canal
    West Indian, especially Barbadian, migrant labor on the Panama Canal changed shipping routes, benefitted the U.S. economy, and affected immigration for decades afterward.

    Between 1904-1916, over 45,000 Barbadians migrated to Panama to work on the canal, roughly a quarter of the island’s population.

    Upon arrival, migrants lived mostly in the Canal Zone, a semiautonomous region that was technically part of Panama but operated and governed by the United States.

    The earliest generation of migrants did the hardest work, literally digging out the space for large boats to cross the fifty miles between the coasts. Deaths from industrial accidents, falls from scaffolding, and disease were common.

    Throughout the building of the canal and for decades after its completion, these migrants and their descendants worked on an unequal pay scale, where mostly white U.S. citizens were paid on the “gold roll,” and the mostly Black, mostly West Indian migrants were paid on the “silver roll.” The distinctions began a form of segregation within the Canal Zone that permeated clubs, schools, and housing as well as pay.

    […] Trump ranted about the Canal to his lying pal Tucker Carlson two summers ago, as noted last month by The Washington Post.

    Last year, in an interview with Tucker Carlson on X, the Elon Musk-owned social media site, Trump inaccurately said that China “controls” and runs the Panama Canal.

    “If I’m president, they’ll get out, because I had a very good relationship with Xi,” Trump said in the August 2023 interview, referring to Chinese President Xi Jinping. “He respected this country. He respected me, and he’ll get out. We can’t let them run the Panama Canal. We built the Panama Canal. Should have never been given to Panama.”

    On Christmas Day, Trump went on a huge rant of over three dozen posts on his Truth Social platform, where he made his false claim that the U.S. lost “38,000 Americans people” while building the Panama Canal.

    A BBC program called “Sounds” fact-checked Trump’s claim a month later, with host Tim Harford consulting Matthew Parker, who wrote the 2007 book “Hell’s Gorge: The Battle to Build the Panama Canal.”

    Parker asserted that the number of white Americans lost was about 300. This is similar to the findings of other historians; as a digital exhibit about the Canal at Missouri’s Linda Hall Library of Science, Engineering and Technology notes:

    Records from the American period of construction document 5,600 deaths, of those, 350 were white Americans and 4,500 were non-white, mostly West Indians. However, the number of West Indian deaths is likely underreported because many lived in the cities outside the Canal Zone and some causes, typhoid fever for example, were not always included in the statistics.

    Historian David McCullough provides just a small snapshot—less than a year’s worth of data—on page 501 of in his 1978 National Book Award in History winner, “The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870–1914“:

    […]for the first 10 months of 1906, the actual death rate among white employees was seventeen per thousand, but among the black West Indians was fifty nine per thousand! Black laborers, those understood to be so ideally suited to withstand the poisonous climate were dying three times as fast as the white workers. If Panama was no longer a white man’s graveyard it was a little less deadly than it had ever been for the black man. And since the black workers outnumbered the white workers by three to one the disparity in the number of fatalities was even more shocking.

    In the previous 10 months, a total of 34 Americans had died, whereas the total among men and women from Barbados alone was 362, ten times greater; 197 Jamaicans had died, 68 from Martinique, 29 from St. Lucia, 27 from Grenada.

    The U.S. Canal Zone health authorities kept meticulous records, many of which are available online. They note the race and national origin of those people who got sick and of those who died. […]

    More, including screen grabs of annual reports showing “deaths of employees […]” separated by “white” and “colored,” are available at the link.

    […] The erasure of dead Black children and the women who bore them has begun to be corrected, most notably in Joan Flores-Villalobos’ 2023 book “The Silver Women: How Black Women’s Labor Made the Panama Canal.” Nicolle Alzamora reviewed it for the Los Angeles Review of Books. […]

    Correcting Trump’s big lie about the Panama Canal

  72. says

    What Russia’s new ‘get out of jail free’ card for military recruitment says about the war

    “Russia is scrambling its legal system to sustain a high-casualty war in Ukraine.”
    Video at the link.

    Russia is desperate for new soldiers to carry on its brutal war in Ukraine. In a remarkable development, the country has devised a kind of “get out of jail free” card in a bid to hoover up new recruits.

    According to The New York Times, Russians suspected of a crime will now see their pending charges disappear if they sign up to join the war: “Local papers nationwide are full of cases of suspected murderers, rapists and thieves who are headed off to war after signing contracts instead of facing trial.” Officials jailed for corruption are being offered amnesty and debtors are having their debts forgiven for agreeing to deploy in a war that has killed or wounded an estimated 600,000 Russian troops.

    These new and exploitative efforts are a reminder that while Russia has made significant territorial gains in Ukraine in the past year, its efforts to sustain its high-casualty war of aggression, where soldiers are often treated as expendable, are not without serious obstacles. It also reflects how Moscow’s commitment to the war is reshaping and militarizing Russian society in ways that could have far-reaching effects beyond the war.

    Russia has already been sending people sentenced to penal colonies — some of the most notorious prisons in the world — to the front lines since 2022. But about half of that population has already reportedly been deployed. The expansion of the recruitment drive to debtors, corrupt politicians and those suspected of heinous crimes shows that the Kremlin is turning over every stone it can to avoid a nationwide draft.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin remains fully committed to the war in Ukraine, but he also knows there are limitations to ordinary Russians’ support. According to Timothy Frye, a political scientist at Columbia University, the general consensus among researchers who follow public opinion on the war in Russia is that some 15% to 20% of Russians are enthusiastic about the war, about 10% are wholly opposed, and most everyone else falls in between. “They don’t want to lose the war, but they’re not willing to sacrifice to stop the war,” Frye told me. “They’re also not willing to volunteer and encourage people to go to the front in some kind of wave of organic patriotism.” Frye also said polling shows that a majority of Russians oppose general conscription, and that any attempt to impose it could spark resistance. Thus the reliance on what he called more “hidden forms of mobilization.” [video about North Korea volunteering its troops to Russia]

    Putin has a strong hand ahead of any potential negotiations with Ukraine that could be initiated after President-elect Donald Trump takes office. While the U.S. has been the biggest source of foreign aid to Ukraine, Trump is looking for a quick end to the conflict. But Putin’s recruitment struggles are a sign that he doesn’t have limitless resources if he wants to grind further into Ukraine and seize more territory ahead of a deal to end the war. The more costly the war is for the general population, the more costly it could be for Putin’s position in Russia: […] The Russian government’s struggle to control a surge in inflation in its war economy only adds to the pressure on Putin to try to keep war mobilization limited while also attempting to maximally dominate Ukraine.

    […] Russians can observe how the legal system is being scrambled just to serve an operation that some Russians perceive as closer to Putin’s hobbyhorse than a war requiring national mobilization. Russia’s legal system is hardly independent of the political system, but Frye told me that “even for Russia, the politicization of the legal system in this case is extreme.” He also noted that people are concerned about criminals who fight at the front and survive and then return to their communities. In other words, this recruitment drive could become the source of more cynicism about the way the government functions.

    Putin is likely cautiously optimistic about Trump’s signals that he will probably reduce support for Ukraine ahead of any negotiations. But things are far from rosy at home as Putin tries to “win” a war that didn’t turn out the way he expected.

  73. says

    Mark Zuckerberg is giving Meta a MAGA-friendly makeover

    “The tech giant tapped Republican Joel Kaplan to lead the company’s global policy, continuing the company’s yearslong rightward shift.”

    New year, new Meta. The tech giant appears to be undergoing a MAGA makeover of sorts as 2025 kicks off.

    The Mark Zuckerberg-led conglomerate announced Thursday that its vice president of global policy, Joel Kaplan, would replace Nick Clegg as the company’s chief global affairs officer.

    “I have come to the view that this is the right time for me to move on from my role as President, Global Affairs at Meta,” Clegg said in a statement Thursday. [X post with photos is available at the link]

    With Kaplan’s elevation, Meta will likely take on a more Republican-friendly approach to global policy as Donald Trump prepares to begin his second presidential term. [Yikes. Another disaster in the making!]

    […] During his time at Meta, Kaplan — who sparked controversy in 2018 for attending Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings as a supporter — has worked to shield right-wingers from content moderation efforts meant to discourage misinformation and hate speech.

    […] In some ways, that was the beginning of Facebook’s — now, Meta’s — rightward shift, which over time has included the elevation of conservatives to top leadership positions, the proliferation of right-wing extremism and misinformation on Meta-owned platforms Instagram and WhatsApp, and even public statements from Zuckerberg himself that were welcomed by the MAGA movement. [snipped examples]

    It’s important to consider the potential motivations Zuckerberg and his company may have for taking a more MAGA-friendly approach. For me, two things in particular come to mind. First, as I wrote in 2022, Zuckerberg is focused on making Meta the leader in virtual reality development through its creation of the “metaverse.” Making a Republican the head of global policy in advance of Trump’s return to the White House can be seen as one way to potentially head off unwanted scrutiny or regulatory action that could hamper that goal.

    The other thing that comes to mind is Trump’s threats toward Zuckerberg, including an ominous remark suggesting the Meta leader could “spend the rest of his life in prison” for “plotting” against Trump. That’s enough to make one wonder whether Meta’s rightward shift is at least partly inspired by its CEO’s desire to avoid Trump’s personal wrath. After all, Zuckerberg was one of several Silicon Valley leaders to visit Mar-a-Lago after Trump’s election victory. And Meta — like other tech giants, including Amazon and OpenAI — has donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund. (Meta — known then as Facebook, Inc. — did not donate to Trump’s first inaugural fund nor Biden’s in 2021.)

    So Zuckerberg already appeared to be steeling himself and Meta ahead of Trump’s second term. And with Kaplan leading global policy, the company seems poised to take a more lax approach to misinformation and content moderation.

  74. says

    Fun Rules Under Your New Oligarchy!

    […] For starters, if anything, it’s Elon Musk’s America. He bought the incoming administration fair and square, and I’m sure between the credit rating and all the felony convictions, the oath of office requires a co-signer at this point anyway.

    Longtime Twitter users’ll tell ya Elon tends to play rough when he gets his hands on a new toy, so I hope nobody was surprised when he immediately attempted to shut the whole dang government down […]

    And Musk, excuse me, “Kekius Maximus,” (as if having an oligarch shadow President wasn’t enough, ours rotted his brain in the darkest, most hateful corners of the alt-Right losersphere, yay) already has his eyes on expanding his collection of Western governments, endorsing the Naziest German party he could find, in addition to lending his support to celebrity British hatemonger Tommy Robinson.

    […] Incidentally, hope everybody caught the post-election update that said price of eggs will not, as was previously pledged, be coming down. (As with all Trump campaign promises, if you read the fine print, it says “SUCKER” between two tiny, stunted middle fingers.)

    Anyhoo, I’m certainly disappointed the entire Matt Gaetz fiasco played out during my hiatus, if only because “Team of Rapists” would’ve been a money blog title. I suppose Hesgeth and the brainworm fellow are still in the running, so maybe I’ll save it for the leather-bound, multi-volume retrospective, assuming literacy is still a thing in four years.

    […] You give a white nationalist death cult the best years of your life, you take your livestock dewormer every single night, you dutifully pay your rube tithe every time a new NFT or anti-woke pop tart substitute drops, only for Vivek-come-lately and his billionaire bros to swoop in at the last minute to replace you with foreigners after all. […]

    Historically, the Children of the Candy Corn have been, um, let’s say “slow” to notice they’ve been conned, but the sneering disdain of the new management has grown too loud to ignore. Between assaults on their culture’s “mediocrity” and “laziness,” (to say nothing of their beloved teen sitcoms [Saved by the Bell’s Zack Morris as an example]) and being labeled “contemptible fools” who should “fuck (themselves) in the face,” why, it’s enough to make a deplorable curl up in the corner of their basket and cry.

    At first, I wondered who would get the dog in the Elon/Laura Loomer divorce, but the dog turned out to be the remnant of Stephen Miller’s spray-on hair from his 2018 Face the Nation appearance, which, having gained a rudimentary sentience, has been nominated by the incoming Reich to head up the Civil Rights Division at DoJ.

    Anyway, now Steve Bannon’s demanding reparations, or he’s going to rip Elon’s face off, though whether the removal would take place before or after he fucks himself in the abovementioned face was unclear at press time.

    Still, the schism may yet be avoided, as a pair of domestic terror attacks perpetrated by U.S. citizens have allowed Cult45’s bickering factions to recenter their ire on the southern border. Which, you’ll observe, makes no fucking sense whatsoever. [Both perpetrators were USA-born American citizens.]

    See, to Republicans, terrorism mostly means an opportunity for xenophobic preening. So for Senator Kennedy, this week was basically Xmas, especially since he got to test-drive some of the anti-media material he’s been working up for Maggie Haberman’s pending show trial.

    Despite a federal appeals court upholding her sexual assault and defamation judgment against the rapist America just elected President, E. Jean Carroll rejected repeated pleas for financial aid from the American Broadcasting Corporation, saying, “pay your own cowardice tax, you pathetic enablers.”

    Naturally, this ruling wasn’t the week’s sole reminder of the Dotard’s life of crime; on the small matter of those 34 felony convictions, his long-delayed sentencing, now scheduled for next week, promises to give the rule of law a festive sendoff before we descend once more into kakistocracy.

    […] Mike Johnson dazzled the House Republican Conference, clearing the centimeter-high competence threshold statisticians have labeled the “McCarthy Line,” and getting himself elected Speaker with minimal rake-stepping. […]

    Oklahoma state superintendent Ryan Walters claims teachers unions have turned our nation’s public schools into “terrorist training camps,” but not to worry, his taxpayer-financed mass purchase of rapist-endorsed Bibles will re-indoctrinate them kids lickety split! [LOL]

    I see Nancy Mace is still trying to blame her many deficiencies on a “vaccine injury,” but even after multiple rounds of boosters, I myself have yet to feel the slightest urge to police my colleagues’ restroom usage, let alone fill my social media accounts with slurs, so it’s possible she’s just an asshole. [LOL]

    Donald Trump Jr. complains Daddy’s friends treat him like a “freaking imbecile” at the annual Marm-a-Lago New Year’s party, implying there are situations where people treat him like anything else, which I for one don’t believe for a second.

    But God bless the perpetual motion slapstick comeuppance machine some call Rudy Giuliani; we need the schadenfreude now more than ever. An NYPD task force discovered Rudy in a particularly disreputable corner of Central Park, in a burrow he apparently dug by hand in an effort to hide several Yankees World Series rings from Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, each of which he screechingly proclaimed “MY PRECIOUS” as they were removed from various orifices.

    […] whatever you do, stay safe out there, my friend…shit’s gonna get weird.

    Embedded links to sources are available at the link.

  75. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/new-year-new-lawyer-same-old-rudy

    Oh boy, it’s time for an update on disbarred, Scotch-soaked fart demon Rudy Giuliani. What a treat! We’d hoped that maybe Friday he’d get a zesty stomp from the pointy shoe of justice, and it was not to be. Yet! […]

    Friday he was back in federal court in New York before Judge Lewis Liman, forced to Rudysplain why he hasn’t complied with just about anything the judge ordered him to do, pursuant to paying that $145-million-plus-interest tab he owes the Georgia poll workers he defamed and will still not quit defaming every other time he unsnaps his mandible.

    Did he turn over the condo deed to the ladies? Did he turn over the title to Lauren Bacall’s Mercedes? Did he turn over cash from his hidden banks? Did he turn over memorabilia from the Yanks?

    No […]

    A mere six months ago, Rudesferatu decided the $3 million Florida condo was his real permanent residence, right before he fled from bankruptcy court into liquidation-land. But oops, he’d already testified during his bankruptcy proceedings that his New York apartment was his main residence and that he spent at least 70 percent of his time there. And whoops, he’d already claimed a homestead exemption for the New York condo. But he’d planned to move to Florida sometime, your honor, he swears, and the fact that Florida has one of the most generous bankruptcy homestead exemptions in the United States is surely a total coincidence!

    […] Thursday, AKA the day before the hearing, Roodles had moaned to Judge Lewis Liman that he should be able to appear by Zoom because of “medical issues with his left knee and breathing problems due to lung issues” that were “attributable to [Defendant] being at the World Trade Center site on September 11, 2001.” Because he’s always gotta slip that in. But he had no medical documentation for those medical issues, and was ordered to show up in person anyway. So he did, coughing and limping like Tiny Tim. But he still had the strength to bark at sketch artist Jane Rosenberg: “The last time you made me look like my dog!”

    […] America’s Mayor™ has a trial scheduled on January 16 for the judge to consider that Florida residence issue, and also if some World Series rings were a gift to his lamprey-faced idiot son Andrew. So it would seem to be in Roodles’ own interests to turn over some evidence persuasive of that nature, should it exist, ahem.

    Accompanying R-Dog was his Staten Island divorce lawyer, Joe Cammarata. His last set of lawyers, Kenneth Caruso and David Labkowski, either quit him or got fired because they refused to answer Giuliani’s phone calls, depending on if you believe Giuliani or court filings, common sense and/or your lyin’ eyes.

    Staten Island Joey kicked off his debut on a high note last month, insinuating that the judge was a Democrat plant and was biased because hizzoner’s father once represented clients Giuliani’s office prosecuted when Rudy was a US District Attorney, a very long-winded way of saying I am already at the bottom of my barrel of ideas and scraping as hard as I can.

    In court, Joey and Roodles went back to the strategy of trying to blame his former lawyers for why still nobody turned over the stuff, or records. Rudy testified that he demanded his former lawyers remove themselves from his case because they didn’t return his phone calls, and that he didn’t know the lawyers that he fired were withdrawing until he read about it in the newspapers. Some bold alternative-fact-ing and under-the-bus-throwing, considering the lawyers told the judge last month exactly what was going on when they asked for permission to withdraw from the case.

    […] It’s rich with even more creative excuses as to why he can’t comply with the court’s orders, and fun facts: He can’t tell the court his email address, because it’s “frankly none of your business.” He never got a driver’s license, because “I have fatwas issued against me by the Ayatollah, personally.” […]

    He asserted that Florida was the home where his tobacco-tar-clogged heart was, insisting that even though he’d referred to the Florida condo as a “vacation home,” really it was more like a “winter residence.” That does not equal a “permanent residence” either, but,

    “I just happen to like [Florida] better. The staff — the staff is nicer and the people are wonderful. I mean, I’ve lived in many different places and they’re just wonderful people. I mean, I have a balcony and I used to smoke cigars — used to smoke cigars here, too, in the courtyard — and they never complained. In New York, my gosh, if I even took a cigar out, they would complain.”

    Case closed!

    But he’s got more evidence that he was intending to make Florida a permanent residence, you betcha! Like how he told his friend and alleged altar-boy-groper Monsignor Alan Placa many times over the years that it was his plan. Also the producer on his payroll, Ted Goodman, and Michael Ragusa, a corrections officer who ran for Manhattan City Council before he was accused of forging signatures, and is now Rudy’s head of security. Yep, two guys on the payroll and a guy with, ahem, other credibility issues.

    But the plaintiffs’ lawyers came to show contempt, and unlike Joey Divorce Lawyer, they didn’t start the job last month. Oh, and here’s an email from Rudy’s fired/quit former lawyer saying, “Defendant has informed us he will not image his devices.” Why did he not provide his lawyers any emails? Because, says Rudy, emails are documents, not communications. They had a credit application where he asserted he lived and worked in New Hampshire. And where are Rudy’s calendars? Well, his assistants kept his calendars on notes and then threw them away. Why didn’t Rudy request a copy of the car title? He outsourced the job, because “I had other things to do.” When did he make a request to Citibank for cash? He doesn’t know. Did Rudy see that order to turn over the Reggie Jackson and Joe DiMaggio jerseys? Yes. Didn’t your friend say he saw the DiMaggio jersey in Palm Beach? “My friend was 100 percent wrong.” He’s confused, they’re confused, everybody’s confused but Rudy, Judge!

    Understandably exhausted after more than three hours of this, Judge Liman decided that the hearing will continue Monday, with Roodles being able to dial in from Palm Beach […] instead of being trucked in from the can [jail] […]

    So, that’s a disappointment, but, to be continued!

  76. says

    Washington Post link

    “Photos show beginning of six day funeral of former President Jimmy Carter”

    Here are descriptions of some of the photos:

    Former and current U.S. Secret Service agents assigned to the Carter detail move former President Jimmy Carter’s casket, at Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in Americus, Ga.

    Former and current US Secret Service agents walk with the hearse.

    The hearse carrying former President Jimmy Carter’s casket passes through his hometown of Plains, Ga.

  77. says

    Washington Post link

    “President Biden to block oil drilling across 625 million acres of U.S. waters”

    “The president will sign memorandums prohibiting future oil and gas leasing across parts of the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the Northern Bering Sea.”

    President Joe Biden will move Monday to block all future oil and gas drilling across more than 625 million acres of federal waters — equivalent to nearly a quarter of the total land area of the United States, according to two people briefed on the decision who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the announcement is not yet public.

    The action underscores how Biden is racing to cement his legacy on climate change and conservation in his last weeks in office. President-elect Donald Trump, who has described his energy policy as “drill, baby, drill,” is likely to work with congressional Republicans to challenge the decision.

    Biden will issue two memorandums that prohibit future federal oil and gas leasing across large swaths of the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the Northern Bering Sea in Alaska, the two people said. The oil and gas industry has long prized the eastern Gulf of Mexico in particular, viewing the area as a key part of its offshore production plans. […]

  78. says

    ‘Dark Money’ Is Tainting Washington Think Tanks. A New Report Shows It’s Worse Than You Think.

    “Foreign governments are throwing millions at D.C. think tanks.”

    Washington’s think-tank industry, which sets the terms of debate for so much of American policymaking, is floating on a sea of foreign-government and Pentagon-contractor dollars.

    That’s the conclusion of a brand-new report out this morning and shared with me by a pair of scholars at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a think tank that officially eschews foreign-government money — and delights in tweaking the Beltway foreign-affairs establishment.

    Among other things, the paper says that the top 50 think tanks took in some $110 million over the past five years from foreign governments and related entities, including nearly $17 million from the United Arab Emirates, the largest single foreign donor. Leading Pentagon contractors, meanwhile, kicked in nearly $35 million over the same period.

    The Atlantic Council and the Brookings Institution topped the list of foreign-government beneficiaries, taking in nearly $21 million and over $17 million, respectively. All in all, 54 different governments contributed to the industry, a list largely made up of pro-western democracies but also including fantastically wealthy authoritarian regimes like Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

    Most disturbingly, the report makes clear that the numbers it cites may only be partial: Unlike traditional PACs or registered foreign agents, think tanks don’t have to disclose where their money comes from. Researching the study, co-authors Ben Freeman and Nick Cleveland-Stout told me, meant poring through the organizations’ annual reports in hopes that information would be voluntarily shared. […]

    Much more at the link.

  80. Reginald Selkirk says

    Washington Post cartoonist Ann Telnaes quits over a canceled Jeff Bezos cartoon.

    Telnaes writes on Substack that the outlet killed her cartoon of Bezos and others kneeling before a Trump statue over its commentary’s point of view, a first for her since starting there in 2008. She writes:

    …my job is to hold powerful people and institutions accountable. For the first time, my editor prevented me from doing that critical job. So I have decided to leave the Post.

    Post opinions editor David Shipley disagreed, blaming his decision on recent and scheduled Post coverage of the same subject and a “bias … against repetition,” according to The New York Times.

  81. Reginald Selkirk says

    Tim Cook is donating $1 million to Trump’s inauguration, too

    Apple CEO Tim Cook is the next tech exec to donate $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration committee, according to Axios. Cook’s donation follows similar commitments from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos through Amazon, and Meta as Big Tech companies and executives work to curry favor with the incoming administration…

  82. says

    The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit struck down the Biden administration’s stab at Net Neutrality this week, bringing an early end to a policy that was slated to be thrown out with the arrival of a new, Trump-appointed Federal Communications Commission chair later this year. The ruling cited the Supreme Court’s 2024 Loper Bright decision, which robbed executive agencies of much of their power to interpret laws when regulating. The 6th Circuit found that the FCC had misread relevant statutes with its Net Neutrality policy and then offered its own reading, which Texas A&M School of Law professor Dan Walters summarized as “hilariously abstruse metaphysical BS.” [Bluesky post available at the link]

    This ends, at least for the foreseeable future, a conversation that started in the mid-2000s, in an earlier and much more optimistic era of the web, about how to ensure the public could access online information without the interference of corporations. A great fear often cited by pro-Net Neutrality activists was that without these protections, telecommunications companies could limit or block access to websites they disfavored — either for competitive or political reasons. That fear is not that far-fetched as a second Trump administration arrives in DC, but also feels somewhat out of date.

    In 2024, tech oligarchs were cheering on the global far right while agitating for a remake of the U.S. government. The president-elect was promising retribution against his political enemies. Corporations were scrambling to show him their loyalty through both financial contributions and more vibes-based offerings. The head of a prominent social media platform became his shadow, while another social media platform made plans to roll out imaginary, AI friends for you to chat with. It all continues into 2025. The zone is flooded with bullshit, and it is tremendous content, but with real stakes.

    The idea that our information landscape can be protected from powerful interests is one that, to me at least, feels further out of reach now than when the fight for Net Neutrality got going, with or without a federal safeguard in place. For now, a California Net Neutrality law continues to offer some continued protection to consumers nationwide. Meanwhile, what the Net Neutrality-equivalent solution might be for our 2024-era woes remains to be seen.

    Link

    Text quoted above is from one of several reports in TPM’s “Weekender.”

  83. says

    Impeached, Coup-Happy President Holes Up In Compound, Refuses Arrest, Hopes Donald Trump Will Help Brother Out

    “Make South Korea Great Again!”

    The nation of South Korea has given America so many gifts — K-pop, Korean barbecue joints, the former first lady of Maryland, the animation for a couple of hundred episodes of “The Simpsons” — that it seems only fair we return the favor. How about our Constitution? There is no reason America should keep that wonderful document and its toothless enforcement to ourselves.

    At a minimum, we have already handed South Korea’s recently impeached former president Yoon Suk Yeol a legal argument about presidential immunity, and according to the Yonhap News Agency, he and his lawyers are running with it.

    U-S-A! U-S-A!

    In a document presented to the Constitutional Court in Yoon’s impeachment trial, the legal team said Yoon exercised his due presidential power to handle a “national emergency situation” while declaring martial law on Dec. 3. […]

    Yoon’s side pointed to the US court ruling in July last year that said Trump cannot be prosecuted for actions that were within his constitutional powers as president.

    Yr Wonkette was unfamiliar with South Korea’s constitution, so we dug up a copy of it. As best we can tell, it does not contain Article II of the United States Constitution, Article II being the one our own Supreme Court more or less rewrote last summer to say that Donald Trump could do whatever illegal shit he wanted provided he claimed said illegal shit was a core constitutional power our Founding Fathers in their genius had granted to him that no one else had noticed for the previous 200-plus years.

    What South Korea’s constitution does have is Article 69 (Nice!!!), which includes the president’s oath of office. Now, whereas the oath the American president takes says he will “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution,” the South Korean oath simply charges the president with “observing the Constitution.” Well, that’s pretty general. Maybe he’s allowed to observe it from a great distance.

    While Yoon’s lawyers were filing this document on Friday, the police were trying to enforce a warrant for Yoon’s arrest after he refused three times to meet with prosecutors who are investigating him for declaring martial law in early December. South Korea’s legislature had already impeached Yoon for issuing an unlawful declaration and stripped him of his presidential powers.

    But Yoon is technically still the president, and still gets to live in the presidential compound with a couple of hundred soldiers and security agents protecting him. All of them being commanded by a guy named Park Jong-joon, whom Yoon had appointed chief of the presidential security service in September. His loyalty appears to be with the guy who appointed him instead of with the actual legal structures of his nation. Which also sounds very Trumpist, now that we think about it.

    Additionally, hundreds of Yoon’s supporters packed the streets around the presidential residence to yell and jeer the 80 or so officers who showed up early in the morning to take Yoon into custody. Apparently quite a few of them were waving “Stop the Steal” signs and pleading with Donald Trump to intervene for some reason.

    From Reuters:

    Pyeong In-su, 71, holding a flag of the United States and South Korea with the words “Let’s go together” in English and Korean, said he was banking on Trump’s return to save Yoon.

    “I hope that Trump will take office soon and raise his voice against the rigged elections in our country plus around the world so as to help President Yoon to return (to power) swiftly,” Pyeong said.

    Seo Hye-kyoung who was holding a “Stop the Steal” sign with the Chinese flag claimed that “Chinese people have come to our country and stole our votes”.

    So there is something else America has gifted South Korean democracy recently: “Stop the Steal” signs and a stubborn imperviousness to reality. Cheonman-eyo!!

    […] Eventually, the cops backed down and left the compound without anyone getting injured or shot or forced to watch Nicolle Wallace for hours and hours as a sort of deprogramming measure.

    It is very much unclear what happens next. The South Korean prosecutors have until January 6 to enforce the subpoena. But he sounds defiant, and his lawyer called the warrant “illegal [and] invalid.” It does not sound as if anyone’s mind is getting changed by Monday. Meanwhile, the number of Yoon supporters who are going to rush to hang around outside the presidential palace and block the cops from getting in could grow, increasing the chances of violence if the cops return with larger numbers

    And to think, it was not so long ago that we were jealous of South Korea. The president tried to do a coup, even members of his own party denounced him, the legislature impeached him and stripped him of his powers almost immediately, and no one stormed the parliament while wearing face paint and a stupid helmet. It seemed like as good an outcome as anyone could have hoped for.

    Oh well. They haven’t re-elected Yoon yet or had his personal Supreme Court rewrite the nation’s laws to get him off the hook. So, silver linings, we guess.

  84. says

    The fragile Israel-Hezbollah truce is holding so far, despite violations

    “The diminished Lebanese militant group has threatened to resume fighting if Israel does not withdraw its forces by the 60-day deadline.”

    A fragile cease-fire between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has held up for over a month, even as its terms seem unlikely to be met by the agreed-upon deadline.

    The deal struck on Nov. 27 to halt the war required Hezbollah to immediately lay down its arms in southern Lebanon and gave Israel 60 days to withdraw its forces there and hand over control to the Lebanese army and U.N. peacekeepers.

    So far, Israel has withdrawn from just two of the dozens of towns it holds in southern Lebanon. And it has continued striking what it says are bases belonging to Hezbollah, which it accuses of attempting to launch rockets and move weapons before they can be confiscated and destroyed.

    Hezbollah, which was severely diminished during nearly 14 months of war, has threatened to resume fighting if Israel does not fully withdraw its forces by the 60-day deadline.

    Yet despite accusations from both sides about hundreds of cease-fire violations, the truce is likely to hold, analysts say. That is good news for thousands of Israeli and Lebanese families displaced by the war still waiting to return home.

    […] With Assad gone, Hezbollah lost a vital route for smuggling weapons from Iran. While that further weakened Hezbollah’s hand, Israel had already agreed to the U.S.-brokered cease-fire.

    Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023 — the day after Hamas launched a deadly attack into Israel that ignited the ongoing war in Gaza. Since then, Israeli air and ground assaults have killed more than 4,000 people in Lebanon, including hundreds of civilians. At the height of the war, more than 1 million Lebanese people were displaced.

    Hezbollah rockets forced some 60,000 from their homes in northern Israel, and killed 76 people in Israel, including 31 soldiers. Almost 50 Israeli soldiers were killed during operations inside Lebanon.

  85. birgerjohansson says

    Lynna, OM @ 83
    Any hope it might end like the Waco compound standoff?
    .
    BTW I recently read both Musk and Trump are little sadists who like to put people through humiliating ‘Lord Of The Flies’ stuff. I am reminded of “Doctor Fisher Of Geneva, Or The Bomb Party”. Last novel by Graham Greene.

  87. Kagehi says

    @21 Lynna, OM

    The most hilarious thing about this is Bernie Sander’s response to Trump and Musk trying to bring in foreigners for “tech jobs” and the, apparently (haven’t looked myself, since I really don’t want to go to such places), number of MAGA people on reddit, and other forums posting, “What the F happened that I am agreeing with Bernie?!” lol

  88. Reginald Selkirk says

    Owner of two cats that died after drinking H5N1 recalled milk threatens to sue

    As cats across Southern California die from consuming human and pet food contaminated by the H5N1 bird flu virus, one pet owner has decided to fight back — using legal recourse to obtain financial restitution for the tens of thousands of dollars he says he spent trying to save the lives of his three pet cats.

    On Wednesday, lawyers for Joseph Journell — a San Bernardino resident who said two of his four cats died and a third was hospitalized for more than week after consuming raw milk containing the H5N1 virus — sent a letter to Mark McAfee, owner of Fresno-based Raw Farm LLC, demanding McAfee “cease all communication with Mr. Journell and reimburse him” for the money Journell spent on veterinary services, lost wages and “other out-of-pocket expenses.” …

    Raw milk is dangerous. But who bears the burden, the supplier or the consumer?

  89. Reginald Selkirk says

    Mike Johnson Attributes Prayer to Thomas Jefferson. But There’s a Problem.

    Shortly after being reelected as House Speaker, Mike Johnson read a prayer that he claimed was from Thomas Jefferson, despite there being no evidence the third president ever said it.

    In fact, the quotation has been falsely attributed to Jefferson so often over the years that the Thomas Jefferson Foundation has debunked it.

    “I was asked to provide a prayer for the nation. I offered one that is quite familiar to historians and probably many of us,” Johnson said.

    “It is said each day of his eight years of the presidency and every day thereafter until his death, President Thomas Jefferson recited this prayer,“ he continued, reading aloud from that day’s House program…

    “I wanted to share it with you here at the end of my remarks not as a prayer per se right now,” Johnson continued, “but really as a reminder of what our third president and the primary author of the Declaration of Independence thought was so important that it should be a daily recitation.”

    Johnson then read aloud the “National Prayer of Peace,” the text of which can easily be found on The Thomas Jefferson Foundation’s website as an example of a “spurious” quotation.

    “We have no evidence that this prayer was written or delivered by Thomas Jefferson,” it states.

    “It appears in the 1928 United States Book of Common Prayer, and was first suggested for inclusion in a report published in 1919,” the site continues.

    It goes on to say that Jefferson, an advocate for a strong barrier between church and state, likely wouldn’t have crafted such a prayer to be delivered publicly.

    “He considered religion a private matter,” the foundation notes, “and when asked to recommend a national day of fasting and prayer, replied, ‘I consider the government of the US. as interdicted by the constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises.’”

  90. birgerjohansson says

    Strange Days, Waterworld, Ghost In The Shell, Twelwe Monkeys and Waterworld came out a quarter century ago.

  91. birgerjohansson says

    Reginald Selkirk @ 86
    Some Caribbean or African Islands owned by France are in the EU.

  93. Bekenstein Bound says

    Doctorow’s Pluralistic blog seems to have dropped dead again. Nothing new for almost two weeks solid now. :(

  94. Reginald Selkirk says

    Biggest winter storm in over a decade forecast to hit US

    Tens of millions of Americans are bracing for a huge winter storm that could bring the heaviest snowfall and coldest temperatures in over a decade.

    The storm, which started in the middle of the US, will move east in the next couple of days, the National Weather Service (NWS) said.

    Parts of the US not accustomed to severe cold, including Mississippi and Florida, have been warned to expect treacherous conditions.

    Forecasters say the extreme weather is being caused by the polar vortex, an area of cold air that circulates around the Arctic.

    “For some, this could be the heaviest snowfall in over a decade,” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said…

  97. says

    Reginald @95, LOL.

    Kagehi @87, I agree that Bernie Sanders’ comments were accurate and pithy. It is funny to see that those comments caused some accidental kinship among rightwing doofus who are skeptical of Elon Musk’s motives.

    Cartoon: Jimmy Carter’s tool belt

    Some of the U.S. secret Service agents carrying Jimmy Carter’s coffin looked quite old. [Referencing photos, here and Link.

  98. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/grab-someone-and-tell-them-all-joe

    “Grab Someone And Tell Them All Joe Biden Did For The Middle Class, Maybe That’ll Work!”

    “We’re still puzzling through the messaging strategy on this.”

    In two and a half weeks, Joe Biden will, as is the tradition, attend the inauguration of the person whom the American people freely elected to replace him in the White House. Joe is a pretty courteous guy that way, big on upholding norms. His predecessor in office certainly didn’t offer Biden the same courtesy on January 20, 2021, as you may recall. Honestly, we were all fine with that fucker staying away.

    We aren’t as polite as Joe Biden is, so we intend to spend that day observing the federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and not watching cable TV news. (Wonkette will have something posted for the holiday, but it will be a Naug-Free Zone.)

    But before Joe Biden leaves, we’d just like to remind you again what a remarkable thing he managed after his own inauguration four years back, during a pandemic that was not yet under control. Mind you, if facts mattered we wouldn’t be seeing the return to office of a guy whose political choices made the pandemic far worse than it had to be.

    The Kickass Economy

    Joe Biden’s economy, to put it in the sometimes complex language of economic analysis, kicked ass, and will likely keep kicking ass until Trump screws it up by giving everything away to the billionaires who elected him. Biden protected vulnerable Americans from losing everything during the pandemic crash and set up an economic recovery that continues to be, as The Economist put in October 2024, “the envy of the world.” Similar articles ran in The Atlantic (“The U.S. Economy Reaches Superstar Status”) and even the Wall Street Journal (“The Next President Inherits a Remarkable Economy”).

    Yes, there was inflation, especially in 2022 as we emerged from the pandemic. It was painful, especially when it came to the cost of groceries, housing and rent. It hit all over the world, but the US brought inflation down more quickly than any other industrial economy. What’s more, as inflation came down, wages continued to rise, resulting in higher real wages.

    And unlike in previous recoveries, the highest rate of wage growth came at the lower end of the wage scale. In an October 2024 report, the White House Council of Economic Advisers noted,

    Workers in industries with the lowest initial average wage saw the biggest percent gains over the last five years. For example, restaurant and hotel workers in the leisure and hospitality sector saw a nearly 35% cumulative increase in wages, starting from the lowest base of about $17 dollars.

    Workers at the top end of the scale, in IT and utilities, also saw wage growth, although it was more modest.

    Economist David Doney noted on Christmas day that

    Under President Biden, workers have the highest real hourly wages on average among the last 11 presidents. Despite inflation, workers have never been better off because wages have grown so very much. Merry Christmas!

    [Chart at the link]

    Let’s just underline this: Highest real hourly wages, adjusted for inflation, going back to LBJ, a president I don’t even remember. (My political consciousness in kindergarten was lousy, to be sure.)

    The US also saw a manufacturing boom, thanks to Biden’s industrial policy, with its emphasis on building US supply chains for tech and clean energy. 800,000 new manufacturing jobs, and a boom in construction of new factories, too. (Paradox time: The new jobs for workers in all those factories can’t start until they’re built. Trump will no doubt take credit for them. Or he may wreck those industries through policy reversals.)

    The Biden administration and the Harris campaign certainly got that information out at every opportunity, while acknowledging that high prices still hurt, and that we should all be able to make a decent living, and that the cost of housing and rent (one of the top drivers of inflation) is too damn high.

    The Dangerfield Economy

    Biden’s (and Harris’s) economic numbers kept getting better, but the poll numbers, and Americans’ perceptions of the economy, never caught up. In a February 2024 poll by Monmouth University, only 22 percent of Americans said Biden deserved “a great deal of credit” for economic growth, and

    Among middle class families, 16 percent say Biden’s policies have benefitted them a lot, while 33 percent say they have benefitted them a little. Forty-five percent say they have not benefitted them at all and 7 percent aren’t sure.

    To be clear, the greatest influence on what people thought about the economy was their partisan alignment. Republican-leaning voters thought the economy was terrible. In one June 2024 poll, a whopping 59 percent of people thought we were actually in a recession!

    There was a lot of talk of the “vibecession,” which was denounced as being insensitive to people struggling to get by.

    When Kamala Harris replaced Joe Biden at the top of the ticket, polls suggested — for a while at least — that voters now trusted her on the economy more than they did Biden, although it was the same damn economy. She talked at every opportunity about her economic plans, the first of which focused on tackling high grocery and housing costs. (Haha, we are saying a silly thing. Everyone knows Harris had no policies, she just kept robotically telling everyone that she was raised in a middle class family.)

    Unfortunately, it was very easy to get Americans — or at least extremely online Americans, who are very definitely not typical Americans — to talk about whether Haitian immigrants were eating pets in Ohio.

    It was difficult to get any Americans to believe that employment was pretty good and that it was Morning In America, although when that famous/infamous Reagan ad aired in the fall of 1984, the unemployment rate was around 7.4 percent.

    In October of 2024, when people were really gloomy about the economy, the unemployment rate was 4.1 percent. Good morning!

    And for our sins, we elected Donald Trump again, this time apparently on purpose.

    Oh Right Other Stuff For The Middle Class And Even Other People Too, As Well

    It wasn’t just full employment and a faster drawdown of inflation than the rest of the world. It was “little things,” like hotels and concert arenas having to tell you the actual price, not the “before the million fees price.” It was airlines having to refund your money if they accidentally forgot to put you on a plane. It was stopping giant grocery mergers that would have hurt competition and boned grocery shoppers. It was capping seniors’ medications at $2000 out of pocket per year. It was, despite the Supreme Court killing it a thousand different ways, canceling billions in student debt, at least for the old folks who were still paying their loans into their 50s. (Like us!) It was everything consumer rights folks had asked for, in just four years. Did anybody notice? Well, we did!

    And Over To Trump

    Now it’s going to become Trump’s economy. As Barack Obama pointed out all summer, one reason people remember the pre-pandemic economy so fondly is that Trump started out with Obama’s good economy, which Trump then distorted in favor of the super rich with his tax cuts.

    This time, Trump is inheriting an even better economy from Joe Biden. Crom only knows what he’ll do with it. He’s promised to drive it off a cliff with huge tariffs on everything, although we notice he isn’t talking about tariffs quite so much now that he’s won. At the very least, we’re almost certain to see the economy tilt even more in favor of the very wealthiest Americans, with another huge tax cut all but a certainty.

    Whatever happens, you can be fairly certain Trump will tell us it’s wonderful. And a whole lot of us seem inclined to believe him, or at least, if they aren’t doing great, to blame Joe Biden for it as long as they need to.

  100. Lauren Walker says

    There’s a similar phenomenon when crossing the border from Maryland into Virginia, especially on the Eastern Shore. All of sudden you’re bombarded with billboards advertising ham, cigarettes, and fireworks.

  103. JM says

    @90 birgerjohansson: Why did you list Waterworld twice? I’ll admit it probably had more impact in the US then the others but only because it was so bad and lost so much money.

  104. birgerjohansson says

    JM@ 103
    I listed waterworld twice because sometimes I am too tired to notice editing snafus.
    And while Waterworld was no masterpiece, it had potential that was lost, possibly by studio interference.
    .

    Showing a fundamentally kind world
    “Why Ghibli Succeeds Where Disney Fails”
    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=4xUaZ9Vr-Cg

  105. lumipuna says

    Re 76,

    Former and current U.S. Secret Service agents assigned to the Carter detail move former President Jimmy Carter’s casket, at Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in Americus, Ga.

    A Guardian headline said that Carter’s funeral procession was getting started from “south Georgia”, and I initially read it as “South Georgia”. At least penguins are always dressed for the occasion…

  107. StevoR says

    @ ^ lumipuna : Easy to wear tuxedos when they literally grow on you! Always a good fit ..almost?

    (A few moulte-y exceptions mebbe..)

    Awesome island – & less russian around there..

  108. Reginald Selkirk says

    Sudden Transition in Superconductors Could Shift Quantum Technology Into High Gear

    Researchers have discovered that certain disordered superconductors exhibit abrupt phase transitions, a finding that challenges established theories and could have implications for quantum computing.

    A study published in Nature by researchers investigating indium oxide films — a highly disordered superconductor — shows that their transition from a superconducting to an insulating state is not gradual, as traditionally assumed, but sudden. This abrupt shift, known as a first-order quantum phase transition, contrasts with the commonly observed continuous, second-order transitions in superconductors.

    Key measurements revealed a sharp drop in superfluid stiffness — which is a property that reflects the superconducting state’s ability to resist phase distortions — at a critical level of disorder. Interestingly, the critical temperature of these films, where superconductivity breaks down, no longer depended on the strength of electron pairing but rather on the superfluid stiffness. This behavior aligns with a pseudogap regime, where electron pairs exist but lack the coherence needed for superconductivity…

  112. Reginald Selkirk says

    Man Attempts To Hijack Self-Driving Taxi, Gets Ride From The LAPD Instead

    Anyone who has ever asked a stranger in a coffee shop to watch their laptop knows unattended tech makes an enticing target for thieves. Waymo got yet another reminder of this fact this week after a man in downtown LA attempted to take over one of its driverless cars.

    The incident happened in the early morning hours of January 2. Police arrived on scene to find a man sitting in the driver’s seat of on of Waymo’s Jaguar I-Pace SUVs, CBS Los Angeles reports:

    A man, who authorities say was possibly under the influence, was in the driver’s seat of one of Waymo’s fully electric Jaguar I-PACEs when officers arrived to the scene near South Hill Street and Fifth Street around 12:30 a.m., according to the Los Angeles Police Department. Footage shows officers pulling him out of the driver’s seat, where no one is usually sitting in the self-driving cars…

  113. Alverant says

    Thanks everyone. Sorry it took this long for an update. They were ready for him, but I wanted a quick check to be sure. He was diagnosed with lymphoma in October and I thought we were handling it. But things got worse in the new year. He was stumbling and when he stopped eating/drinking I knew. I emailed a video of him to the vet and it was clear. He couldn’t hold his head up. When the vet did a quick check, he felt the cancer spread to his other organs and he lost muscle along his spine and lost 4lbs since his last check in November. I wanted to spend one last weekend with him, but he was in pain. He had this sad meow that I never heard from him before. He went quickly. Vet said he would have done the same thing. Things are too quiet here. I’m cleaning up what I can. He was 15 when he passed and I adopted him at 12. I wanted to give a senior cat a good home for their sunset years and I hope I did that. I’m not sure if I’ll foster or adopt (I promised my 82 YO dad that I’d take his cats if he couldn’t take care of them), but I’ll decide that when I’m ready.

  114. says

    Alverant @113, thanks for the update. I was hoping that your cat would be well-served at the end of his life by a competent vet. I know the situation is difficult to bear. Take care of yourself.

  116. says

    Trump announces his pick for deputy Middle East envoy — and scolds her in the same breath

    […] Trump announced the appointment of his deputy Middle East envoy in a statement on Friday that didn’t exactly convey confidence in his pick.

    In a Truth Social post, Trump wrote that he has chosen Morgan Ortagus as deputy special presidential envoy for Middle East peace. Ortagus has a background in foreign policy and diplomacy, and she is a former Fox News contributor. But in his announcement, Trump appeared to express little faith in her ability to perform in the role, and even chastised her for going against him without offering details.

    “Early on Morgan fought me for three years, but hopefully has learned her lesson,” he wrote. “These things usually don’t work out, but she has strong Republican support, and I’m not doing this for me, I’m doing it for them. Let’s see what happens.”

    It’s not clear what Trump’s exact gripes with Ortagus are. She was a vocal Trump critic during the 2016 Republican presidential primary, but then became a fierce supporter after he secured the GOP nomination. She went on to serve as State Department spokesperson for three years during his first term.

    Trump also wrote that Ortagus will “hopefully” be an asset to Steven Witkoff, his Middle East envoy.

    “I expect great results, and soon!” he added.

    The president-elect’s statement about Ortagus is unlike his other recent personnel announcements. Yet her appointment to the position is in stark contrast with some of Trump’s other administration picks who have little to no experience related to the role they have been asked to serve in. Witkoff himself is a billionaire real estate executive with no diplomatic experience.

    Ortagus made no mention of Trump’s dig in her statement about her appointment, saying simply that she was “honored” by the opportunity to “represent my country and the Trump Administration in a crucial diplomatic role.”

  118. says

    BAKER CITY, Ore. — In what has become a routine event in rural America, a hospital maternity ward closed in 2023 in this small Oregon town about an hour from the Idaho border.

    For Shyanne McCoy, 23, that meant the closest hospital with an obstetrician on staff when she was pregnant was a 45-mile drive away over a mountain pass.

    When McCoy developed symptoms of preeclampsia last January, she felt she had the best chance of getting the care she needed at a larger hospital in Boise, Idaho, two hours away. She spent the final week of her pregnancy there, too far from home to risk leaving, before giving birth to her daughter.

    Six months later, she said it seems clear to her that the health care needs of rural young women like her are largely ignored. [!]

    For McCoy and others, figuring out how to obtain adequate care to safely have a baby in Baker City has quickly eclipsed concerns about another medical service lacking in the area: abortion. […]

    Oregon is considered one of the most protective states in the country when it comes to abortion. There are no legal limits on when someone can receive an abortion in the state, and the service is covered by its Medicaid system. Still, efforts to expand access in the rural, largely conservative areas that cover most of the state have encountered resistance and incredulity.

    […] In Oregon, during the months just before the Baker City closure was announced, Democratic state lawmakers were focused on a proposed pilot program that would launch two mobile reproductive health care clinics in rural areas. The bill specified that the van-based clinics would include abortion services.

    State Rep. Christine Goodwin, a Republican from a southwestern Oregon district, called the proposal the “latest example” of urban legislators telling rural leaders what their communities need.

    The mobile health clinic pilot was eventually removed from the bill that was under discussion. That means no new abortion options in Oregon’s Baker County — and no new state-funded maternity care either.

    […] A study published in JAMA in early December that examined nearly 5,000 acute care hospitals found that by 2022, 52% of rural hospitals lacked obstetrics care after more than a decade of unit closures. […]

    Conversations with a liberal school board member, a moderate owner of a timber company, members of Baker City’s Republican Party chapter, a local doula, several pregnant women, and the director of the Baker County Health Department — many of whom were not rigidly opposed to abortion — all turned up the same answer: No mobile clinics offering abortions here, please.

    Kelle Osborn, a nurse supervisor for the Baker County Health Department, loved the idea of a mobile clinic that would provide education and birth control services to people in outlying areas. She was less thrilled about including abortion services in a clinic on wheels.

    “It’s not something that should just be handed out from a mobile van,” she said of abortion services. She said people in her conservative rural county would probably avoid using the clinics for anything if they were understood to provide abortion services.

    […] Nationally, reproductive health care services of all types tend to be limited for people in rural areas, even within states that protect abortion access. […] For people in the Southern states where lawmakers installed abortion bans, abortion care can be up to 700 miles away, according to a data analysis by Axios.

    Nathan Defrees grew up in Baker City and has practiced medicine here since 2017. He works for a family medicine clinic. If a patient asks about abortion, he provides information about where and how one can be obtained, but he doesn’t offer abortions himself.

    “There’s not a lot of anonymity in small towns for physicians who provide that care,” he said. “Many of us aren’t willing to sacrifice the rest of our career for that.”

    […] A new Planned Parenthood clinic in Ontario, Oregon, 70 miles away in neighboring Malheur County, was built primarily to provide services to people from the Boise metro area, but it also created an option for many living in rural eastern Oregon.

    Idaho is one of the 16 states with near-total bans on abortion. […]

    “It’s a lot scarier to be pregnant now in Baker City than it ever has been,” Defrees said.

    Link

  119. says

    Paul Krugman, writing for his “Krugman wonks out” Substack:

    I don’t know about you, but I’m still extremely unsure what the incoming president will actually do about trade. The Smoot-Hawley level tariffs he promised during the campaign would be disastrous, but sometimes I think he may have at least a vague sense of the damage those tariffs would do, so what he’s really aiming for is an extortion scheme — one in which most companies would secure exemptions via political contributions and/or de facto bribes (e.g. buying Trump crypto.)

    But then he’ll come out with something…and I’ll be reminded that wealthy and powerful people like Trump or Andreesen or, of course, Elon Musk are often far more ignorant than policy wonks can easily imagine. [True!]

    You might assume otherwise. After all, billionaires could afford, if they chose, to put the top experts in practically every field on permanent retainer. In fact, I once did some back-of-the-envelope calculations and figured out that Musk in particular could afford to maintain a private intelligence service on the same scale as, say, Britain’s MI5.

    But Trump, we know, disdains expertise; Musk appears to get what he thinks is intelligence from random posts on X.

    The thing is, it takes considerable strength of character for a wealthy and powerful man to become and remain well-informed about policy issues.

  121. says

    Antonio Pita of El País in English:

    It was an open secret that, in the face of international sanctions, the now-deposed regime of Bashar al-Assad had turned Syria into a narco-state with the production and smuggling of captagon, a cheap and easy-to-produce drug nicknamed “poor man’s cocaine.” It was also an open secret that Maher, the dictator’s younger brother, whose whereabouts are now unknown, oversaw a business that, according to research by the New Lines Institute in New York, generated $2.4 billion annually. This money flowed into a system where corruption was not the exception, but the norm.

    Maher al-Assad commanded the Army’s Fourth Armored Division and was, in effect, the second most powerful man in the country. Rebel fighter Baker Sham knew all this, but is still shocked by the scale of the operation, as he displays how the drug was produced, packaged, and hidden inside wooden tables, decorative plastic fruit, LED lights, and electric generators at a center on the outskirts of Damascus. “What we found when we arrived would have sold for millions of dollars on the market,” says Sham, as he picks up the slats from the ground to turn the liquid mixture into pills and 100-gram bags of hashish. Assad’s Syria accounted for 80% of the world’s captagon production, according to U.N. estimates. […]

    Captagon is the former trade name for fenetylline, a psychostimulant that was first developed in Germany in the 1960s to treat narcolepsy, depression, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. It was smuggled into the Middle East from Eastern Europe in the 2000s, shifting the focus of the drug. While most European countries had been banning it since the 1980s, after discovering that it was highly addictive, it was already becoming popular in the Middle East, especially among combatants in battle. For years, it was known as the “jihad drug.”

  122. Reginald Selkirk says

    @116 Lynna, OM
    “These things usually don’t work out…”

    What, Trump appointments? How true. How many appointees lasted through his entire first term? One appointment even provided a term for a short period of time (One Scaramucci = 10 or 11 days). Matt Gaetz might have stretched that concept into negative numbers.

  124. says

    “Does a new report justify Jan. 6 pardons? In fact, it does the opposite.”
    Washington Post link

    Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz concluded last month that no undercover FBI employees were at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, nor at the rally on the Ellipse preceding the riot. He also revealed that the bureau had 26 informants in D.C. that day, but only three of them had been tasked by FBI field offices to be in the city. While they entered restricted areas at the Capitol, none were authorized to do so or to encourage others to break the law.

    These findings should be so unsurprising as to be unworthy of much attention. They are sadly relevant because, four years after the insurrection, key figures in the orbit of President-elect Donald Trump have tried to misrepresent them to suggest that they validate the preposterous claim that the FBI staged the Capitol attack.

    […] Hovering over all of this is Mr. Trump’s promise to quickly pardon people convicted of Jan. 6 crimes. This would be even less justifiable after the IG report’s than it was before.

    The report says that the assistant special agent in charge of the counterterrorism division at the FBI’s Washington Field Office denied a request to send an undercover employee to D.C. for Jan. 6. This shows that the agency was mindful of a policy that limits undercover employees from collecting intelligence at First Amendment-protected events.

    In FBI lingo, informants are confidential human sources. The inspector general determined that 23 of the 26 who went to Washington on Jan. 6 did so “on their own initiative.” The other three were tasked with reporting on potential domestic terrorism subjects who were thought to have been going. One of the three entered the Capitol, and the other two entered the restricted area around the Capitol.

    There should be no revision of history; it was Mr. Trump, not the FBI, who told those in the crowd on the Ellipse that they needed to “fight like hell” to overturn the election results and that he would be joining them at the Capitol.

    If anything, the inspector general concluded that the FBI should have done more. Mr. Horowitz says the FBI did not canvass its field offices for intelligence from its informants before Jan. 6, which could have helped law enforcement officials prepare better. He says that the bureau falsely reported to Congress immediately afterward that it had done so.

    Four years after the insurrection, federal agents have continued to make arrests. On Dec. 19, a Florida man was charged with assaulting a D.C. police officer with a baseball bat on the Upper West Terrace of the Capitol during the mob’s effort to stop the counting of electoral votes. Nearly 1,600 individuals — from almost every state — have been charged with federal crimes during the 47 months since the attack, including about 600 on charges of assaulting or impeding law enforcement, which is a felony. […]

    Mr. Trump has said he plans to pardon those convicted of Jan. 6 offenses within “the first nine minutes” of taking office on Jan. 20. A Washington Post-University of Maryland poll conducted in December found that 66 percent of Americans oppose issuing such pardons. Doing so anyway would be an affront not just to the rule of law but also to the brave officers who gave their all that day to hold the line.

    Mr. Trump will have the constitutional authority to issue these pardons because he won the 2024 election. On Monday, a joint session of Congress will convene to formally certify the president-elect’s victory. Presiding over that process will be Vice President Kamala Harris, even though she lost the election, just as Al Gore did in 2000 and Mike Pence did four years ago. Democracy endures in spite of, not because of, the chaotic attempt to overturn the will of the people four years ago.

  126. says

    […] To most citizens, loyalty is rightly seen as a virtue. Indeed, a major tenet of first-term veterans of Mr. Trump’s administration is that they did what was customary, which was to swear loyalty to our Constitution, not the man. Former officials like Mark Esper and Mark Milley have persuasively made precisely this point, which the Trump transition team conveniently ignores, fearing correctly that asserting personal over constitutional loyalty would produce nuclear-level blowback.

    In fact, Mr. Trump, whose understanding of the Constitution is sketchy, really wants his appointees to display fealty, a medieval concept implying not mere loyalty but submission. Berating and demeaning cabinet officials before their colleagues, as he did to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, among others, and then keeping them in office is disturbing yet typical for Mr. Trump. At Britain’s 2023 coronation of King Charles, Prince William pledged that he would be his father’s “liege man of life and limb.” That’s fealty, publicly affirmed, the kind of personalist link that Mr. Trump expects will elide constitutional obligations.

    This is indisputably damaging to a free society, but it is a well-established Trump habit. Neither kings nor presidents, nor their countries, are well served if they are surrounded by sycophants and opportunists. Truly strong presidents are not afraid of advisers with strong views.

    At his first formal cabinet meeting in June 2017, with the media present, Mr. Trump solicited his team’s praise, something even old Washington hands could not recall having seen. […]

    just the cost of legal representation during investigations or prosecutions can be daunting, especially since Mr. Trump will be using tax dollars if he decides to wage lawfare against political opponents. He may not be expending his personal resources, but his targets will. Nor will they have the extent of official immunity that presidents have, criminally or civilly, something for office seekers to think about in advance.

    Mr. Trump’s appointees should carefully note his expertise in escaping the consequences of his actions, whereas his loyal supporters often do not. Ask Michael Cohen and Rudy Giuliani.

    New York Times link

    More at the link.

  127. says

    For those who didn’t experience the violence, Jan. 6, 2021, might feel like it’s in the past — but it’s not for me. I keep reliving the five horrific hours of that cold Wednesday afternoon, as I tried to protect elected officials, regardless of their political ideology, and their staffs inside the Capitol building — all without firing my gun.

    For my efforts doing my duty as a Capitol Police sergeant, I was beaten and struck by raging rioters all over my body with multiple weapons until I was covered in my own blood. My hand, foot and shoulder were wounded. I thought I was going to die and never make it home to see my wife and young son.

    Over the last four years, it’s been devastating to me to hear Donald Trump repeat his promise to pardon insurrectionists on the first day he’s back in office. “It will be my great honor to pardon the peaceful protesters, or as I often call them, the hostages,” he said in a speech last year. But all of us who were there and anyone who watched on TV know that those who stormed the Capitol were not peaceful protesters. Pardoning them would be an outrageous mistake, one that could mean about 800 convicted criminals will be back on the street.

    It could also put me in danger, as I’ve continued to testify in court and I’ve given victim statements in cases against dozens of the rioters who assaulted me and my fellow officers.

    I was one of the fortunate ones that day; nine people wound up dead as a result of the rampage. Two protesters had fatal medical episodes, one rioter overdosed during the uproar and another was fatally shot by a policeman while forcing her way into the House Chamber. One of my colleagues, 42-year-old Officer Brian Sicknick, suffered two strokes after the trauma of fighting off multiple protesters who sprayed him with a chemical irritant. He didn’t survive. Four D.C. policemen harmed in the riots later died by suicide.

    My friend Harry Dunn, the first law enforcement member to prominently condemn the brazen uprising, testified about our primitive hand-to-hand fighting against improvised weaponry like flagpoles, metal bike racks and projectiles, with officers bleeding, blinded and coughing from bear spray. Called racial slurs, Harry has since retired his blue uniform. My co-worker Michael Fanone was beaten, burned and electrically shocked. He suffered a heart attack, concussion and traumatic brain injury that caused him to also leave his position at the Metropolitan Police. While physically recovering, he’s been the target of constant harassment from Trump supporters and has struggled to find steady work. Steven Sund, who was the Capitol Police chief, has been scapegoated and resigned under pressure.

    I required multiple surgeries, years of rehab and treatment for recurrences of the post-traumatic stress disorder I was diagnosed with in the Army. […]

    Although I left the Capitol Police force, I remain haunted by that day. Now Mr. Trump’s promised actions could erase the justice we’ve risked everything for.

    I never wanted to be a whistle-blower or a troublemaker. [snipped details of Gonell’s life history] While Mr. Trump escaped the Vietnam draft with a medical exemption for bone spurs and never served in the military, I finished my degree with the help of the G.I. Bill after I enlisted and served in the Middle East. What I experienced defending the Capitol against rioters was worse than the combat I saw in Iraq.

    What helped me was bearing witness. In the four years since the riot, about 1,561 defendants have been federally charged with Jan. 6 crimes, many of them serious felonies ranging from unlawfully entering restricted grounds with weapons to seditious conspiracy. […] the weapons included swords, axes, knives, Taser-like devices, baseball bats, hockey sticks and reinforced knuckle gloves. […]

    If Mr. Trump wants to heal our divided nation, he’ll let their convictions stand.

    Although I don’t blame all Trump supporters — some of my own relatives support him — I do detest what MAGA extremism did to me and my team on Jan. 6. I resent the ongoing whitewashing of the barbarity and the collective amnesia of right-wing politicians who aren’t willing to hold Mr. Trump accountable. […]

    Mr. Trump is returning to the presidency at 78, while I had to leave the career I’d worked for my whole life for at 42 as a result of injuries suffered while doing my job. I sometimes wonder why I risked my life to defend our elected officials from a mob inspired by Mr. Trump, only to see him return to power stronger than ever. It’s hard to witness a rich white man get rewarded for treachery while I’m punished for fulfilling my duty. […]

    When Mr. Trump recently proclaimed that members of the House Jan. 6 committee should go to jail, Representative Jamie Raskin responded, “In America, we jail people only for having committed criminal offenses that they are found guilty of by a unanimous jury of their peers. We don’t jail people for doing their jobs and living up to their constitutional oaths of office.”

    It gave me hope when Mr. Raskin further reminded everyone that Mr. Trump was impeached for his role in inspiring a violent insurrection against the Constitution. I admire Republicans like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger who put fairness before party, despite being censured and threatened for their work on the committee.

    At least I get to hear my son call me his hero, as we remember the people who put everything on the line to protect our democracy and continue to tell the truth about Jan. 6.

    New York Times link

    Aquilino Gonell is a former sergeant in the Capitol Police and the author, with Susan Shapiro, of “American Shield: The Immigrant Sergeant Who Defended Democracy.”

  128. says

    New York Times link

    “Drones, Exploding Parcels and Sabotage: How Hybrid Tactics Target the West”

    “Russia and other hostile states have become increasingly brazen in adopting ‘gray zone’ attacks against Europe and the United States, leaving defense officials with a dilemma: How to respond?”

    When mysterious drones began appearing over oil rigs and wind farms off Norway’s coast about three years ago, officials were not certain where they came from.

    But “we knew what they were doing,” Stale Ulriksen, a researcher at the Royal Norwegian Naval Academy, said in a recent interview. “Some of it was espionage, where they are charting a lot of things. […]”

    The drones were suspected of being launched from Russian-controlled ships in the North Sea, Mr. Ulriksen said, including some ships that were near underwater energy pipelines. Norway could not do much to stop them, he added, given that they were flying over international waters.

    In recent weeks, reports of drone swarms over the United States’ East Coast have brought fears of hybrid warfare to widespread attention. Only 100 out of 5,000 drone sightings there required further examination, U.S. officials said, and so far none are believed to have been foreign surveillance drones. But it is a different story for the drones spotted in late November and early December over military bases in England and Germany where American forces are stationed.

    Military analysts have concluded those drones may have been on a state-sponsored surveillance mission, according to one U.S. official familiar with the incidents, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an open investigation. […]

    Experts said the drones’ presence was indicative of a so-called hybrid or “gray zone” attack against the West, where a range of tactics — military, cyber, economic and even psychological — are used to covertly attack or destabilize an enemy.

    As Russia, Iran and other hostile states become increasingly brazen in their hybrid attacks on Western countries — such as the hacking of sensitive computer systems and alleged assassination plots — defense officials face a thorny challenge. How to deter such acts without touching off a broader and potentially deadly conflict? And how to assign blame against the attacker when the strikes are designed to evade culpability?

    ‘It’s not random; it’s part of military operations.’

    Hybrid attacks are not new, but they have escalated in recent years.

    One of the most visible and potentially deadly incidents came in July, when a series of packages exploded in Europe. Postmarked from Lithuania, the parcels contained electric massage machines with a highly flammable magnesium-based substance inside. Two exploded in DHL cargo facilities in Britain and Germany, and the third in a Polish courier firm.

    Western officials and Polish investigators said they believed the packages were a test run by Russia’s military intelligence agency to plant explosives on cargo planes bound for the United States and Canada. [Likely scenario]

    […] Other examples of hybrid tactics include cyberattacks on Albania in the past several years, which an investigation by Microsoft concluded were sponsored by Iran, and Russia’s unsuccessful attempt to sway presidential elections using disinformation in Moldova in October and November […] European countries are also investigating whether a number of ships intentionally cut underwater cables in recent months in an attempted attack.

    While China, Iran and North Korea have shown a growing appetite for hybrid attacks, officials said that Russia in particular has deployed them as covert sabotage against NATO allies since the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. [yep]

    […] Britain, Germany, the United States and Baltic and Nordic countries close to Russia’s border are among the Western countries most targeted by hybrid threats, in part because of their prominent support for Ukraine, officials said. Last year, according to Western officials, American and NATO intelligence agencies uncovered a Russian plot to kill the chief executive of a German weapons giant, Rheinmetall, which has built millions of dollars’ worth of arms and ammunition for Ukraine.

    The drones spotted in Britain in November — three days after President Biden said Ukraine could launch U.S.-made deep strike missiles into Russia — were larger and more durable to challenging weather than a hobbyist would be expected to own, and were mostly spotted after nightfall. That is partly why military analysts concluded that a hostile state was responsible, the U.S. official said.

    Then, in early December, around the time the drone sightings in Britain began to taper off, drones appeared above Ramstein Air Base in Germany, one of the largest American military posts in Europe. Some were also reportedly spotted near facilities owned by Rheinmetall. […]

    How to fight a shadow war.

    NATO has begun to create a new strategy to confront hybrid attacks to replace a 2015 policy that it says is now out of date. The new approach, Mr. Appathurai said, will provide a base line picture of recent hybrid attacks to help the alliance measure whether risk levels are escalating.

    […] The European Union is also stepping up its efforts, imposing sanctions in mid-December for the first time against people specifically accused of engaging in pro-Russian hybrid threats. It also recently tasked four senior commissioners with countering hybrid threats.

    […] because hybrid warfare is by its nature designed to evade clear attribution of responsibility, officials have hesitated to launch powerful responses without having indisputable evidence of an adversary’s identity.

    That has emboldened Russia and China to push the limits, according to officials, diplomats and experts.

    “As long as NATO and European member states disagree on how to respond more assertively to the Kremlin’s hybrid warfare, Europe will remain vulnerable,” Charlie Edwards, a former British intelligence and security strategist, wrote in November. “Failing to act will mean the Kremlin retains the strategic advantage.”

  131. says

    As soon as I saw the report about the Presidential Medal of Freedom awards […] and saw the name of George Soros, I just knew there would be people upset.

    [Soros’] donations directly to political candidates are limited just like anyone else, $5,000. He’s done those. But they’re all upset is about his large donations to his foundation that doles out the money he gives them to Democratic campaigns and political issues.

    CNBC showed him giving $200 million to his foundations in 2021. […]

    The same people who are critical of George Soros don’t find anything at all wrong with Elon Musk putting $250 million into Donald Trump’s campaign. [Of course.]

    […] Figures like Trump and Ron DeSantis have explicitly criticized Soros-backed candidates and policies, framing them as detrimental to public safety and conservative values. Soros’s contributions have been significant in local elections, supporting district attorney candidates who favor criminal justice reform, a stance that has drawn ire from conservative critics who accuse Soros of being soft on crime.

    On Saturday morning Fox and Friends, Campos-Duffy said, “Today, Biden is going to present, get this Joe, gird yourself, Hillary Clinton, George Soros and 17 other people are going to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom award!

    She added, “So people who destroy freedom, getting the freedom award?!”

    Without the faintest hint of irony, Concha then replied, “Wow, this reads like medals for losers, right? First Liz Cheney, that election denier Hillary Clinton, and then the most evil man on the planet, George Soros.”

    […] There’s also anti-Semitism at work here because George is Jewish. The right wing tries to avoid that trap, but they rarely succeed. And when did Hillary Clinton become an election denier? She conceded.

    His nomination naturally provoked backlash from other pundits online, with Elon Musk calling it a “travesty”, Steve Bannon lamenting that “Soros and Hillary to get the nation’s highest civilian award from illegitimate Biden regime today.”

    Social media was all abuzz about it:

    Natalie Danielishan wrote on X, “Biden is giving the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Hillary Clinton and George Soros … seriously two of the worst people on Earth. This could be @TheBabylonBee article with how unbelievable this is.”

    George Soros is 94 years old, so the award was picked up by his son Alex Soros. George did a press release through his Open Society Foundations:

    “As an immigrant who found freedom and prosperity in America, I am deeply moved by this honor. I accept it on behalf of the many people around the world with whom Open Society Foundations have made common cause over the last 40 years.”

    People at the New York Post were rabid:

    “George Soros spent millions on electing soft on crime politicians and let criminals wreak havoc in our cities,” Montana Senator Tim Sheehy told the Post. “Hillary Clinton abandoned our Navy Seals in Libya.”

    Nothing like having a completely disjointed thought.

    “Joe Biden’s decision to give Hillary Clinton and George Soros the Presidential Medal of Freedom is a national disgrace,” he added

    [As an aside, Hillary Clinton looked great at the ceremony. She looked happy and energetic.]

    The citation for George Soros that goes along with the medal reads:

    Born into a Jewish family in Hungary, George Soros escaped Nazi occupation to build a life of freedom for himself and countless others around the world. His inspiring generosity reminds us all of our capacity to stand up to the abuse of power and to be guardians of democracy and all people yearning to be free.

    The New York Post again had to put in their two cents worth:

    Soros backed DA’s, including Manhattan’s Alvin Bragg, Chicago’s Kim Foxx, Los Angeles’s George Gascón, and Philadelphia’s Larry Krasner, have been ripped for pursuing a Marxist agenda that includes promoting lawlessness in the guise of “criminal justice reform” over prosecuting criminals.

    Marxist. I don’t think the New York Post writer is smart enough to understand what the word means. It’s just another buzzword to them. They probably think it’s an insult, like calling somebody a communist. It’s not the same thing at all. I can’t find a single reference where Marx ever talked about criminal justice reform. That’s because the term didn’t exist in his time.

    “The significant financial support of Mr. Soros and his Open Society for far left, woke, criminal justice reform district attorney and mayoral candidates caused havoc in the criminal justice system and significant rises in crime and disorder,” said former NYPD commissioner Bill Bratton.

    Again, the “woke” curse word. There used to be talking dolls where you pulled a string and they would talk. I think this guy fits the bill.

    “Truly a sad day for America,” said GOP New Jersey Rep. Jeff Van Drew. “Communities all across our country will likely never recover from the damage that George Soros and his radical left prosecutors have inflicted upon them.”

    Radical left prosecutors. I think this man has been listening to Donald Trump too much.

    Marxist, woke, radical left, worst person in the world. The man deserves better for having devoted 40 years to helping people. But, it’s easy when you consider the source. Tainted brain equals tainted speech.

    Josh Hawley couldn’t help himself, I won’t bother calling him a senator:

    “Joe Biden is spending his last days in office asking ‘how can I disgrace myself even more?’ And this is just the latest example. Hillary Clinton should have been prosecuted, not celebrated with the nation’s highest civilian honor.”

    [They still want to prosecute Hillary Clinton! Sheesh.]

    It’s amazing that every single negative article quoted Elon Musk saying that it was a “travesty.”

    This will probably hit the news cycle on the right wing radio, TV, and social media sites for at least a couple of days.

    I’m glad Joe Biden included George Soros because it brought out the worst in people who are the worst people. […]

    Keep it up, Joe. […]

    Link

    Embedded links to sources are available at the main link.

  132. says

    KG @130, interesting. Elon Musk is pressuring politicians in other countries to move further to the right … and more toward fascism.

    In other news (but perhaps related): Italy’s Meloni boosts ties with Trump in surprise Florida visit

    Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni made a surprise trip to Florida to meet with Donald Trump late on Saturday, as the key European leader sought to buttress ties with the president-elect before his inauguration on Jan. 20.

    Members of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort welcomed Meloni with applause after an introduction by the president-elect, according to videos shared on social media by reporters and others.

    “This is very exciting. I’m here with a fantastic woman, the prime minister of Italy,” Trump told the Mar-a-Lago crowd, according to a media pool report. “She’s really taken Europe by storm.”

    Meloni is seen as a potentially strong partner for Trump given her conservative credentials and the stability of the right-wing coalition she has led in Italy since late 2022.

    She has also forged a close relationship with billionaire tech CEO Elon Musk [!!], a close Trump ally who spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars to help him win the election.

    Tommaso Foti, Italy’s EU and regional affairs minister, said on Sunday that the meeting, which had not been announced in advance, showed that Italy could act as “a diplomatic bridge between two worlds: the European Union and the USA”.

    Her trip comes days before she is to meet President Joe Biden during a visit to Rome from Thursday to Jan. 12.

    While no details of their meeting have been disclosed, Meloni had planned to talk with Trump about Russia’s war in Ukraine, trade issues, the Middle East and the plight of an Italian journalist detained in Tehran, according to Italian media reports.

    Trump and Meloni watched a screening of a documentary questioning the criminal investigations and legal scrutiny faced by John Eastman, a former Trump lawyer who was central to Trump’s unsuccessful efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss. [Oh FFS]

    […] Meloni became the latest in the handful of foreign leaders who have visited Trump in Florida since the Nov. 5 election. He has met with Argentinian President Javier Milei, Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

  133. birgerjohansson says

    KG @ 130

    Follow-up.
    “Musk Attacks Nigel Farage in Full Popcorn Alert!”
    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=9lx1IRangHQ 

    Nigel Frarage – leader of far-right Reform UK – does not want Musk to support Tommy Robinson, an extreme-right goon in UK prison because it ruins the credibility of everyone else Musk supports (like Farage himself). 
    Musk did not like being told he was wrong, and now he demands Farage should be replaced.

    Ha! It is as if someone demanded Trump step down from MAGA leadership. Reform UK is not even a “party” party where members can vote on who is the leader. It is some weird private thing where the “members” are “subscribers”. Farage is some kind of CEO. The only “member” members are the five members of parliament who BTW have zero influence as Labour has an absolute majority.

  134. says

    More followup to KG @130:

    […] Musk’s strident criticism of centrist and center-left politicians like Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Jess Phillips, a Home Office minister, is not unexpected — the Tesla entrepreneur’s politics have veered further and further right on immigration in recent years, and he often picks fights online with left-wing leaders.

    His schism with Farage, a darling of the anti-immigration movement, is more surprising. Earlier on Sunday, when asked in a television interview about insults and semi-truths Musk had thrown at Labour politicians, Farage defended Musk’s right to freedom of speech.

    But Farage disagreed with Musk’s endorsement of fascist figurehead Tommy Robinson, who is currently serving a prison sentence for contempt of court.

    Musk “has a whole range of opinions, some of which I agree with very strongly, and others of which I’m more reticent about,” Farage said on Friday. […]

    Politico link

    More at the link.

  135. KG says

    “Must” for “Musk” @130 was a typo, but I rather like it. I imagine Musk’s obsessive tweeting leaves him little time for personal hygeine, resulting in a rather musty odour, and according to wikipedia:

    Musth or must (from Persian, lit. ’intoxicated’) is a periodic condition in bull (male) elephants characterized by aggressive behavior and accompanied by a large rise in reproductive hormones.
    …
    A bull elephant in musth, wild or otherwise, is extremely dangerous to humans, other elephants, and other species. Bull elephants in musth have killed keepers/mahouts, as well as other bull elephants, female elephants, and calves

  137. KG says

    Lynna, OM@132,

    Meloni has recently said she is “in tune on many issues” with Starmer (I don’t have the reference handy). Which says nothing good about Starmer.

  138. birgerjohansson says

    I include this link for some background to Brit politics, especially the decline of the tories. Their craziness provides a humoristic comparison to MAGA craziness.
    If you want to know more about their rivals Reform UK there is more at Youtube if you link to ‘A Different Bias’

    “Tories Still Clowning As 2024 Ends”
    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=ts4l44GXce8

  139. Reginald Selkirk says

    U.S. uncovers hacking campaign targeting Guam’s critical infrastructure — suspected Chinese Volt Typhoon hacks could disrupt the defense of Taiwan

    The U.S. government has uncovered a Chinese hacking campaign targeting Guam’s critical infrastructure, according to Bloomberg. Guam is a key U.S. military outpost, a foothold on one of the remote Mariana Islands in the Pacific. China’s operation is reportedly called Volt Typhoon and it is meant to disrupt military and civilian operations in the event of conflict over Taiwan. The purported campaign focuses on infiltrating operational systems to prepare for potential sabotage, creating widespread vulnerabilities in Guam.

    Volt Typhoon infiltrates systems by mimicking legitimate users and unlike attacks that exfiltrate data, this program seeks control over critical infrastructure such as water systems, power grids, and communication networks. Volt Typhoon is said to operate so discreetly that detection relies on identifying anomalies, like irregular login patterns. This is where it got detected, as the Guam Power Authority (GPA), the only provider of electricity on the island, became a point of interest when U.S. investigators approached its cybersecurity head — Melvyn Kwek — to assess unusual network activity back in 2022…

  140. says

    “Trump promises to build more ships—but he may deport the workers who make them.”

    By Nicole Foy for ProPublica

    Early last year, President-elect Donald Trump promised that when he got back into the Oval Office, he’d authorize the U.S. Navy to build more ships. “It’s very important,” he said, “because it’s jobs, great jobs.”

    However, the companies that build ships for the government are already having trouble finding enough workers to fill those jobs. And Trump may make it even harder if he follows through on another pledge he’s made: to clamp down on immigration. [As usual, Trump ignores the details.]

    The president-elect has told his supporters he would impose new limits on the numbers of immigrants allowed into the country and stage the largest mass deportation campaign in history. Meanwhile the shipbuilding industry, which he also says he supports and which has given significant financial support to Republican causes, is struggling to overcome an acute worker shortage. Immigrants have been critical to helping fill the gaps.

    According to a Navy report from last year, several major shipbuilding programs are years behind schedule, owing largely to a lack of workers. The shortfall is so severe that warship production is down to its lowest level in a quarter century.

    Shipbuilders and the government have poured millions of dollars into training and recruiting American workers, and, as part of a bipartisan bill just introduced in the Senate, they have proposed to spend even more. Last year the Navy awarded nearly $1 billion in a no-bid contract to a Texas nonprofit to modernize the industry with more advanced technology in a way that will make it more attractive to workers. The nonprofit has already produced splashy TV ads for submarine jobs. One of its goals is to help the submarine industry hire 140,000 new workers in the next 10 years. “We build giants,” one of its ads beckons. “It takes one to build one.”

    Still, experts say that these robust efforts have so far resulted in nowhere near enough workers for current needs, let alone a workforce large enough to handle expanded production. “We’re trying to get blood from a turnip,” said Shelby Oakley, an analyst at the Government Accountability Office. “The domestic workforce is just not there.”

    In the meantime, the industry is relying on immigrants for a range of shipyard duties, with many working jobs similar to those on a construction site, including on cleanup crews and as welders, painters and pipefitters. And executives worry that any future immigration crackdown or restrictions on legal immigration, including limits on asylum or temporary protected status programs, could cause disruptions that would further harm their capacity for production.

    […] the shipbuilding industry [says] that they do not employ undocumented workers, and industry experts say undocumented workers are unlikely to be working on projects requiring security clearances. However, reporting by ProPublica last year found that some shipbuilders with government contracts have used such workers. That reporting focused on a major Louisiana shipyard run by a company called Thoma-Sea, where undocumented immigrants have often been hired through third-party subcontractors.

    The story reported on a young undocumented Guatemalan immigrant who was helping build an $89 million U.S. government ship for tracking hurricanes. When he died on the job after working at Thoma-Sea for two years, neither the company nor the subcontractor paid death benefits to his partner and young son.

    […] In July 2020, federal immigration agents arrested 19 “unlawfully present foreign nationals” at Bollinger’s Lockport shipyard, […] that yard produces U.S. Coast Guard and Navy patrol boats. Five of the workers arrested were sent to an ICE detention center and 14 were released with pending deportation cases […]

    there’s no evidence in publicly available federal court records that Bollinger executives faced any charges in connection to it. Meanwhile, federal electoral records show that the company’s executives donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republican elected officials last year, including Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, both Republicans from Louisiana. […]

    President Joe Biden’s administration ended workplace raids like the one at Bollinger […]Trump’s designated “border czar,” Tom Homan, has signaled that the incoming administration will return to carrying out the raids. […]

    A few days after Trump won the election, a group of undocumented shipyard welders leaving a Hispanic grocery store near the port in Houma, Louisiana, expressed a dim view when asked what they thought lay ahead. One man, who declined to provide his name, broke into a nervous laugh and blurted, “Well, we could be deported.” Another man, a welder from the Mexican state of Coahuila who’d been working in the U.S. for about two years, also declined to give his name but said he worried about losing the life he’d managed to build in this country.

    “When they grab you,” he said, “they’ll take you, and you’ll have to leave everything behind.”

    Link

  141. Reginald Selkirk says

    Chinese nationals arrested with gold bars and $800,000 cash in DR Congo

    Three Chinese nationals have been arrested with 12 gold bars and $800,000 (£650,000) in cash in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, officials say.

    The gold and money was hidden under the seats of the vehicle they were travelling in, according to Jean Jacques Purusi, the governor of South Kivu province.

    He said the operation to arrest the men had been kept secret after the recent release of another group of Chinese nationals accused of running an illegal gold mine in the area…

    Purusi said some of these dealers in precious metals enjoyed good relations with influential people in the capital, Kinshasa, and this was why the mission to carry out these latest arrests had to be kept quiet.

    He said they had been acting on a tip-off and that the gold and money was only found after a meticulous search of the vehicle in the Walungu area not far from the border with Rwanda…

    Last month, the governor told reporters he was shocked to hear that 17 Chinese nationals, who had been arrested on allegations they had been running an illegal gold mine, had been freed and allowed to return to China.

    He said this undermined efforts to clean up DR Congo’s notoriously murky mineral sector.

    They owed $10m in taxes and fines to the government, the Reuters news agency quotes him as saying…

  142. Reginald Selkirk says

    New York becomes first US city with congestion charge

    The first congestion charge scheme for vehicles in the US has come into effect in New York City.

    Car drivers will pay up to $9 (£7) a day, with varying rates for other vehicles.

    The congestion zone covers an area south of central park, taking in well known sites such as the Empire State Building, Times Square and the financial district around Wall Street…

  147. Reginald Selkirk says

    Chinese ship ‘severs undersea cables around Taiwan’

    Taiwan has accused a Chinese-owned ship of severing a critical data cable off its northern coast on Friday.

    Officials in Taipei discovered that four cores of an international submarine cable, which transmits data to America’s AT&T, were left ruptured early on Jan 3.

    Tracking data revealed the Shunxing39 cargo vessel had dropped its anchor around the rupture site near the port of Keelung, according to Taiwan’s coast guard…

    The Shunxing39 sails under the flag of Cameroon, but officials in Taiwan have pointed out it is owned by Jie Yang Trading Ltd, which is registered in Hong Kong, and owned by Chinese citizen Guo Wenjie…

  149. StevoR says

    Elon Musk has called for Nigel Farage to quit as leader of Britain’s right-wing Reform UK party in an abrupt withdrawal of support by the US billionaire for the Brexit campaigner. “The Reform Party needs a new leader. Farage doesn’t have what it takes,” Mr Musk said on his social media platform X on Sunday, a few hours after Mr Farage described him as a friend who made Reform look “cool”.

    … (Snip!)… Mr Farage has distanced himself from comments made by Mr Musk in support of British anti-immigration and anti-Muslim activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, known by the pseudonym Tommy Robinson, who is serving a prison sentence for contempt of court. Mr Farage responded to Mr Musk’s post on Sunday and said his comments were “a surprise,” adding that “Elon is a remarkable individual” but he disagreed.”My view remains that Tommy Robinson is not right for Reform and I never sell out my principles,” he said.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-06/musk-backflips-on-support-for-farage/104786950

    So.. Farage isn’t extreme and hateful enough for Musk’s fascist funding now it seems?

  150. Bekenstein Bound says

    TIL that in elephants it’s the males who get the PMS.

    Huh.

    birgerjohansson:

    ‘Pearls Before Swine’ usually provides “great” puns, but here is a different level of wisdom: the answer for one of the hardest problems ever.

    Do you ever post a link that actually works? I get a page with all the window dressing around an image, but no actual image. Right click “open image in new tab” there results in a blank tab. “View image info” shows a 1×1 transparent gif being scaled up to something like 537×537, with alt text claiming that it is the comic strip we’ve been promised.

    Is this a prank or just a malfunction?

    Reginald Selkirk:

    their transition from a superconducting to an insulating state is not gradual, as traditionally assumed, but sudden.

    A sudden, reversible transition between conducting and insulating is a key property if you want to turn a material into a transistor …

  151. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Re: Bekenstein Bound:

    I get a page with all the window dressing around an image, but no actual image.

    Malfunction. This was the image. I could see it in the page (desktop and mobile), but my mouse could only inspect.. It was wrapped in an anchor tag with “pointer-events: none” styling on it to make it unclickable. From the looks of parent tags, the intent was to have the container catch a swipe gesture and navigate to prev/next comics. That didn’t work for me.

    a 1×1 transparent gif

    From network traffic, the only gif for me was the comic itself. There didn’t appear to be a glass pane layer over the image to intercept clicks. Maybe the site really served you blankness instead. Hotlinking seems unimpeded, so the link here should work. Dunno why you got that.

  152. says

    Following the terrorist attack in New Orleans, Donald Trump is once again fearmongering about “open borders.” Referencing a false Fox News report that the network later retracted, Trump alleged that lax border policies under the Biden administration are to blame for the attack.

    The rhetoric was a return to form for Trump and other Republicans, like Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, who have used immigration as a convenient talking point to attack Democrats.

    But the right’s claim that the U.S.-Mexico border is somehow “open” is completely untrue.

    President Joe Biden hasn’t opened the border, nor have any prominent Democrats—even those significantly more left than Biden—suggested that the border be “open.” What Biden has done, however, is rescind or rein in many of the harshest border-related policies that Trump implemented during his first term.

    Biden has emphasized legal immigration (versus a strict policy of repatriation) and ending family separation, and he has even upset some Democrats by utilizing more stringent policies like deportation without asylum hearings.

    But still, Republicans insist that “open borders” exist. Why?

    Fear about border security is an extremely potent motivator for conservative voters, so it’s in the GOP’s best interest to keep those voters in a fevered pitch of worry about who or what could be coming across the southern border into the United States.

    That is why right-wing media outlets like Fox News constantly highlight the purported threat of immigration—either by hyping up crimes committed by immigrants or promoting perceived connections between terrorism and immigration.

    Republican candidates across the board are promoting these falsehoods with alarming frequency, despite crime declining since Trump left office and longstanding data showing that native-born Americans commit more crimes than immigrants.

    The GOP’s attack on Democrats’ immigration policy is even more specious when considering that Trump already had four years of his presidency—much of that with a Republican majority in Congress—to “fix” the perceived immigration issue. But Republicans rejected longstanding bipartisan compromises that combined border security and a path to citizenship, and instead entertained Trump’s border wall project.

    The wall was never completed, and it so far has not deterred immigrants from crossing. There’s no practical way to build a wall that someone desperate to cross won’t find a way to climb over.

    Trump’s other signature immigration policy, family separation, resulted in children being taken from their families and put in jail-like detention camps. The operation was condemned across the world by figures including the Pope, and the Biden administration has spent years trying to reunite the families affected.

    Promoting the notion that the border is “open” is not only false, but it also helps fuel rhetoric that has literally killed people. In 2018, a mass shooter killed 23 people at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, echoing Trump/Fox News rhetoric about an “invasion” of immigrants from Mexico.

    Since then, the right has not stopped pushing this fake storyline. Both the Republican Party and conservative media see it as an effective tool that brings in an audience and gains voters, many of whom believe that Trump will once and for all close an “open border” that was never even open in the first place.

    Link

  153. says

    Trump calls on GOP to pass his agenda in ‘one powerful bill’

    Well that sounds totally megalomaniacal and impractical to me.

    Let’s see what Brett Samuels has to say about this news.

    President-elect Trump on Sunday made public his support for Republican lawmakers to pass key components of his agenda into law with a single reconciliation bill, previewing what is expected to be a lengthy and complicated legislative task in the first few months of his second term.

    “Members of Congress are getting to work on one powerful Bill that will bring our Country back, and make it greater than ever before,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

    “We must Secure our Border, Unleash American Energy, and Renew the Trump Tax Cuts, which were the largest in History, but we will make it even better – NO TAX ON TIPS,” he added, making the dubious claim that tariffs on foreign imports would offset for the cost of new spending and tax cuts.

    “Republicans must unite, and quickly deliver these Historic Victories for the American People,” Trump posted. “Get smart, tough, and send the Bill to my desk to sign as soon as possible.”

    Trump’s post on social media came one day after Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told fellow House Republicans that the president-elect preferred that lawmakers pass his agenda in one large reconciliation bill, rather than dividing it into two pieces of legislation.

    Some Republicans had suggested the new Congress could quickly pass a reconciliation bill with added border security and pass a second bill focused on tax policy later in the year.

    Passing legislation via the reconciliation process would require a simple majority in both chambers of Congress, meaning Republicans would not require any Democratic support.

    Johnson told Fox News on Sunday that he was aiming for the House to vote on the reconciliation package in the first week of April.

    Okay, so that’s what they say they want to do. I predict their plans will fall apart over time.

    I’ll look for more analysis tomorrow.

  154. says

    Exclusive: Rival CEO spread doubt about Nippon Steel deal prospects, documents allege

    Even as Nippon Steel faced skepticism of its doomed $14.9 billion bid for U.S. Steel (X.N) from the Biden administration, it was also contending with headwinds from an unlikely source: the CEO of a rival bidder for the firm who repeatedly cast doubt on the deal’s prospects to investors.

    Lourenco Goncalves, CEO of steelmaker Cleveland-Cliffs (CLF.N) which made a failed $7 billion bid for U.S. Steel in August 2023, participated in at least nine calls assuring investors that President Joe Biden would scuttle the Nippon Steel merger months before he did so on Friday, according to summaries of investor calls included in a Dec. 17 letter from lawyers for Nippon Steel (5401.T) and U.S. Steel to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) and confirmed to Reuters by two participants in the calls.

    “I can’t force U.S. Steel to sell to me, but I can work my magic to make a deal that I don’t agree with not to close,” he told investors on a March 13 call hosted by JP Morgan, the letter quoted Goncalves as saying.
    “It’s not closing, and Biden hasn’t spoken yet. He will.”

    The next day, Biden announced his opposition to the tie-up.

    CFIUS, which reviews foreign investments in the U.S. for national security risks, could not reach consensus on whether to greenlight the Nippon Steel transaction and referred the matter to Biden in late December, setting the stage for his Friday block.

    […] U.S. Steel said the company will continue to fight for this deal in response to questions for this story. The White House said neither Goncalves nor his comments played a role in Biden’s decision to kill the deal. It said on Friday that the proposed purchase presented national security concerns.

    JP Morgan declined to comment, but a note to clients summarizing its March 2024 industrials conference mentions the event with Goncalves, saying “management reiterated its expectation that the deal will not close.” A participant in the call confirmed Goncalves’ forecast Biden would soon take aim at the deal.

    While Goncalves made similar comments about the deal to analysts on three earnings calls this year, his private remarks made throughout 2024 about the deal process show the extent of his effort to cast doubt on Nippon’s bid for U.S. Steel. His comments sometimes preceded drops in the U.S. Steel share price, Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel told CFIUS.

    Cleveland-Cliffs has previously expressed interest in making another bid.

    The steelmaker, which has been led by Brazilian-born Goncalves for over a decade, made the unsolicited bid for U.S. Steel with support from the United Steelworkers union, arguing the companies combined would “create a lower-cost, more innovative, and stronger domestic supplier.”

    But U.S. Steel raised concerns a tie-up with Cleveland-Cliffs risked being shot down by antitrust regulators because it would consolidate the supply of steel to U.S. automakers and put up to 95% of U.S. iron ore production under the control of one company. U.S. Steel’s board rejected the offer.

    Nippon Steel’s December all-cash offer was valued at twice Cleveland-Cliffs’ price, and Nippon later promised to revitalize U.S. Steel’s aging mills with investment from an allied nation.

    But the offer became politicized, with both Biden and Republican President-Elect Donald Trump pledging to kill the deal as they wooed voters in the swing state of Pennsylvania where U.S. Steel is headquartered.

    Trump and Biden both asserted the company should remain American-owned after USW President David McCall expressed his opposition to the tie-up.

    Biden’s objections led to “impermissible undue influence” from the White House on CFIUS’s national security review of the tie-up, the companies alleged in a letter obtained by Reuters last month that also contained the summaries of the investor calls with Goncalves.

    Goncalves previously disputed CFIUS was considering the merits of the deal.

    In a March 15 call with a top investor in U.S. Steel confirmed by a participant in the call, he said, “There’s no process. This is not going to be a process. CFIUS is just cover for a President to kill a deal. CFIUS is a bunch of bureaucrats, second and third level, inside the cabinet…It means the President can do whatever he wants.”

    Too much evidence of behind the scenes pressure … this is likely to be looked at more closely, and it is likely to become a bigger story.

  155. lumipuna says

    Happy Day of Epiphany, everyone and US folks especially. /s

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphany_(holiday)

    I always find it somewhat amusing, since the events of 2021, that January 6 happens to be the date of an obscure Christian holiday called Epiphany, after an alleged appearance of God during Jesus’s baptism. Some other (unrelated) mythical events are also associated with this day, notably the visit of Three Kings to pay respects to the newborn Jesus child (insert joke about Donald Trump receiving various fashy world leaders at Mar-a-Lago).

    I noticed it mainly because Epiphany is a bank holiday here in Finland, although nobody bothers to actually celebrate it in the Christian sense. The Finnish name of the holiday is literally “End day”, because it traditionally ends the Christmas season. Finnish media has regularly referred to the 2021 US Congress riot as “End Day events”, albeit without the apocalyptic connotation this rendering would have in English.

  156. Reginald Selkirk says

    @152

    Clearly, there is an urgent need to close the border between the United States and TExas.

  158. Reginald Selkirk says

    The Militia and the Mole

    A Freelance Vigilante: A wilderness survival trainer spent years undercover, climbing the ranks of right-wing militias. He didn’t tell police or the FBI. He didn’t tell his family or friends.
    The Future of Militias: He penetrated a new generation of militia leaders, which included doctors and government attorneys. Experts say that militias could have a renaissance under Donald Trump.
    A Secret Trove: He sent ProPublica a massive trove of documents. The conversations that he secretly recorded give a unique, startling window into the militia movement.
    …

  159. whheydt says

    Re: lumipena @ #155…
    6 January is also known as “12th Night” aka the 12th day of Christmas. It’s also what many SCA branches use for a mid-Winter gathering/celebration. And that last is why I was out of town over the weekend.

  160. Akira MacKenzie says

    @ 158

    Gee, if only some nameless Democratic president would have sent out the troops out to deal with these hicks after the Oklahoma City bombing instead of getting forcing his interns to suck his dick, maybe we wouldn’t be dealing with Trump.

  161. StevoR says

    From someone who was born there – Palestinian writer and political analyst.Jafar Ramini :

    What is more evil than the murder of 19,000 innocent children?

    What is more evil than creating more than 1400 child amputees, the largest number of paediatric amputees in history?

    While I am writing these words, I’m receiving news from Gaza that newborn babies are freezing to death for lack of sustenance, shelter or warm covering. Six died last night.

    What is more evil than murdering more than 45,000 men and women and the destruction of hospitals, schools, universities, mosques and churches?

    …(Snip) …

    It seems that Trump, upon resuming office in 20 days, has more horror in store for us. In an interview, he said that if the Israeli hostages that are kept in Gaza are not released before he takes on his second term there “will be all hell to pay”. He went on to say: “Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied history of the United States of America.”

    Mr Trump, since you uttered these words, did you have a glance towards Gaza? Have you ever seen such destruction and annihilation of a nation in modern history? You show a lot of compassion for Israeli captives. Any thoughts for the thousands of Palestinians languishing in Israeli prisons and interrogation centres, enduring torture such as no man should ever have to endure?

    I am sorry Mr President for addressing you in this direct manner, but what else could you possibly inflict upon us?

    Source : https://johnmenadue.com/between-a-wall-and-a-hard-place/

    Hey, Vicar, Beholder, Purity Disunity mob, Trump was your alternative to Kamala Harris. You gonna break the news to Jafar Ramini that your chosen POTUS is now going to be about ten times worse? Do you want to explain to him and others that Trump is totally lacking in empathy and an outright sadist especially when it comes to Palestinians – a word he uses as a slur e.g. against Biden in their debate? That the genocide-cheerleading American politicans quoted in that article are the ones you helped put in power? Do you have the courage to face what you’ve gone and done and its consequences for other innocent people?

  162. StevoR says

    AS noted by Occupy Democrats fb page :

    This isn’t a landslide.

    2024 Trump 49.8% 77,301,997 votes

    Kamala 48.3% 75, 017,626 votes

    FWIW Wikipedia largely agrees having figures of Trump 48.9% 77,303,573 votes vs Kamala 48.4% 75, 019,257 votes.

    See : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidential_election

    Not sure why the very slight disparity or which if either is correct but clearly it was a fuck of a lot closer than it appeared on election night.

    Had a few more people turned out. Had a few less voted for Tump via third party spoilers incl Stein and West. Had a few more people rallied and unified more strongly behind Kamala rather than undermining and attacking her.

    Well, the future would be very very different and we’d be looking forward to a very different year coming up than we are right now.

  163. Akira MacKenzie says

    Hey, Vicar, Beholder, Purity Disunity mob, Trump was your alternative to Kamala Harris.

    Oh, they’ll never cop to essentially supporting Trump. They’ll claim they hate Trump just as much as Harris, but we should have supported some obscure Tankie TikTok influencer running as a write-in candidate in Oregon. They would have swooped down and saved the Palestinians while slaying Netanyahu with lightning bolts shot from their assholes.

  164. StevoR says

    @160. Akira MacKenzie : President Biden is still in power now – and SCOTUS has basically made him a monarch above the Law with the divine reich to do as he wishes. It is my deepest wish that Biden would use the full extent of that power against Trump and his kultists pulling no punches to save the USoA from the obvious domestic enemies (supported by foreign enemies) that they are. I know he won’t becuase unlike Trump he has self-restraint, ethics and decency but if only.. Sigh.

    Undemocratic? Yeah. Fuck Democracy. American citizens sure did that. It died back in November in the USA. Not sure how well it is working out elsewhere either given Brexit, the Indigenous Voice referendum a year or two ago in Oz, the rise of fucking fascism in Europe incl Germany now, ad nauseam ..

    Democracy needs a well-informed rational populace to work. How many places have that these days? Too few I fear.

  165. StevoR says

    @163. Akira MacKenzie : Exactly! But they need to get their noses rubbed in it every time anyhow I reckon. Least we can do after what they’ve just done to the rest of the planet.

  166. says

    Canada’s Justin Trudeau to step down after nearly a decade in office

    Under pressure from his own allies, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that he’s stepping down from the office he’s held since 2015.

    After Vice President Kamala Harris’ narrow defeat in the 2024 elections, a variety of observers took note of an international trend that made Democrats feel better: In the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic and the related post-recovery inflation, voters around the world turned against incumbent parties — from the left, right and center.

    In a widely read Financial Times report, published shortly after Donald Trump won a second term, John Burn-Murdoch noted, “From America’s Democrats to Britain’s Tories, Emmanuel’s Macron’s Ensemble coalition to Japan’s Liberal Democrats, even to Narendra Modi’s erstwhile dominant BJP, governing parties and leaders have undergone an unprecedented series of reversals this year.”

    It was a global trend, the report added, unlike anything seen in nearly 120 years.

    What’s more, the trend against incumbent international leaders is still ongoing — and it’s reached Ottawa.

    Under intensifying pressure from his own political allies, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that he’s stepping down. NBC News reported:

    Justin Trudeau said Monday that he will resign as the leader of Canada’s ruling Liberal Party, in an announcement that will fire the starting gun on a contest to replace him as prime minister. Trudeau, who swept to power in late 2015 and has governed for nine years, told reporters in Ottawa that he would step down after his party selects a new leader.

    The incumbent will remain prime minister, however, until his successor is chosen.

    As this relates to American politics, Trump probably won’t be too sorry to see the prime minister go. On the contrary, the Republican has had a difficult relationship with the Canadian leader in recent years. […]

    As for the near future, Canada’s Liberal Party holds 153 out of 338 seats in the House of Commons. National elections are scheduled for October.

  167. says

    When it comes to prominent Republican officials getting caught peddling fake historical quotes, Sen. Rand Paul tends to be in a league of his own. The Kentucky Republican has, after all, been caught pushing fake quotes from Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Patrick Henry, Abraham Lincoln and George Washington.

    Paul, however, is not without company. On the Fourth of July in 2023, for example, Sen. Josh Hawley promoted a fake quote from Patrick Henry. (When he got caught, the Missouri Republican boasted that the “the libs” were “major triggered” by his willingness to amplify misinformation.)

    Late last week, House Speaker Mike Johnson joined the club. The Washington Post reported:

    Shortly before Mike Johnson was sworn in as House speaker on Friday, he stood in front of the incoming members of Congress and offered what he said was “a prayer for the nation” that was said every day Thomas Jefferson was in the White House and “and every day thereafter until his death.” Johnson attributed that detail to a program distributed at a bipartisan interfaith church service where he spoke earlier that day. Johnson told the lawmakers, it is “quite familiar to historians and probably many of us.”

    As it turns out, however, if the Jefferson prayer is “quite familiar to historians,” it’s probably because historians keep trying to tell people that the prayer has been falsely attributed to Jefferson for far too long.

    To be sure, the Louisiana Republican delivered his remarks with great confidence, quoting the Jefferson prayer at length, as if the quote were real. There is, however, no evidence suggesting Jefferson ever uttered the prayer.

    Indeed, this mistake is so common that the Thomas Jefferson Foundation has a dedicated online page — published long before the House speaker’s comments from Friday — that sets the record straight.

    We have no evidence that this prayer was written or delivered by Thomas Jefferson. It appears in the 1928 United States Book of Common Prayer, and was first suggested for inclusion in a report published in 1919. … Ultimately, it seems unlikely that Jefferson would have composed or delivered a public prayer of this sort. He considered religion a private matter, and when asked to recommend a national day of fasting and prayer, replied, “I consider the government of the US. as interdicted by the constitution from intermedling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises.”
    But stepping back, the problem is not just that some GOP officials keep peddling fake quotes from the Founding Fathers. The problem is also why they keep doing this.

    The common thread tying together most of these fake quotes is the idea that the nation’s founders were eager to combine religion and politics. The historical record proves otherwise. As historian Kevin Kruse explained in a terrific 2023 piece:

    [I]t’s better, I think, to brush aside these politicians and partisans who cherry-pick their way through the founding era and simply remind them that in the Constitution of the United States — you know, the document that actually founded this country and established its rules and norms — none of their wish casting for a “Christian nation” finds any support at all.

    Quite right. I’ve long believed that this effectively ends any debate: The Constitution is a secular document that created a secular government. Period. Full stop.

    For opponents of church-state separation, this nagging detail must be terribly frustrating, but reality is stubborn. Either the nation’s founders created a secular constitutional system that guarantees religious liberty for all, or they meant to base our constitutional system of government on Christianity but somehow forgot.

    Link

  168. birgerjohansson says

    Justin Trudeau is stepping down as party leader but will remain prime minister of Canada until a successor is chosen.
    This is a reaction to calls to stand down after the party is trailing the conservatives by 20 points.

  169. Reginald Selkirk says

    HDMI FORUM ANNOUNCES VERSION 2.2 OF THE HDMI SPECIFICATION

    HDMI Forum, Inc. today announced the upcoming release of Version 2.2 of the HDMI Specification…

    Higher 96Gbps bandwidth and next-gen HDMI Fixed Rate Link technology provide optimal audio and video for a wide range of device applications…

    Higher resolutions and refresh rates will be supported and more high-quality options will be provided. Faster 96Gbps bandwidth improves demanding data-intensive, immersive and virtual applications such as AR/VR/MR, spatial reality and light field displays as well as various commercial applications such as large scale digital signage, medical imaging and machine vision.

    Also included is Latency Indication Protocol (LIP) for improving audio and video synchronization, especially for multiple-hop system configurations such as those with an audio video receiver or soundbar.

    The specification includes a new Ultra96 HDMI® Cable supporting 96Gbps bandwidth and enabling all the HDMI 2.2 Specification features. It is part of the HDMI Cable Certification Program requiring each model length to be tested and certified and display a Certification Label…

    Higher bandwidth is always welcome. The need for a new cable is not. This meager press release says nothing about backwards compatibility.

  170. says

    Followup to Reginald @158.

    That story is also available here

    Here is the introduction:

    John Williams kept a backpack filled with everything he’d need to go on the run: three pairs of socks; a few hundred dollars cash; makeshift disguises and lock-picking gear; medical supplies, vitamins and high-calorie energy gels; and thumb drives that each held more than 100 gigabytes of encrypted documents, which he would quickly distribute if he were about to be arrested or killed.

    On April 1, 2023, Williams retrieved the bag from his closet and rushed to his car. He had no time to clean the dishes that had accumulated in his apartment. He did not know if armed men were out looking for him. He did not know if he would ever feel safe to return. He parked his car for the night in the foothills overlooking Salt Lake City and curled up his 6-foot-4-inch frame in the back seat of the 20-year-old Honda. This was his new home.

    He turned on a recording app to add an entry to his diary. His voice had the high-pitched rasp of a lifelong smoker: “Where to fucking start,” he sighed, taking a deep breath. After more than two years undercover, he’d been growing rash and impulsive. He had feared someone was in danger and tried to warn him, but it backfired. Williams was sure at least one person knew he was a double agent now, he said into his phone. “It’s only a matter of time before it gets back to the rest.”

    In the daylight, Williams dropped an envelope with no return address in a U.S. Postal Service mailbox. He’d loaded it with a flash drive and a gold Oath Keepers medallion.

    It was addressed to me.

    The documents laid out a remarkable odyssey. Posing as an ideological compatriot, Williams had penetrated the top ranks of two of the most prominent right-wing militias in the country. He’d slept in the home of the man who claims to be the new head of the Oath Keepers, rifling through his files in the middle of the night. He’d devised elaborate ruses to gather evidence of militias’ ties to high-ranking law enforcement officials. He’d uncovered secret operations like the surveillance of a young journalist, then improvised ways to sabotage the militants’ schemes. In one group, his ploys were so successful that he became the militia’s top commander in the state of Utah.

    Now he was a fugitive. […]

    Much more at the link.

  171. Reginald Selkirk says

    International Year of Quantum Science and Technology

    The 2025 International Year of Quantum Science and Technology (IYQ) recognizes 100 years since the initial development of quantum mechanics. Join us in engaging with quantum science and technology and celebrating throughout the year!

    Recognizing the importance of quantum science and the need for wider awareness of its past and future impact, dozens of national scientific societies gathered together to support marking 100 years of quantum mechanics with a U.N.-declared international year.

    On June 7, 2024, the United Nations proclaimed 2025 as the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology (IYQ). According to the proclamation, this year-long, worldwide initiative will “be observed through activities at all levels aimed at increasing public awareness of the importance of quantum science and applications.”

    Anyone, anywhere can participate in IYQ by helping others to learn more about quantum on this centennial occasion, participating in or organizing an IYQ event, or simply taking the time to learn more about quantum science and technology.

  172. Reginald Selkirk says

    Florida experiences a huge 1,150% surge in VPN use as Pornhub blocks access in response to age-verification law

    Following Pornhub’s decision to block access in Florida due to new age-verification laws, the state has experienced a significant surge in demand for VPNs (Virtual Private Networks). Data from vpnMentor indicates an astonishing 1,150% increase in VPN interest within the first few hours of the site’s withdrawal on January 1, 2025.

    This spike is attributed to Florida’s implementation of House Bill 3 (HB3), which Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law. The legislation mandates that websites hosting adult content verify users’ ages through official identification, aiming to prevent minors from accessing explicit material. Non-compliant platforms face fines of up to $50,000 per violation.

    In response, Pornhub’s parent company, Aylo, has restricted access to users in Florida, as it has in other states with similar laws, including Kentucky, Indiana, Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, Texas, North Carolina, Montana, Mississippi, Virginia, Arkansas, and Utah. Aylo criticized the age-verification methods as “ineffective, haphazard, and dangerous,” expressing concerns over collecting sensitive personal information and potential risks to user safety…

  173. says

    “Today, I will perform my constitutional duty as Vice President to certify the results of the 2024 election,” Kamala Harris, who as vice president is overseeing the joint session of Congress that certifies the Electoral College results, said in a post on X. “This duty is a sacred obligation—one I will uphold guided by love of country, loyalty to our Constitution, and unwavering faith in the American people.”

    “I will stand with my colleagues today to uphold the democratic process and certify the election results,” Rep. Debbie Dingell of Michigan wrote on X. “Democrats firmly believe in the principles of our democracy and recognize the importance of a peaceful, lawful transfer of power.”

    Adam Schiff:

    Today, there will be no organized objection to the results of a free and fair election by the sitting President, no mob that marches on the Capitol at the incitement of the President. Today, there will be no officers maced by rioters or crushed in the doors of this hallowed institution, no offices desecrated or windows smashed by insurrectionists. Today, there will be an orderly certification of the electoral vote, paving the way for the peaceful transfer of power. We can, must, and will do our part to ensure that the same is true in every election, regardless of whether one’s preferred candidate wins or loses. We must ensure that our democratic republic survives four years from now, forty years from now, and forever.

    Rep. Darren Soto of Florida wrote, “Four years ago today, I was trapped in the House Chamber as insurrectionists stormed the Capitol & tried to overturn election results. Today, I will return to the House Chamber to certify the 2024 results. House Democrats honor the Constitution & accept the will of the people.”

    Meanwhile, there are the statements like this one from Republicans:
    “On #ThisDayInHistory in 2021, thousands of peaceful grandmothers gathered in Washington, D.C., to take a self-guided, albeit unauthorized, tour of the U.S. Capitol building,” Rep. Mike Collins of Georgia wrote in a post on X. “Earlier that day, President Trump held a rally, where supporters walked to the Capitol to peacefully protest the certification of the 2020 election. During this time, some individuals entered the Capitol, took photos, and explored the building before leaving.”

    President Biden also weighed in:

    “We must remember the wisdom of the adage that any nation that forgets its past is doomed to repeat it. We cannot accept a repeat of what occurred four years ago,” Biden wrote. “An unrelenting effort has been underway to rewrite—even erase—the history of that day. To tell us we didn’t see what we all saw with our own eyes. To dismiss concerns about it as some kind of partisan obsession. To explain it away as a protest that just got out of hand. This is not what happened.”

  174. says

    Trump is losing it over January 10th sentencing

    The way that Judge Juan Merchan has decided to conclude the case against Donald Trump, saying ahead of time that he’s not going to impose jail time, fines, or probation, has left Trump’s lawyers with no avenue to appeal.

    You may have thought that the judge was giving up by not actually giving Trump a stiff sentence, but it turns out he’s craftier than we thought.

    Laurence Tribe says that, “With all the talk about Judge Merchan’s plan to to impose a sentence without jail time or a fine and with unconditional discharge on January 10th, I’d urge him instead to condition Trump’s discharge on obeying the presidential oath he will take on January 20th. That’s a promise we know he won’t keep.”

    In the order he issued Friday afternoon, Judge Merchan wrote, “The significance of the fact that the verdict was handed down by a unanimous jury of 12 of the defendant’s peers, after trial, cannot possibly be overstated. Indeed, the sanctity of a jury verdict and the deference that must be accorded to it, is a bedrock principle in our nation’s jurisprudence.”

    Joyce Vance’ opinion is that, “By announcing his intent of an unconditional discharge, Judge Merchan takes the wind out of Trump’s legal arguments for delaying sentencing. He deprives the appellate courts of solid reasons to put off sentencing. It would be difficult to articulate any unique harm from sentencing. Trump has, after all, been convicted and re-elected despite that fact.”

    Trump will try one last stab at the appeals court to stop sentencing, but there are no avenues to justify “harm” when the result of the sentence is an unconditional discharge. Trump can appear remotely, so there is no way to claim that it interferes with the presidential transition.

    “… once Trump has been sentenced, the clock is ticking on his appeal… once the appellate process is complete, that’s it. Trump can rail all he wants, but it’s over. He will forever be a convicted felon.”

    Trump has said he’s going to appeal the verdict, but he can’t do that until he is sentenced.

    Trump seems to have gotten a clue about the situation. He’s getting desperate. His lawyers have probably told him it’s the end of the road. Sure he can appeal, even take it to the Supreme Court, but that will not change the fact of the conviction and the sentencing. So, here’s the latest Trump had to say. [screengrab at the link]

    Gee, Donald, if Alvin Bragg never wanted to bring the case against you, how come it happened? He’s even going on the attack at Mark Pomerantz, who wrote a book about his work on the case before leaving, saying that he was upset that Bragg wasn’t following through on an immediate prosecution.

    He’s even accusing Biden and Harris, using the Department of Justice, of impossibly forcing a Manhattan district attorney to proceed with a case he didn’t want to. And he goes off the third person cliff calling himself the persecuted “TRUMP.”

    Then we get to his greatest hits of adjectives all in caps, with corrupt, and totally conflicted political hack. It’s a sham trial. Oh, poor Donnie.

    Conflicts of interest. He still wants to go after the judge’s daughter and the $50 donation Judge Merchan made. He still thinks he can invalidate the verdict by invalidating the judge. Two days ago Trump called for the judge to be disbarred. Not happening. The last time Trump got smacked down for trying to replace the judge was in August, when the original sentencing date was September 10th. It was also the third time the judge had to tell Trump that there were no grounds for recusal.

    At least he qualified it this time saying that “virtually” no legal scholar or pundit could see a case against him. Before it was always “all.” But he forgot to put a “y” at the end of “ever.” “…ever legal scholar.” […]

    I don’t think the judge is going to take kindly to being accused of making up facts and the law. That’s contempt of court right in print. Bragg will let the judge know, if the judge doesn’t already.

    Judicial and prosecutorial witch hunts. He finally got in “witch hunts.”

    Businesses leaving New York in droves and losing, in all caps, billions of dollars in taxes. Cite one example. Millions of jobs leaving. Is that New York City, or the state of New York? If it’s Manhattan, that would leave a negative population. Who do you know who is leaving? Oh, it’s you. You’re going to be going to Washington, D.C. soon. The only taxes you’ve ever paid in recent memory was that one year for $750, and that was federal, not state, so I don’t think anybody needs to worry about the loss of tax revenue.

    Because Judge Merchan figured out a way to actually do something to Trump, the legal system must be broken. […]

    “IT’S ALL RIGGED in this case against a political opponent, ME!” Elections are rigged. Trials are rigged. He forgot juries. Hmm, that might have violated the gag order. Better to say it’s “all” rigged. […]

    3 hours later he did another missive about how tariffs are going to make us all rich, no taxes on tips, and a lot of other garbage, but he ended it with make America great again, all in caps.

    This morning, at 4:24 a.m., he had to quote the most ridiculous statement of all time:

    “Had this election not been won by Donald Trump, civilization would be lost.” – Elon Musk.

    This coming Friday, 9:30 a.m., Donald Trump is going to meet his doom. In years to come, we might celebrate January 10th as a new holiday. It’s not going to be a good day for Donald John Trump.

    Not “doom” perhaps, but certainly an uncomfortable moment for Trump. It will be a schadenfreude moment for sure.

  175. Reginald Selkirk says

    Elon Musk Is Blocking Links to a Journalist’s Investigation Into His Doppelganger

    While the rest of the internet was speculating wildly about an X user named Adrian Dittmann actually being Elon Musk, investigative journalist Jacqueline Sweet was doing the real work. She tracked down Dittmann, a German living in Fiji, and published the story in The Spectator. Now X is blocking anyone from sharing her story and suspended her account for 30 days.

    Over the last two weeks, the Dittmann question has consumed the tech press. The short version is that there’s a guy on X who loves to defend Elon Musk and who sounds a lot like him.

    Not so, says Sweet…

    You can’t share her story on X. When you try, the site returns an error. “We can’t complete this request because this link has been identified by X or our partners as being potentially harmful,” it says…

    I am not interested in whether Musk has an alias account, but rather what pretense is being used to ban an account.

  176. says

    Reginald @175, Elon Musk is going to be very busy if he intends to censor all of the news that may reflect badly on him … or that he thinks may not show him in the best light. Makes me wonder how many people he has working to reach that censorship goal.

    In other news: On Jan. 6 anniversary, Liz Cheney faces intensifying offensive from Trump, GOP

    “As Donald Trump targets the Wyoming Republican, Speaker Mike Johnson vowed yet another pointless investigation into the original Jan. 6 investigation.”

    About a month ago, amid speculation about President Joe Biden weighing pre-emptive pardons, Republican Rep. Dan Meuser appeared on Newsmax and derided the discussion as “nonsense.” The Pennsylvanian quickly explained why such pardons would be entirely unnecessary.

    “Nobody’s going to be going after Liz Cheney,” Meuser said, referring to the former House Republican Conference chair who helped lead the bipartisan Jan. 6 committee. [Delusional]

    Two weeks later, Meuser’s GOP colleagues on the House Administration Committee formally requested that the FBI investigate Cheney. To be sure, the Republicans’ case against the former Wyoming congresswoman was impossible to take seriously, but it served as a timely reminder that many in the party are still eager to target a lifelong Republican who served as the chair of the House GOP conference as recently as 2021.

    […] no one seems more focused on punishing Cheney than Donald Trump, who recently appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and said the former congresswoman and her colleagues on the Jan. 6 panel “should go to jail.” The president-elect soon after declared by way of his social media platform that Cheney “could be in a lot of trouble,” pointing to the referral to the FBI.

    On Friday afternoon, apparently furious that President Joe Biden had awarded Cheney with the Presidential Citizens Medal a day earlier, the president-elect published yet another tantrum by way of his social media platform, falsely accusing Cheney of having been “proven to be totally corrupt.” He added that she and her Jan. 6 committee colleagues “destroyed and deleted all evidence from their crooked investigation of January 6th.” (This absurd claim has been thoroughly discredited.)

    Trump concluded, in apparent reference to the Jan. 6 panel’s leaders, “They have destroyed the lives of many people, and are rewarded by getting Biden Fake Medals. This is not America. January 20th cannot come fast enough.” The missive came two weeks after the president-elect published a related item that described Cheney as “disgusting” and falsely accused her of having committed “egregious and unthinkable acts of crime.”

    It was against this backdrop that House Speaker Mike Johnson made a curious vow the day before he was elected to serve a second term: The Hill reported that the Louisiana Republican announced that the GOP-led chamber would investigate the investigatory committee — again.

    “The Jan 6 Select Committee manipulated AND destroyed evidence — created a fake, phony narrative all to try and hurt Trump,” Johnson added. … “Be assured of this: House Republicans WILL continue our investigation into this corrupt committee and it will be FULLY FUNDED so it can continue next Congress,” he continued.

    At this point, we could talk about the fact that the committee did not, in reality, destroy evidence. We could also detail the fact that there was nothing “fake” or “phony” about the select panel’s findings, and to describe the bipartisan committee as “corrupt” is ridiculous.

    But of particular interest in this instance is the House speaker’s eagerness to investigate the defunct committee — which is bizarre given that House Republicans just spent two years investigating the same committee and they came up with nothing.

    […] But whatever the motivation, it appears the GOP’s pointless crusade will continue.

    None of this has escaped Cheney’s attention. The Wyoming Republican, responding to the president-elect’s latest online tirades, wrote, “Donald, this is not the Soviet Union. You can’t change the truth and you cannot silence us. Remember all your lies about the voting machines, the election workers, your countless allegations of fraud that never happened? Many of your lawyers have been sanctioned, disciplined or disbarred, the courts ruled against you, and dozens of your own White House, administration, and campaign aides testified against you. Remember how you sent a mob to our Capitol and then watched the violence on television and refused for hours to instruct the mob to leave? Remember how your former Vice President prevented you from overturning our Republic? We remember. And now, as you take office again, the American people need to reject your latest malicious falsehoods and stand as the guardrails of our Constitutional Republic — to protect the America we love from you.”

  177. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/new-trump-chief-of-staff-susie-wiles

    Trump’s chief of staff, Florida woman Susie Wiles, sat down with Axios to let them know there’s not going to be any backbiting in the new administration. LOLOL! “My team and I will not tolerate backbiting, second-guessing inappropriately, or drama. These are counterproductive to the mission.” Hahaha!

    Good fucking luck with that […] as they’ve been known to dramatically bite at each other behind one another’s backs to the Daily Mail, “’grifters,’ ‘hucksters,’ ‘profiteers’ and ‘cranks’, and ‘hustlers looking to make a buck’.” The Mail also added that they are “corner-cutting, scandal-prone, profit-hungry confederates.” And being from Baltimore, we’d say “crabs trying to drag each other to the bottom of the barrel.”

    Remember a few months ago when Wiles sent out an email demanding no leaks to the press, which was leaked within minutes to the press?

    Just last week she sent out another missive, “reiterating that no member of the incoming administration or Transition speaks for the United States or the President-elect himself” and that “all intended nominees should refrain from any public social media posts,” which was also leaked within a day, and nearly universally ignored by the compulsively-tweeting talent pool of top minds that she and the future president have assembled (though SecDef nom Pete Hegseth does seem to have figured out that shutting up is actually his best move for now).

    Wiles will be Trump’s fifth chief of staff. Quick, can you name them all?

    There was Reince Priebus, who Trump mocked and fired by tweet, maybe because Steve Bannon and the family didn’t like him, or maybe because Anthony Scaramucci accused him of being a leaker and the two were feuding. Who can say? There was John Kelly, who lasted 16 months and also got surprise-fired because he was not Hitler-general-y enough, or as former press secretary Stephanie Grisham put it, “he was totally unequipped to handle the genius of our great President.” Then Mick Mulvaney (acting), who quit, and finally Mark Meadows, the most loyal of all. So loyal he got indicted in Georgia and Arizona!

    And now he’s got Wiles, and things will be different from the circular backstabbery of last term. Back then there was still the aura of a delusion that it was some kind of normal administration being run by professional people, with jail time possible for anyone who broke the law. This time everybody knows only loyalty matters, and the Supreme Court has made clear that whatever the executive branch does cannot possibly be illegal. He’s a star, and whatever it is, you gotta let him do it. How this will turn out, nobody fucking knows.

    Remember how after the FBI descended on Trump’s Florida roach motel to try to get back those classified documents he stashed in the poolroom and shitter, Wiles cut the checks for loyalists’ legal fees? And then she got on Signal with Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira to “make sure Carlos is good”? You never suspected that the lady who looks like a grandma could sound so much like a capo, and that’s what you get for stereotyping.

    Wiles is also a former lobbyist for 42 entities, and was lobbying at the very same time she was running Trump’s campaign, so conflicts of interest sure don’t faze her. According to Public Citizen’s review of public documents, her clients included a waste management company that didn’t want to remove nuclear waste from its radioactive landfill; the tobacco company Swisher Sweets, seeking to block federal health restrictions on its gas-station candy-flavored cigarillos; a Canadian private equity firm trying to get approval to develop an open-pit leach gold mine on federal public lands; a Venezuelan news company whose owner has been indicted in a $1.2 billion money laundering scheme, and the People’s Democratic Party of Nigeria. [Well that’s an eye-opening list!]

    Swisher Sweets! […] She also ran campaigns for Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis. Just the kind the boss will need to manage the line at the buffet trough of favors.

    Guess we’ll see how all this plays out. Not like we have a choice!

  178. says

    Washington Post link

    “Deadly winter storm leaves hundreds of thousands without power as heavy snow treks east”

    “Hundreds of thousands of customers from Missouri to Virginia were suffering power outages. At least three deaths were confirmed as the storm swept east.”

    A wide-reaching winter storm dropped more than a foot of snow and closed major highways in parts of the Midwest as it continued its eastward trek on Monday. In parts of the Great Plains, snow totals exceeded anything seen in decades. At least three fatalities were reported in two traffic incidents in the Midwest.

    The storm is producing wintry precipitation across a distance of about 1,000 miles — from central Missouri to Delaware — creating hazardous conditions for millions of people as many locations experience their biggest snowstorm in years.

    More than 12 inches fell in Kansas; Missouri was experiencing blizzard conditions; and in the Mid-Atlantic, roads were slick and dangerous. Hundreds of thousands of customers were without power from Missouri to Virginia — with more heavy impacts still expected in the storm’s path.

    Early Monday, the worst of the storm was reaching the Mid-Atlantic, with heavy snow in D.C., Maryland and Northern Virginia. Up to a foot of total snow is possible in what could become the biggest snowstorm since at least January 2022, if not January 2019. Over central and southern Virginia, freezing rain was falling Monday morning. […]

    More at the link, including images and maps.

  179. Reginald Selkirk says

    Tech Founder’s Tesla Full Self-Drove Onto Train Tracks: ‘I Could Get Killed Because of This

    Tech founder Jesse Lyu said he was “literally shaking” when his Tesla, with Full Self-Driving (which does not drive itself) engaged, drove itself onto train tracks in Santa Monica last week. While Tesla CEO Elon Musk continues to push FSD as being a better and safer driver than humans, incidents like this one continue to pile up. Lyu, in the end was thankfully not hurt, but he was forced to turn off FSD and run a red light to avoid being hit by the light rail…

  180. says

    New Yorker link

    “How Widening Israel’s War Saved Benjamin Netanyahu”

    The political scientist Dahlia Scheindlin is a longtime expert on Israeli public opinion and analyst of the country’s domestic political scene. With the new year upon us—and with the fall of the Assad regime, in Syria; a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel, in Lebanon; and continued hostilities in Gaza, where more than forty thousand Palestinians have been killed since the Hamas-led attacks of October 7th, 2023—I wanted to get a handle on exactly what has and has not changed in Israel in the past few months.

    I spoke by phone with Scheindlin, who is also a policy fellow at the Century Foundation, a columnist for Haaretz, and the author of “The Crooked Timber of Democracy in Israel.” During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed how her understanding of Israel’s aims for the region has shifted lately; why the popularity of Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s Prime Minister, has ticked back up after falling in the immediate aftermath of October 7th; and why the immense number of Palestinian civilian casualties is still barely registering within Israel.

    […] For the first six months after October 7th, the government’s ratings plunged on every indicator, and there was a common wisdom that Netanyahu could not survive. And then, around April, 2024, there was a very clear beginning of a turning point, and his polls began a slow and incremental recovery on all the same indicators.

    The same is true of the popularity of his party and his original coalition—they recovered to roughly where they were before the war. For Netanyahu, that’s around forty per cent. He is leading polls against his opponents in terms of who people think should be the Prime Minister. This is not as good as where they were in the November, 2022, elections, in which Netanyahu and his coalition partners won sixty-four out of a hundred and twenty seats in the Knesset. So they’re not doing that well, but we are definitely in a post-October 7th period.

    You mentioned April as a turning point. That was when the war against Hamas broadened regionally—

    It exactly lines up with April. I think we shouldn’t take the responsibility off of Hezbollah for its fateful decision, in the early morning hours of October 8th, to attack Israel—which basically internationalized or regionalized the conflict. But what happened in April? Israel assassinated a top commander of Iran’s Quds Force, in Damascus, and that set off a whole chain of events which led to the first ever Iranian strike on Israel and then Israel’s response. All of that was in April, and that’s when we saw Netanyahu’s polls beginning to rise. Then, over the summer, the war escalated with Hezbollah. Another big turning point was in September, when Israel set off the pager bombs and, shortly afterward, assassinated Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

    But, even before that, in July, Israel killed Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran, which was a huge sign to Israelis that the old Israel was back and could do anything anywhere. That gave Israelis a sense that the country was recovering. It’s all because of the regional front. I have come to the conclusion that Gaza is essentially a losing issue for Netanyahu. He can’t get out of Gaza because he has prioritized his coalition partners. I also don’t see him as a victim or trapped by his coalition partners. He put them there. But it’s not a good issue for him. The Israeli public feels more confident with the regional escalations and Israel’s perceived victories on those fronts, and that’s contributed to his rise.

    You said that Gaza is a “losing issue” for Netanyahu. Do you mean that the public doesn’t seem to agree with him on Gaza? At least from a distance, it certainly seems like the country is willing to put up with the war there continuing and the incredibly awful humanitarian consequences, the hostages not returning, and so on.

    After October 7th, people were shocked and stunned and paralyzed and afraid of rockets and trying to figure out where their dead bodies were and whether their kids were dead or captive. It was really very powerful, kind of a paralysis phase. There was a turning point, and it came pretty quickly, around the hostages. When people realized that the government was not prioritizing hostage release, even in November, 2023, they were already going out to the streets. They organized a huge march and rallied these civil-society networks that had been built up during the judicial-reform protests earlier that year. The sense of being stunned and afraid and traumatized gave way pretty quickly to social mobilization, partly because, by a tremendous coincidence, so much of that social mobilization had already been in place.

    But, after a while, it became clear to Israelis that the government was not really going to prioritize the hostages or was always finding a way somehow not to get that deal. And the temptation is strong to blame Hamas, but ultimately Israelis started to get the impression—through lots of leaks, reporting, and analysis that would come out each time the negotiations collapsed—that Netanyahu’s not doing this. He’s not prioritizing this because he doesn’t want to stop the war, and he doesn’t want to stop the war because he doesn’t want to lose his coalition. Many people think it’s because he’s on trial for corruption. [The charges center on accusations of bribery and fraud.] I think that’s a little bit of a leap. He just wants to stay in power. […]

    More at the link.

  181. Owlmirror says

    Regarding “Timescape Cosmology”, mentioned in a few comments above: Former Scienceblogs fellow astrophysicist Ethan Siegel (“Starts With a Bang”) has pointed out that (a) the idea is not actually new (b) the idea is based on looking narrowly at some data while ignoring the composite of all cosmological data (c) work from 20 years ago which includes the composite of all cosmological data pretty much rules it out (d) current cosmological data (more detailed than 20 years ago) actually supports the current consensus.

    https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/lumpy-explain-dark-energy/

    Or at least, that’s how I understand it. If there’s a rebuttal to Siegel’s argument, I don’t know what it is.

  182. Owlmirror says

    This time everybody knows only loyalty matters, and the Supreme Court has made clear that whatever the executive branch does cannot possibly be illegal.

    Yeah, that’s not what the SCOTUS decided. It wouldn’t surprise me if Trumpists believe it, but the FO to their FA is yet to occur.

  183. says

    Josh Marshall:

    Through the spiked endorsement editorial to the recent spiked editorial cartoon, it’s been difficult to get a precise read on Jeff Bezos’s cozying up to Donald Trump. As I wrote back in late October, there are very rational reasons for Bezos to want to avoid being on Trump’s shit list. Above all else, Trump isn’t nice. Amazon is a phantasmagoria of anti-trust problems. Trump wouldn’t need to break a lot of norms to sic the Justice Department on it. Amazon is also a major, major federal contractor. Same applies there. There’s no right to government contracts. Then there’s something that doesn’t get discussed much. SpaceX now has a dominant hold on satellite deployment and owns and controls like half the operating satellites in near earth orbit. But Bezos’s BlueOrigin isn’t quite an also ran. It still has a shot at being a competitor to SpaceX and Bezos reportedly now focuses most of his energy there. He at least needs Trump’s friendship to have a shot at that.

    In that context came news last night that Amazon has agreed to underwrite and license a documentary about the life of past and future First Lady Melania Trump.

    I don’t think it’s bias on my part to think there’s little reason to believe Melania, Woman of Destiny (my title, but who knows?) isn’t likely to be the next Game of Thrones or Ted Lasso. How much demand is there exactly for the stream and theatrical release of the Melania doc?

    This seems like a pretty good sign that the titans of corporate America don’t look content to just be friendly to Trump but definitely go all in as special friends to the incoming President. It may not be quite North Korea territory, though who knows? But it does look more and more like the model of post-Soviet republics in which you have a nominal democracy in which an emerging class of oligarchs bid for the favor of the strong man with accelerating and competitive feats of dignity-losing strength. First, ABC’s decision to take the L in Trump’s defamation suit. Now, Jeff Bezos’s decision to fund a look at the heroic story of Melania Trump’s rise from post-Titoist Yugoslavia to trendsetter in the field of arm-candying.

    As I noted in a conversation last night, I don’t envy the position of the hundreds of journalists at The Washington Post who continue to do – criticisms on the merits notwithstanding – a great deal of very high quality journalism. Bezos has now put his cards very clearly on the table.

    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/oligarchia-here-we-come

  184. says

    Congress certifies Trump’s win—and Democrats didn’t riot or kill anyone

    Congress certified Donald Trump’s 2024 Electoral College victory in a quick, uneventful ceremony Monday—without a single objection from members of Congress or riots from supporters of the losing candidate.

    It was a far cry from the scene on Capitol Hill four years ago, when Trump sought to carry out his plan to block Joe Biden’s win and remain in power—actions for which he was indicted but will likely never face consequences.

    On Jan. 6, 2021, 147 Congress Republicans objected to Biden’s Electoral College win during the joint session over which then-Vice President Mike Pence was presiding. Their objections were based on lies that the 2020 election was rife with fraud—allegations Republicans have never provided evidence to support.

    At the same time Republicans were objecting to the Electoral College results, a mob of Trump supporters was violently breaking into the U.S. Capitol to demand Pence not to accept Biden’s victory, killing five people and injuring more than 140 law enforcement officers in the process.

    One officer died on Jan. 7, 2021, a day after he was attacked while defending the Capitol. Four other officers who responded on Jan. 6 subsequently died by suicide.

    Trump and Republican lawmakers’ behavior was so abhorrent and dangerous that the Democratic-controlled Congress changed the law in 2022 to prevent similar situations from unfolding in the future. The law officially made the vice president’s role in the Electoral College certification ceremonial and raised the threshold to object to a state’s Electoral College vote.

    This year, not a single Democratic lawmaker objected to Trump’s win. And Vice President Kamala Harris presided with grace and poise over the joint session of Congress to certify her own defeat.

    Pence praised Harris for her conduct.

    “The peaceful transfer of power is the hallmark of our democracy and today, members of both parties in the House and Senate along with the vice president certified the election of our new president and vice president without controversy or objection,” Pence wrote on X, adding that it was “particularly admirable that Vice President Harris would preside over the certification of a presidential election that she lost.”

    […] “Four years ago, I was barricaded in an office in the Longworth building during an insurrection. The riot at the Capitol was neither peaceful nor ‘a day of love,’ as President-Elect Trump has continually tried to reframe it,” Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, Democrat of Pennsylvania, wrote on X after Trump’s certification.

    “Today, because Republicans are satisfied with the results of this election, the certification is little more than a perfunctory event—and that’s not only because Republicans are happy with the outcome but because democracy worked,” she added.

    Sen. Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, warned that Americans should not feel secure because this year’s certification went off without a hitch, saying that it was only peaceful because Democrats are not violent sore losers like the GOP.

    “I’m in the Capitol right now to certify the electoral vote. It is quiet,” he wrote on X. “Do not take that for granted. Do not think our democracy is healthy. No, our democracy is in grave peril because one party still believes in using violence to achieve power.”

  186. says

    Solar panels are powering through US West wildfire smoke

    The wildfire smoke that often wafts across the U.S. West may only be causing minimal disturbance to the output of photovoltaic solar panels, a new study has found.

    Smoke-linked losses of photovoltaic resources remain modest outside of the areas immediately surrounding active blazes, where plumes are denser, according to the study, published in Nature Communications.

    Meanwhile, power produced by panels nationwide has remained relatively stable — even during extreme fire seasons, the study authors observed. […]

    Mostly good news.

  187. says

    Followup to comment 166.

    Yes, Trump is still promoting this nonsense:

    President-elect Trump pitched the idea of a “merged” United States and Canada after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his resignation, noting there would be no tariffs if the two countries were one.

    “If Canada merged with the U.S., there would no Tariffs, taxes would go way down, and they would be TOTALLY SECURE from the threat of the Russian and Chinese Ships that are constantly surrounding them,” Trump posted to his Truth Social site. “Together, what a great Nation it would be!!!”

    […] He said the merger would be beneficial for the U.S., because it would “no longer suffer” from “massive Trade Deficits” and subsidies that it provides to Canada.

    […] Trudeau said he would retaliate if Trump went through with the tariff hike and said it would be more difficult for the two countries to work together.

    Link

    Trump is such an embarrassment.

  188. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/sunday-shows-of-2025-off-to-predictably

    “Sunday Shows Of 2025 Off To Predictably Terrible Start”
    “We watch so you never have to.”

    […] ‘90s Kids’ Movie Villain Tom Homan

    On CBS’s “Face The Nation,” host Margaret Brennan began her interview with Trump’s incoming “Border Czar” Tom Homan by asking what success would look like during the promised “the largest deportation operation in history,” when deportations are at a record high currently during the Biden Administration.

    Whether out of frustration that Brennan broke the “open border” talking point or that he will now not be able to take credit for those deportations when he becomes Border Fuhrer, Homan began complaining. [video at the link]

    HOMAN: Well, let’s talk about this administration, what they claim is a huge deportation number this year. Actually, if you drill into the numbers, about 80 percent of those numbers are actually Border Patrol arrests that the enforcement operation of ICE processed and moved back across the border. They weren’t enforcement arrests. […] So, even though they claim they’ve got the highest number of deportations, look at those deportations, who actually made those arrests, who actually removed those people, it’s not ICE.

    Does a deportation done by an agency with another name not taste as sweet to isolationist xenophobes? Does it just not do it for Homan that undocumented people are not being arrested or abused by ICE specifically while still being deported? Because if the goal is immigration enforcement, this should thrill Homan. We guess it’s just not cruel enough […]

    When Brennan asked if the Trump administration would go after the many industries in this country that hire undocumented workers because they are cheap labor, like construction or farming, Homan seemed to ignore the question.

    HOMAN: The — President Trump’s been clear, as I’ve been clear from day one, that the president is going to concentrate on public safety threats and national security threats.

    So Trump does not intend to go after companies that employ undocumented workers to depress wages and be able to skirt labor laws? All of this is very confusing, unless the point is the cruelty and the cruelty is the point.

    This could also signal to companies that “it’d be a shame if they didn’t comply and suffered some consequences,” if they don’t pay Trump a vig, as illustrated by Pulitzer-winning former Washington Post political cartoonist Ann Telnaes’s now-viral cartoon and editorial.

    New Mitch McConnell: Less Turtle, More Jellyfish

    On NBC’s “Meet The Press,” host Kristen Welker interviewed the incoming Senate Majority Leader, John Thune of South Dakota, for over 20 minutes. When asked about Trump’s proposed mass deportation of everyone undocumented in this country, Thune seemed to be lowering expectations: [video at the link]

    THUNE: Is it realistic to deport everybody? I mean, there’s a lot of people in this country who are here illegally. But I think we have I — there have identified already– and, like I said, anybody who has committed a crime in this country clearly out to be on that list.

    If an undocumented person has committed a crime, they are already apprehended and cause no “danger to national security” or “safety.” Much like Republicans (incorrectly) say in response to any modest proposal for gun control: “There are already laws about that.” Thune, whose state’s large agriculture industry would be crippled without undocumented workers, shifts over to the “easiest” low-hanging fruit. His problem is that the Trump administration, and ghouls like Homan, want to abuse that by turning the mere existence of being undocumented in this country into the crime itself (without even going into their wet dreams to eliminate the 14th Amendment).

    Using “when everyone is a criminal …” logic is some real Saturday morning cartoon villain shit.

    The topic then moved on to Trump possibly pardoning J6 insurrectionists when he takes office. Thune showed he would be as tough on Trump as a shell-less turtle.

    THUNE: That’s ultimately going to be a decision that President Trump is going to have to make. And, you know, what I’m focused on is the future and not looking in the rearview mirror.

    Very courageous. Truly an example for all future Neville Chamberlains.

    We’re All Gonna Die

    Speaking of political cowardice, we end with Lousiana Senator Bill Cassidy on “Fox News Sunday.” [video at the link]

    Guest host Jacqui Heinrich asked Cassidy about the possible confirmation of anti-vaxxer and legendary failson Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS).

    Cassidy, while not being as embarrassingly stupid or blatantly partisan as his fellow Louisiana senator John Kennedy (no relation, but clearly a cursed surname) joking during a serious press conference after a mass killing attack on his state, showed he is more than willing to doom us all to go with his party.

    CASSIDY: I agree with him [RFK Jr] on some things and disagree on others. The food safety … I think the ultra-possessed foods are a problem. Vaccinations — he’s wrong on.

    But will Bill Cassidy will vote for RFK Jr. nonetheless?

    Cassidy and the GOP’s new concern for public health is as hollow as the space in RFK Jr’s skull where his brain worm once lived. How do we know? We and other outlets have pointed out how the GOP attacked former First Lady Michelle Obama when she made proposals about eating healthier, less processed foods, to cite one obvious example.

    We are old enough to remember (or good enough to search for) this statement a decade ago from Louisiana politicians like Rep. Steve Scalise and Senator Bill Cassidy opposing healthier foods when the proposal was not championed by an elitist old white man.

    Spare us the faux concern as you confirm a guy who will “Make Typhoid Great Again.”

  189. birgerjohansson says

    “Danish king changes coat of arms amid row with Trump over Greenland” | Denmark | The Guardian

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/06/danish-king-changes-coat-of-arms-in-apparent-rebuke-to-donald-trump

    The three crowns that were replaced are a relic of the brief medieval union between the three Scandinavian kingdoms (Finland was part of Sweden in those days). Instead a polar bear and a ram (Greenland and Färöarna) got more proninent space on the coat of arms.

  190. birgerjohansson says

    Lynna, OM @ 187
    If he is going on about that, I can go on about Canadian suggestion of the wealthiest blue states joining the Canadian union. Greater Canada would include the whole western seaboard except Alaska, a big chunk of the north, New York and most of New England. Meanwhile, Trumpistan would be left with the welfare-dependent states.

  191. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/mike-rinder-who-likely-saved-thousands

    “Mike Rinder, Who Likely Saved Thousands From Joining Scientology, Dies At 69”

    “The former high-ranking church official became one of its most vocal critics.”

    At the end of 2024, the official website of the Church of Scientology proudly celebrated “a year of explosive growth,” a claim that sounds utterly delusional given that it’s hard to imagine too many people are lining up to join them these days. At this point, it’s hard to even find anyone who hasn’t heard about the horrible things the CoS has done to members and nonmembers alike, and a lot of the credit for that goes to Mike Rinder.

    Rinder has passed away at the age of 69, a year-and-a-half after having been diagnosed with advanced esophageal cancer and a few months after having been declared cancer-free. His official cause of death has not yet been listed.

    Best known for co-hosting Scientology and the Aftermath with fellow former Scientologist Leah Remini, Rinder had been a nearly-lifelong adherent, his mother having been a founding member of the church, joining up when he was just five years old. He signed a billion-year contract to join the Sea Org — the church’s nautical-themed highest rung of staff members — at just 18.

    Rinder broke that contract and defected from Scientology in 2007, having previously been a high-ranking executive in the organization and a Church of Scientology International (CSI) board member. He was the executive director of its Office of Special Affairs, which is more or less their version of the CIA.

    As director of the OSA, Rinder said his primary job was to “intimidate, defame, harass, discredit, and effectively silence any criticism of Scientology” as part of the “fair game” policy they have repeatedly claimed is no longer a thing. He later became a victim of this policy once he left, which he said was the thing that pushed him to become an outspoken critic of the religion.

    Rinder was not the first Scientology defector, but because of his previous position so high up within the organization, he was able to lend credence to the claims that those previous defectors and other critics had been making for so long, especially with regards to the harassment and stalking they’d experienced. He was also able to validate, for them, the things they believed were happening to them but couldn’t prove.

    […] The first time I ever saw Rinder was in The Secrets of Scientology, John Sweeney’s second BBC Panorama documentary on the subject. He had appeared in the first, Scientology and Me, but only in the background […]

    In the second documentary, Rinder confessed to having Sweeney [son of Ann Archer] followed around, and even following him and the crew to San Francisco himself, where they stopped before heading to Los Angeles to continue filming. It was, of course, fairly apparent that this is what was going on, as Davis managed to show up every time Sweeney tried to talk to a critic or former member of Scientology.

    After that, as we know, he continued fighting to bring the CoS’s abuses — which have, according to him and other former members, included sexual assault, physical attacks, false imprisonment, harassment and stalking — to light for years upon years, despite the constant attacks and harassment. Because of this, and the work of others, people all over will be less prone to fall for their bullshit, less likely to be abused and less likely to be drained of all their money and alienated from their family members. That’s pretty freaking remarkable.

    In a post on Instagram announcing his death, Rinder’s wife Christie King Collbran shared what he wanted to be his last words.

    “My only real regret is not having achieved what I said I wanted to — ending the abuses of Scientology, especially disconnection and seeing Jack into adulthood. If you are in any way fighting to end those abuses please keep the flag flying — never give up,” he wrote.

  192. birgerjohansson says

    Since Texas terrorist was born in Texas I assume Trump wants to build a wall between Texas and the rest of USA.

  194. Pierce R. Butler says

    Michael Podhorzer has written some of the most original and insightful analyses of the 2024 election, which rebut a lot of the shallow reportage of the last few months. Particularly, he notes how recent bent decisions of the Supreme Court tilted the electoral & legal playing field and how Trump did not win the election so much as Harris lost:

    Trump was no more popular this year than four years ago, while Harris significantly underperformed Biden 2020. … Most of Harris’s losses were due to anti-MAGA surge voters staying home. She lost the most ground in deep-Blue urban areas… About 19 million Americans who cast ballots for Biden in 2020 did not vote in 2024… about 15 million fewer votes were cast “against” Trump than in 2020.

    Podhorzer supports his case with lots of numbers, charts, & maps.

  195. Rob Grigjanis says

    Pierce @194: I think it’s worth noting that Harris’ loss comes down to about 300,000 votes in the ‘battleground’ states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

  196. Akira MacKenzie says

    @ 193

    Yes, how racist it is for white people to write porn about a mythological being created by another bunch of white people. [Eyeroll]

  197. Akira MacKenzie says

    @ 190

    Considering that the Canadian equivalent to Trump is about to take over the government this year, this would be a lateral move.

  198. Reginald Selkirk says

    Eight Clams Control This Polish City’s Water Supply

    In the city of Poznań, Poland, a group of eight clams controls the local water supply through a clever bio-monitoring system:

    These biological systems are comprised of eight mussels with sensors hot-glued to their shells. They work together with a network of computers and have been given control over the city’s water supply. If the waters are clean, these mussels stay open and happy. But when water quality drops too low, they close off and shut the water supply of millions of people with them.

    According to The Economist (archive), more than 50 such systems are now deployed in Poland and Russia to help protect water supplies: …

  199. Akira MacKenzie says

    @ 188

    I think the ultra-possessed foods are a problem.

    So you have a problem with just… food. Oh! It’s bad because it was made in a factory rather than being grown in shit by some filthy dirt-famer like the organic hippie freaks demand!?

    It’s disgusts me that the natural green mommies crowd has been adopted by the fascists. Next our health insurance plans will cover smudging and healing crystals!

  200. Reginald Selkirk says

    Judge finds Giuliani in civil contempt in 2020 election workers’ case

    A judge on Monday found Rudy Giuliani to be in civil contempt of court in a case brought by two Georgia election workers that the former New York City Mayor falsely accused of trying to help steal the 2020 U.S. presidential election for Democrat Joe Biden.

    U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman in Manhattan said Giuliani had not complied with requests from the election workers, Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea Moss, for information that could help them determine which of his assets may be turned over to pay off the defamation judgment…

  201. Reginald Selkirk says

    A part-time actor claimed he created a COVID-19 cure. Now he’ll spend more than 8 years in prison

    A part-time actor was sentenced to more than eight years in federal prison Monday for soliciting investors in companies that prosecutors said marketed a bogus cure and treatment for COVID-19.

    Keith Lawrence Middlebrook, 57, was convicted in May of 11 counts of wire fraud. Ahead of sentencing Monday morning, Middlebrook told The Times that he was “innocent completely” and that “this is going to be appealed.”

    Middlebrook made similar comments to the judge during the hearing in federal court in Los Angeles, stating that he had consulted with seven attorneys and eight doctors “from the very beginning, for a product of this magnitude.”

    “It is clear that Mr. Middlebrook still denies that he has committed any crime, which causes significant concern that he will continue to commit similar crimes in the future,” U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer said before handing down her sentence.

    A major point of contention during the sentencing hearing centered around Middlebrook’s alleged relationship with former Lakers point guard Magic Johnson.

    Middlebrook had claimed that Johnson was a director and officer of one of his companies, according to the goverment’s sentencing memo.

    At trial, Johnson, who was recently awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, testified that he had never supported, invested in, or been an officer or a member of the board of directors of Middlebrook’s company, according to the government’s memo. He also testified that he did not know Middlebrook and had never committed to working with him.
    …
    “Magic Johnson is the biggest liar I’ve ever seen and we’ll prove it,” Middlebrook’s attorney, Andrew Stein, said after the hearing. “I believe Magic lied under oath to protect himself from being involved with this.” …

    According to prosecutors, in the early days of the pandemic, Middlebrook — who has minor roles listed on IMDb, including in the movie “Iron Man 2” — claimed to have personally developed a “patent-pending” cure and a treatment to prevent coronavirus infection.

    The FBI arrested Middlebrook in March 2020, after he delivered pills —supposedly the infection prevention treatment — to an undercover agent who was posing as an investor, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in L.A.

    Stein, who was hired after the trial, said a Stanford doctor had testified that Middlebrook’s compound worked.

    “I do not know how the jury convicted him,” Stein said. “We’re going to go out and we’re going to prove that Magic Johnson is a liar.”

    Middlebrook, who had remained free on a $150,000 bond, was remanded into custody shortly after the judge sentenced him to prison and three years of supervised release.

    Fischer also fined Middlebrook $25,000.

    Getting this overturned on appeal should be no problem. They can start with logs of phone calls, emails and texts establishing that they did indeed stay in contact with Magic Johnson. As for thos Stanford doctor, maybe they could even find out his name.

  203. Tethys says

    … I think the ultra-possessed foods are a problem.

    .

    Yeah, I hate it when my toast flies around the room and my tea speaks in tongues. We won’t even mention the terrors of ultra-possessed split-pea soup.

  204. birgerjohansson says

    Akira MacKenzie @ 197
    By stepping down, Trudeau may not have prevented a Conservative takeover, but at least prevented them from getting an absolute majority.
    Unlike the MAGAbots they must get support outside their political bubble.

  205. Reginald Selkirk says

    Pope Francis has named the first woman to head a major Vatican office

    Pope Francis on Monday named the first woman to head a major Vatican office, appointing an Italian nun, Sister Simona Brambilla, to become prefect of the department responsible for all the Catholic Church’s religious orders.

    The appointment marks a major step in Francis’ aim to give women more leadership roles in governing the church. While women have been named to No. 2 spots in some Vatican offices, never before has a woman been named prefect of a dicastery or congregation of the Holy See Curia, the central governing organ of the Catholic Church…

  206. birgerjohansson says

    Tomorrow the sun will nominally be up 4 hours 51 minutes behind the clouds.
    And a major snowfall is expected in the afternoon. Uuuurrrgh.

  207. says

    Tethys @203, I agree. It is possessed pea soup that terrifies me.

    Reginald @200, contemptible Rudi Giuliani was found in contempt of court on the anniversary of January 6.

    In other news: Trump can’t help himself and spews lie about Trudeau stepping down

    Donald Trump falsely claimed credit for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision on Monday to resign as leader of the Liberal Party and stay on as prime minister until the party decides on a successor.

    “Many people in Canada LOVE being the 51st State,” Trump wrote, without providing evidence, on his Truth Social account. “The United States can no longer suffer the massive Trade Deficits and Subsidies that Canada needs to stay afloat. Justin Trudeau knew this, and resigned.”

    “If Canada merged with the U.S., there would be no Tariffs, taxes would go way down, and they would be TOTALLY SECURE from the threat of the Russian and Chinese Ships that are constantly surrounding them. Together, what a great Nation it would be!!!” he added.

    Outside of Trump’s posts to social media, there is no movement to make Canada a part of the United States.

    Trudeau’s decision was triggered by the resignation of Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, in December, after they disagreed over how Canada should handle economic issues. It was not about, say, the U.S. annexing Canada.

    Trump’s latest post is another round of him using his social media account to antagonize one of America’s closest allies, both politically and geographically. Last month, he posted about Canada becoming a state. At the same time, billionaire Elon Musk, a Trump benefactor and so-called “co-president,” has been attacking another key ally by posting derogatory comments about U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his Labour Party.

    Trump is also using Trudeau’s resignation as another opportunity to promote his plans to impose increased tariffs on goods imported from nations like Canada. Trump has falsely claimed that new tariffs would be paid by foreign countries, but in reality, they would be paid by cost increases on consumer items. Executives at major retailers like Walmart and Lowe’s have said such tariffs would be passed on to customers for products such as construction equipment, grocery items, gas, auto parts, household appliances, and more.

    The decision to wrap Trudeau’s decision in a lie is a return to form for Trump, just as his profile increases as Inauguration Day approaches. He launched his first political campaign by describing Mexicans as rapists, then went on to call neo-Nazis “very fine people,” claimed that migrants were eating domestic pets, and argued at length that voters wanted Roe v. Wade overturned. Lying about Canada is right in line with what Trump has done so often.

  208. says

    This snowball keeps picking up in size as it rolls down the hill, starting with the paper’s [The Washington Post’s] refusal to publish a Harris endorsement before the election. Over the last week, we’ve seen a top cartoonist Ann Telnaes resign over the censorship of her comic, potentially dragging dozens with her. Two senior political reporters, Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer, have just left. Josh Dawsey, a longtime political investigator just announced his move to another job, and today we get a report from Semafor on a semi-private post to a Facebook group from a former Post editor Mary Jo Murphy, in which she rails against the paper:

    “Quislings are inside the house that Grahams and Bradlees, Woodwards and Bernsteins built,” she said, referring to the pejorative often used to describe Nazi collaborators.

    She went on to claim that Post CEO Will Lewis one time asked her about what the paper could do to attract more supporters of President-elect Donald Trump and she replied, “I dunno… lie to them?”

    The Post has seen an exodus of talent in recent weeks that is no longer just affecting the opinion section but the news coverage as well.

    In the midst of all this chaos and the resignations, today we get news that the Post is announcing a restructuring, expecting dozens of layoffs in the coming weeks. A gutting of the business division with dozens of layoffs from that department alone?

    And all of this while the Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos, is seen at a private dinner with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago and writing seven figure checks for his inauguration.

    I think we can comfortably say that WaPo is done. Whatever it used to be is no more. They may find a way to reinvent themselves under the leadership of an oligarch, but what we relied on them to be is no longer the case. […]

    Link

  209. says

    Followup to comment 174.

    Good news: Hush money judge refuses to delay Trump’s criminal sentencing

    The New York judge who oversaw President-elect Trump’s criminal trial this spring declined his request to pause Friday’s sentencing, setting up a last-minute appellate battle as he seeks to stave off the proceeding.

    Trump could still attempt to have an appeals court step in as his attorneys argue Judge Juan Merchan was wrong to reject Trump’s presidential immunity claims and uphold the conviction in his hush money criminal case.

    “This Court has considered Defendant’s arguments in support of his motion and finds that they are for the most part, a repetition of the arguments he has raised numerous times in the past,” Merchan wrote in Monday’s ruling.

    In May, a New York jury found Trump guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with a hush money payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels so she would keep an alleged affair, which he denies, secret ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

    Merchan, who oversees the trial proceedings, had agreed to Trump’s requests to delay his sentencing until after the election. The judge rescheduled it for Friday after rejecting Trump’s efforts to toss the case over his separate immunity claims as a former president and president-elect.

    Though Merchan said he is inclined to impose no jail time or punishment, the trajectory would keep Trump’s criminal conviction intact and make him the first felon to assume the presidency on Inauguration Day, now just two weeks away.

    […] “Justice Merchan is without authority under the law to proceed to sentencing while President Trump exercises his federal constitutional right to challenge these rulings, and the erroneous jury verdict in the underlying criminal case must be vacated and the charges against President Trump must be dismissed with prejudice, without further delay,” Trump’s attorneys wrote.

    Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s (D) office pushed back, noting in court filings Monday that Trump had asked for the delays and that wrapping up the case now with a sentencing the president-elect wouldn’t be required to attend in person wouldn’t interfere with his presidency.

    “There is no risk here of an ‘extended proceeding’ that impairs the discharge of defendant’s official duties — duties he does not possess before January 20, 2025 in any event,” prosecutors wrote. […]

  210. says

    Four European leaders denounce Elon Musk’s influence on the continent

    “Leaders in France, Germany, Norway and the United Kingdom said in separate statements that Musk has too much impact on politics.”

    Tech billionaire Elon Musk is getting wide pushback in European capitals as he tries to extend his recent political success to the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

    Leaders in four European countries — France, Germany, Norway and the United Kingdom — denounced his influence in separate statements Monday, warning that Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO, should not involve himself in their countries’ politics.

    Musk, the world’s wealthiest person and a close ally of President-elect Donald Trump, has been on a social media rampage against various world leaders, posting relentlessly on his social media app, X, and trying to duplicate the influence he had on U.S. politics last year. On numerous occasions, Musk has boosted far-right candidates in various European countries with his social media posts. [True. And dangerous.]

    Musk’s message has proven divisive, and the resentment appeared to boil over Monday among leaders of some of Europe’s largest and most powerful countries.

    French President Emmanuel Macron […]:

    “Who could have imagined, 10 years ago, that the owner of one of the world’s largest social networks would intervene directly in elections, including in Germany?” Macron said, according to The Associated Press, alluding to Musk’s endorsement of a far-right German political party.

    In Germany, the government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz criticized Musk by name and predicted that his social media posting would not work with the public.

    “The normal people, the sensible people, the decent people are far in the majority in this country,” a government spokesman said, according to the national broadcaster Deutsche Welle.

    “We act as if Mr. Musk’s statements … could influence a country of 84 million people with untruths or half-truths or expressions of opinion. This is simply not the case,” he said.

    British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was asked about Musk at a news conference about child sexual abuse cases. Musk has accused Starmer of not doing enough to stop the abuses when he was a prosecutor — an accusation that Starmer, without naming Musk, dismissed as a self-promoting lie.

    “Those that are spreading lies and misinformation as far and as wide as possible are not interested in victims. They’re interested in themselves,” he said, according to Sky News. Starmer said those people get a “vicarious thrill from street violence.”

    And although Norway has been a pivotal proving ground for Tesla for a decade, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre decried Musk’s political influence in an interview Monday.

    “I find it worrying that a man with enormous access to social media and huge economic resources involves himself so directly in the internal affairs of other countries,” he told public broadcaster NRK, according to Reuters.

    “This is not the way things should be between democracies and allies,” he said.

    It was not clear whether the four governments had coordinated their statements, but the timing of their comments within a few hours of one another presented a unified front against Musk.

    […] In posts Monday on X, [Musk] reveled in the influence he was having at least on online debate. He solicited responses for a poll asking whether “America should liberate the people of Britain from their tyrannical government.” He promoted a potential internet service deal between SpaceX and the Italian government, led by far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. And he celebrated the resignation of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, another object of Musk’s online wrath in recent weeks. He also speculated on the possibility of Greenland’s becoming part of the United States.

    […]

  211. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/a-requiem-for-january-6-democracy

    “A Requiem For January 6, Democracy […]”

    […]

    On Monday, the four-year anniversary of Donald Trump’s attempted coup of January 6, as Congress counts the electoral votes that will return that blow-dried pile of shit to the White House, we are all that Quarter Pounder.

    You do not need Wonkette to tell you that what we are seeing Monday on Capitol Hill is a grotesque spectacle, in some ways even more grotesque than the one we all watched unfold live on TV four years ago. Unless you are Republicans like Rep. Mike Collins of Georgia, who has apparently had his head wedged so far up his own ass for four years that it is stuck in the gap between a couple of his ribs, and who on Monday shared his own special take on January 6: [Screengrab of mike Collins’s X post is available at the link.]

    Absolutely. Who can forget the sight of all those peaceful grandmothers clad in tactical gear and carrying zip cuffs as they shattered windows and barreled through the halls of the Capitol looking for Vice President Mike Pence so they could hang him. […]

    To borrow a phrase, the gaslighting will continue until morale improves.

    Nor do you need us to provide yet another list of reasons of How We Got Here, partly because that list is sooooo long: cowardly and insane Republicans, feckless Democrats; a judicial and political system entirely too sclerotic to react with the necessary urgency the crisis demanded; a national media addicted to false balance; a right-wing media that exists to polarize the discourse along partisan lines; the utter shamelessness of Trump and his sycophants; the conviction of a lot of Republicans that they are enmeshed in a battle for Western Civilization and failure means the end of America.

    Seriously, here is a Tennessee Republican ranting about that last fear during the Tennessee Three crisis, two years after January 6, when the GOP in the state’s legislature was under intense fire for expelling two young Black members for participating in an anti-gun protest on the floor of the House:

    “I think the problem I have is if we don’t stick together, if you don’t believe we’re at war for our republic, with all love and respect to you, you need a different job. The left wants Tennessee so bad, because if they get us, the Southeast falls, and it’s game over for the republic. This is not a neighborhood social gathering. We are fighting for the republic of our country right now.”

    Whoa, whoa, whoa, let’s take it down a notch, Sparky. Chickamauga has been over for 160 years. Guess which side won. We think you might be surprised!

    We could go on, but you get the point.

    […] we have plenty of video of what was happening down the street at that moment. We know exactly what the point was, gaslighting by Republican lickspittles notwithstanding. We all saw it happen. And we are all going to remember.

  212. Pierce R. Butler says

    Lynna @ # 207, quoting Daily Kos quoting Donald J. Trump: “If Canada merged with the U.S., …”

    All this keeps reminding me of Fletcher Knebel’s bestselling 1965 novel, Night of Camp David, about a US President going insane while in office. Rather than realistic symptoms of mental breakdown, Knebel’s president proposes a national union of the US, Canada, and the Netherlands, insisting the stereotypical cultural traits of the three countries would produce a perfect balance.

    Trump has not quite yet reached that stage, but if the Geert Wilders faction takes power in Amsterdam…

  213. Reginald Selkirk says

    Controversial fluoride analysis published after years of failed reviews

    Federal toxicology researchers on Monday finally published a long-controversial analysis that claims to find a link between high levels of fluoride exposure and slightly lower IQs in children living in areas outside the US, mostly in China and India. As expected, it immediately drew yet more controversy.

    The study, published in JAMA Pediatrics, is a meta-analysis, a type of study that combines data from many different studies—in this case, mostly low-quality studies—to come up with new results. None of the data included in the analysis is from the US, and the fluoride levels examined are at least double the level recommended for municipal water in the US. In some places in the world, fluoride is naturally present in water, such as parts of China, and can reach concentrations several-fold higher than fluoridated water in the US.

    The authors of the analysis are researchers at the National Toxicology Program at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. For context, this is the same federal research program that published a dubious analysis in 2016 suggesting that cell phones cause cancer in rats. The study underwent a suspicious peer-review process and contained questionable methods and statistics.

    The new fluoride analysis shares similarities. NTP researchers have been working on the fluoride study since 2015 and submitted two drafts for peer review to an independent panel of experts at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in 2020 and 2021. The study failed its review both times. The National Academies’ reviews found fault with the methods and statistical rigor of the analysis. Specifically, the reviews noted potential bias in the selection of the studies included in the analysis, inconsistent application of risk-of-bias criteria, lack of data transparency, insufficient evaluations of potential confounding, and flawed measures of neurodevelopmental outcomes, among other problems.

    After the failing reviews, the NTP selected its own reviewers and self-published the study as a monograph in August…

  214. Reginald Selkirk says

    @212 Pierce R. Butler
    Knebel’s president proposes a national union of the US, Canada, and the Netherlands, insisting the stereotypical cultural traits of the three countries would produce a perfect balance.

    That reminds me of a joke I heard once.

    In Heaven,
    the British are the police,
    the French are the cooks,
    and the Germans are the engineers.

    In Hell,
    the Germans are the police,
    the British are the cooks,
    and the French are the engineers.

  215. whheydt says

    Re: Reginald Selkirk @ #214…
    I’ve sometimes mused that the perfect WW2 army would consist of:
    German troops, who will follow orders valiantly to the bitter end.
    American Non-coms, who can turn wild or wierd tactics into working, practical orders.
    British offices, who will come up with innovative tactics and orders that will take the enemy completely by surprise.

  216. says

    Pierce @212, yep. I can see that comparison to fiction being apt. Personally, I am growing weary of Trump’s nonsense … and overwhelmed by the fallout from his bullying, his bluster, his ignorance and his declining capacity to make sense.

    Reginald @213, I expect most of the media to ignore the flaws in those studies, and to ignore any nuances that should be taken into account. Most people will just take it as a signal to side with Robert Kennedy Jr, and demand that fluoride be removed from all drinking water.

  217. StevoR says

    @181. Owlmirror :

    Regarding “Timescape Cosmology”, mentioned in a few comments above: Former Scienceblogs fellow astrophysicist Ethan Siegel (“Starts With a Bang”) has pointed out that (a) the idea is not actually new (b) the idea is based on looking narrowly at some data while ignoring the composite of all cosmological data (c) work from 20 years ago which includes the composite of all cosmological data pretty much rules it out (d) current cosmological data (more detailed than 20 years ago) actually supports the current consensus.

    Thanks for that. Hadn’t heard that yet and have lot of respect for Ethan Siegel who definitely knows his stuff and is a good human being too.

  218. StevoR says

    The love story between Pluto and Charon may have started with a kiss.

    A new study suggests the dwarf planet and its scarcely smaller moon likely came together in a collision that saw them conjoined for a period of time, billions of years ago, before separating into a stable, long-term orbital dance.

    This “kiss and capture” mechanism contradicts previous theories about the provenance of Charon that supposed it must have formed from a giant impact, like the one hypothesized to have formed Earth’s Moon.

    “Most planetary collision scenarios are classified as ‘hit and run’ or ‘graze and merge’,” says planetary scientist Adeene Denton of the University of Arizona.

    “What we’ve discovered is something entirely different – a ‘kiss and capture’ scenario where the bodies collide, stick together briefly and then separate while remaining gravitationally bound.”

    Source : https://www.sciencealert.com/pluto-and-its-moon-came-together-with-kiss-and-capture-study-says

    Very apt for a moon named after the partner of an astronomer who promised to deliver his love the moon and actually delivered! I kid you not.

    (James Christy who chose the Charon for Pluto’s largest of five moons after his wife Charlene.)

  220. JM says

    @209 Lynna, OM:
    ABC 30: New York judge denies Donald Trump’s request to halt sentencing in hush money case

    President-elect Donald Trump, seeking to halt the upcoming sentencing in his criminal hush money case in New York, on Monday filed suit against Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Judge Juan Merchan over the judge’s denial of his presidential immunity motions.

    Trump’s attorneys argued in the suit that Judge Merchan exceeded his jurisdiction when he denied Trump’s claim of presidential immunity in his ruling last week and ordered Trump to appear for sentencing, either in person or virtually, on Jan. 10 following his May conviction.

    Trump’s lawyers have filed the paperwork to try and take this to the appellate court.
    I can’t tell if this is just a stalling tactic or if it’s Trump’s refusal to accept he could be guilty. He may just be trying to stall this until he is installed as president, knowing that likely nothing will be done after that. He also seems to have a pathological aversion to being found guilty even though nothing will come of it.

  221. whheydt says

    Re: JM @ #220…
    I think it’s really odd that Trump is fighting the sentencing. He can’t appeal the conviction until he has been sentenced. If he delays sentencing until he’s sworn in, that would almost certainly put off the sentencing until he is no longer president….potentially 4 years from now, so it would still be hanging over his head the whole time.
    As usual, Trump is trying to get out of his predicament in the stupidest possible way.

  222. Bekenstein Bound says

    Does anyone here know the channel number for Discovery on Rogers Cable in Canada? Some twit got into my STB and messed something up, apparently deleting it from my favorites list, and I can’t for the life of me seem to find it again in the all channels list …

    (Preferably Discovery HD.)

  223. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Drive carefully and slooowly in the winter snow everyone.

    I just had my first car accident. Totaled. Long patch of ice prevented braking or steering, at a turn I needed to make. Only managed a few degrees, just enough to take us off the straight road and hit a foot-high median in the crossroad. Airbag pounded my temple and knocked me sideways to pin against the side window. Headache. Family and I are okay. A neighbor brought us to a car rental place and an ER where concussion screening said we’d be fine, if achy.

  230. birgerjohansson says

    Jean-Marie Le Pen dead:
    Far-right demagogue & France’s National Front founder dies at 96.

  231. says

    A belated Happy Solstice, Happy New Year, and Happy Perihelion to all!

    birgerjohansson @ #230, finally.

    RIP Mike Rinder.

    Alverant, condolences on the loss of Buddy.

    I wanted to give a senior cat a good home for their sunset years and I hope I did that.

    It sounds like you did.

    The first human (it’s already a pandemic for other animals) in the US has died from avian flu. Louisiana state officials have helpfully encouraged people to discount their death by including in their report that “the patient was over the age of 65 and was reported to have underlying medical conditions,” which has been dutifully repeated by the media stenographers.

  234. birgerjohansson says

    Re. 233
    The average American homicide rate is at the same level as in Russia. That is BAD!

  235. Reginald Selkirk says

    A Violent Gang Is Using U-Haul to Hack and Dox Victims

    A violent gang has been using information culled from hacked U-Haul employee accounts to target victims for hacking and doxing, according to a new report from 404 Media. The gang in question, known as Com, has been connected to a broad variety of crimes, including hacking, burglary, and home invasion.

    Com is a loose affiliation of criminals who meet and communicate using Telegram and Discord. 404 previously reported on the gang’s activities. Now, the outlet has discovered one of the chief ways the criminals find data on potential hacking targets: compromised U-Haul employee accounts. These hacked employee accounts allow gang members to find data on U-Haul customers, who are potential targets for doxxing and data theft. The data connected to users’ U-Haul accounts can be used to create social engineering schemes that Com members can weaponize to hack users’ more important accounts (such as social media or ISP accounts)…

  236. birgerjohansson says

    SC @ 231
    And a happy set of greetings to you!

    Reginald Selkirk @ 232
    Hm, does eating a crazy amount of junk food and drinking diet coke correlate with being having worse resistance to the virus? Just asking.

  237. Reginald Selkirk says

    Moment over 100,000 teddy bears fly onto ice rink

    A world record 102,343 stuffed toys hit the ice rink in a moment of “sweet, cuddly mayhem”, according to an American Hockey League team.

    At the game in Hershey, Pennsylvania, footage shows stuffed toys flying over the glass after the Hershey Bears scored against the Providence Bruins.

    The annual teddy bear toss has been held by the Hershey Bears hockey club since 2001, with this year’s event beating the previous record of 74,599 collected in 2024.

    The stuffed toys will be distributed across a total of 35 local charities, according to the club.

  238. StevoR says

    Kyle Kulinski on the supposedly (LOLsob!) “anti-war” Trump Plotting WAR with Iran – 18 mins. Oh and again, recall Trump’s nominees incl people like Hegseth,Mike Huckabee, Seb Gorka, ad nauseam..

    Oh and note from article discussed at among other places the 15 mins 25 secs mark :

    But in November, after holding three calls with Trump,Netanyahu said he and Trump “see eye to eye on the Iranian threat in all its components and the danger posed by it.”

    Can we call him “Genocide Don” yet or do we have to wait still? (Does him killing literally millions of Americans needlessly due to covid in his first term count?)

  239. birgerjohansson says

    The chairman of open AI company Helion claims a breakthrough in fusion technology is close by.
    Aand…there goes his credibility. I have made a point of ignoring pathological technology optimists.

  243. says

    Steve @238: Yes, Trump and Netanyahu seeing eye-to-eye is very bad indeed.

    CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain @223, glad you were not more seriously injured, and that you will be okay soon. I concur with your warning. Stay off the icy winter roads if you can. If you can’t make the turn, just keep going (if possible) to the next exit or turn. Most of the time, you cannot defeat really bad road conditions, not even with good driving skills.

    Happy New Year to SC whose posts are always a welcome addition here.

    JM @220:

    He also seems to have a pathological aversion to being found guilty even though nothing will come of it.

    Yes. I think that’s the core of Trump’s response.

    StevoR @218, interesting! Thanks for posting that. Pluto and Charon starting with a kiss was probably quite violent, but still amazing.

  244. says

    Oh FFS.

    NBC News:

    Donald Trump on Monday confirmed that his eldest son will visit Greenland amid increased calls by the president-elect that the U.S. should control the autonomous territory owned by Denmark. “I am hearing that the people of Greenland are ‘MAGA,’” Trump wrote on his social media platform. “My son, Don Jr, and various representatives, will be traveling there to visit some of the most magnificent areas and sights.”

    Commentary:

    […] Right off the bat, it’s worth appreciating the fact that when the incoming president uses the phrase, “I am hearing that…,” it generally refers to odd ideas that Trump simply made up out of whole cloth.

    What’s more, there was no real reason for Trump to let the world know that one of his adult sons plans to go sight-seeing in Greenland, except for the larger context related to the president-elect’s apparent intention to try to purchase the island.

    Indeed, after noting Trump Jr.’s travel plans, the president-elect added, “Greenland is an incredible place, and the people will benefit tremendously if, and when, it becomes part of our Nation. We will protect it, and cherish it, from a very vicious outside World.” [video at the link]

    Note, according to Robert O’Brien, Trump’s former White House national security advisor, Greenland should be presented with a choice: Either the U.S. could be paid to protect the island militarily, or the island could become part of the U.S. itself.

    […]A couple of weeks ago, the island’s Prime Minister Mute Egede said in a written statement, “Greenland is ours. We are not for sale and will never be for sale.” Trump, by all appearances, is reluctant to take no for an answer.

    A Politico report noted, “Trump’s renewed focus on Greenland is being met with exasperation and eye rolls from several current and former U.S. national security officials. Some point out that the island isn’t for sale and talks of acquiring the territory could just alienate Greenlanders and Danes from deeper cooperation with the U.S., which has a military base there.”

    The same report quoted Jim Townsend, a former senior Pentagon official who worked on NATO and arctic defense policy, saying, “Pissing everybody off by saying we’re just going to buy them outright really bruises our bilateral relationship with the Danes and more importantly ruins any kind of way for us to work this out with Greenlanders.”

    Link

  245. says

    Trump Tries To Block Special Counsel Report
    Under the regulations for special counsel, they are to submit a final report to the attorney general, who may make the report public. It has been the practice of Attorney General Merrick Garland to make special counsel reports public.

    We learned yesterday that Trump’s lawyers – themselves poised to take top DOJ positions in the new Trump administration – have been privately lobbying Garland to bury Special Counsel Jack Smith’s reports on the Jan. 6 and Mar-a-Lago investigations.

    We learned of this development when two of Trump’s co-defendants in the Mar-a-Lago case filed an emergency motion asking U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to block the public release of any report pertaining to them. […]

    Attached to the motion was a strident 12-page letter dated Jan. 6, 2025, from Trump’s attorneys to Garland demanding that he halt all efforts to prepare and release Smith’s report, and throwing all manner of arguments, legal and political, into the mix.

    In response to the motion, Jack Smith confirmed in a new filing that he is “working to finalize a two-volume confidential report to the Attorney General explaining the Special Counsel’s prosecution decisions.” One volume pertains to the Mar-a-Lago case, Smith told Cannon. The other volume, presumably, applies to the Jan. 6 case. Smith said he would not turn the Mar-a-Lago volume over to Garland before 1 p.m. today. Smith also said Garland has not decided how to handle the volume of the report related to the Mar-a-Lago case but regardless will not release it to the public before Friday, Jan. 10, 2025 at 10 a.m. ET.

    Notably the letter to Garland from Trump’s counsel indicates they have been allowed to review drafts of the special counsel report, though they complained about the compressed time frame and onerous conditions of their review.

    Again, this is uncharted territory. The Jan. 6 case against Trump has been dismissed. Cannon dismissed the Mar-a-Lago case against him and DOJ has dropped its appeal of that dismissal as to Trump. So, for example, it’s not clear whether Cannon has any jurisdiction to weigh in here. But it would not take much in the way of judicial delays to push all of this back a few days and leave it to the new Trump DOJ – helmed in part by his now-personal attorneys – to make it all go away.

    Link
    Sigh.

  247. says

    Meta is getting rid of fact checkers. Zuckerberg acknowledged more harmful content will appear on the platforms now

    n a number of sweeping changes that will significantly alter the way that posts, videos and other content are moderated online, Meta will adjust its content review policies on Facebook and Instagram, getting rid of fact checkers and replacing them with user-generated “community notes,” similar to Elon Musk’s X, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Tuesday.

    The changes come just before President-elect Donald Trump is set to take office. Trump and other Republicans have lambasted Zuckerberg and Meta for what they view as censorship of right-wing voices.

    “Fact checkers have been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created,” Zuckerberg said in a video announcing the new policy Tuesday. “What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas, and it’s gone too far.”

    Zuckerberg, however, acknowledged a “tradeoff” in the new policy, noting more harmful content will appear on the platform as a result of the content moderation changes.

    Meta’s newly appointed Chief of Global Affairs Joel Kaplan told Fox on Tuesday that Meta’s partnerships with third-party fact checkers were “well intentioned at the outset but there’s just been too much political bias in what they choose to fact check and how.”

    [I wonder if the fact checkers found more disinformation was coming in from rightwing doofuses, Russians, and ignorant Republican legislators? Hmmm. Just wondering.]

    The announcement comes amid a broader apparent ideological shift to the right within Meta’s top ranks, and as Zuckerberg seeks to improve his relationship with Trump before the president-elect takes office later this month. Just one day earlier, Meta announced Trump ally and UFC CEO Dana White would join its board, along with two other new directors. […]

    Meta gave Trump’s team an advanced heads up that the moderation policy change was coming, a source familiar with the conversation told CNN.

    The Real Facebook Oversight Board — an outside accountability organization, whose name is a play on the company’s official group, comprised of academics, lawyers and civil rights advocates including early Facebook investor Roger McNamee — said the policy changes represent Meta going “full MAGA.”

    “Meta’s announcement today is a retreat from any sane and safe approach to content moderation,” the group said in a statement, calling the changes “political pandering.” […]

    Starting in the United States, Meta says it is ending its partnership with third-party fact checkers and instituting similar, community notes across its platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and Threads.

    “I think Elon has played an incredibly important role in moving the debate and and getting people refocused on free expression, and that’s been really constructive and productive,” Kaplan said. […]

  248. says

    After asking for positivity, Musk goes back to being a menace

    […]It didn’t take long for the world’s richest man to get back to his hateful roots after calling for “positivity.”

    In response to a post on X on Sunday from a student who accused the billionaire of “the largest spreader of disinformation in human history” and “hijacking political debates,” Musk’s reaction was predictably offensive.

    Instead of a nuanced reply or a diplomatic counterpoint—or even just ignoring the post altogether—Musk hit back with a hostile, derogatory comment: “F u r*t*rd.” [Musk spelled out the offensive word starting with “r”]

    This comes just a week after Musk called for “more positive, beautiful, or informative content on this platform” in a post on X, making his latest comment feel like a jarring about-face because someone hurt his feelings.

    The contrast was stark.

    One moment, Musk was urging for civility, and the next, he was lobbing insults that most would consider both offensive and unbecoming of someone in his position. But, as we’ve learned, nothing is too low for the cult of MAGA.

    Amid Musk’s feud over the H-1B visa program with far-right nationalists like Laura Loomer and Steve Bannon, Musk found himself in hot water after deleting a post on X in which he seemed to endorse a user’s comment claiming that Americans are too “r*t*rdEd” to be considered for highly skilled tech jobs. [Musk spelled out the offensive word starting with “r”]

    The comment was widely denounced […], and Musk’s decision to delete the post didn’t stop the backlash […]

    The man who has requested that people treat him with more positivity seems to have little problem reverting to name-calling and inflammatory remarks when his mood suits him.

    As Musk’s influence as Donald Trump’s co-president continues to grow, his tendency to provoke and alienate seems to as well. […]

  249. Reginald Selkirk says

    Yellowstone’s Legendary ‘Queen of the Wolves’ Killed by Rival Pack

    One of Yellowstone Natural Park’s most famous denizens has tragically passed. Wildlife researchers have confirmed that the long-lived wolf 907F—also known as “Queen of the Wolves“—died this Christmas.

    Wolf 907F’s death was first reported by local media outlet CowboyStateDaily late last month. According to researchers with the Yellowstone Wolf, Cougar and Elk Project, 907F succumbed to injuries sustained during a territorial fight with a rival wolf pack a few days before her death. The exceptionally hardy and battle-scarred canine was 11.8-years-old, having lived three times longer than the average wild wolf…

  250. says

    Biden administration bans medical debt from appearing on credit reports

    Unpaid medical bills will no longer appear on credit reports, where they can block people from mortgages, car loans or small business loans, according to a final rule announced Tuesday by the Biden administration.

    The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rule will remove $49 billion in medical debt from the credit reports of more than 15 million Americans, according to the bureau, which means lenders will no longer be able to take that into consideration when deciding to issue a loan.

    The change is estimated to raise the credit scores by an average of 20 points and could lead to 22,000 additional mortgages being approved every year, according to the bureau. Vice President Kamala Harris said in a statement announcing the rule that it would be “lifechanging” for millions of families.

    […] Harris also announced that states and local governments have used a sweeping 2021 pandemic-era aid package to eliminate more than $1 billion in medical debt for more than 700,000 Americans.

    […] The CFPB said that medical debt is a poor predictor of an individual’s ability to repay a loan. Experian, Equifax and TransUnion, the three national credit reporting agencies, said last year that they were removing medical collections debt under $500 from U.S. consumer credit reports.

    The new rule from the Biden administration is set to take on the outstanding bills appearing on credit reports.

  251. KG says

    Owlmirror@181,
    Thanks for that link – as I suspected (see #63) the “timescape” idea had already been thought of (and dismissed). But while different methods give different values of the Hubble constant, and both “dark matter” and “dark energy” remain completely mysterious, I’ll retain a degree of scepticism about the current cosmological consensus!

  252. says

    Followup to comment 154.

    TOKYO — Japan’s largest steelmaker said Tuesday that it would not give up trying to purchase U.S. Steel even after President Joe Biden blocked the $15 billion bid last week over national security concerns.

    The blocking of the proposed deal by Nippon Steel cast a shadow over a final visit to Japan by outgoing Secretary of State Antony Blinken, amid worries that it could sour U.S. relations with a key diplomatic and economic Asian ally — the two countries are each other’s biggest foreign investors.

    Eiji Hashimoto, chairman and chief executive of Nippon Steel, the world’s fourth-largest steelmaker, said there was “no reason or need to give up” on the bid. […] “I am firmly convinced this is something extremely beneficial for both Japan and the United States.”

    On Monday, Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel, which strongly supports the deal, sued the Biden administration and others over the decision, saying Biden ignored the rule of law to gain political favor with union members who opposed it.

    […] The decision was left up to the White House last month after the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a government panel that reviews foreign investments for national security risks, failed to reach consensus. In announcing his decision to block it on Friday, Biden said it was important to keep U.S. Steel American-owned to avoid undermining critical supply chains and putting jobs at risk.

    […] In its efforts to promote the deal, Nippon Steel has emphasized that U.S. Steel would remain American-run, its headquarters would remain based in Pittsburgh, and there would be no layoffs or plant closures as a result of the takeover. It also said the collapse of the deal would be a victory for China, which accounts for more than half of the world’s steel production.

    […] Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel are also suing the United Steelworkers president, David McCall, as well as Lourenco Goncalves, the head of U.S. Steel rival Cleveland-Cliffs, accusing them of illegally coordinating to undermine the transaction.

    […] Biden campaigned against the bid, as did his successor as the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, and President-elect Donald Trump.

    […] Hashimoto said Tuesday that given the “extremely difficult and uncertain conditions” facing the U.S. steel industry, his company’s acquisition of U.S. Steel was the only way to ensure its continued prosperity.

    “I do not believe that tariff policies alone will strengthen the industry,” he said. [Is that a diplomatic way of saying that Trump is full of shit?

    Link

  253. says

    Judge [U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon] blocks release of special counsel report on Trump’s criminal cases

    The injunction lasts until three days after the 11th Circuit rules on a pending request to block the release of the report over a separate matter involving Trump’s co-defendants.

    […] Her ruling holds that Attorney General Merrick “Garland, the Department of Justice, Special Counsel Smith, all of their officers, agents, and employees, and all persons acting in active concert or participation with such individuals, are TEMPORARILY ENJOINED from (a) releasing, sharing, or transmitting the Final Report or any drafts of such Report outside the Department of Justice, or (b) otherwise releasing, distributing, conveying, or sharing with anyone outside the Department of Justice any information or conclusions in the Final Report or in drafts thereof.”

    She said the order will remain in effect for three days after the appeals court resolves the issue “unless the Eleventh Circuit orders otherwise.”

  254. says

    Biden shrinks Guantanamo’s prison population to just 15 people
    Video at the link.

    “If Republicans are serious about cutting unnecessary spending, they can start by closing the Guantanamo Bay prison — which now detains just 15 people.”

    It’s no secret that the Obama administration tried to close the Guantanamo Bay prison — a goal that used to enjoy bipartisan support — and it likely would’ve succeeded, were it not for congressional restrictions. It was against this backdrop that the Biden administration announced plans in February 2021 to pick up where the last Democratic team left off.

    As the incumbent president prepares to exit the White House, the administration has fallen short of its goal of shutting down the detention facility once and for all, but it’s had great success shrinking the prison’s population to lows unseen in decades. NBC News reported:

    The Pentagon said Monday it had transferred 11 Yemeni men to Oman this week after holding them for more than two decades without charge at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The transfer was the latest and biggest push by the Biden administration in its final weeks to clear Guantanamo of the last remaining detainees there who were never charged with a crime.

    The prison population at Guantanamo now stands at just 15 people — the fewest since 2002.

    What’s more, that total might yet drop further: The Wall Street Journal reported, “The Biden administration is negotiating with the Taliban to exchange Americans detained in Afghanistan for at least one high-profile prisoner alleged to be an Osama bin Laden associate held in Guantanamo Bay.” (The report, which sites an unspecified number of anonymous attendees at a classified House Foreign Affairs committee briefing, has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News.)

    […] the prison’s population peaked in 2003 with 680 prisoners. […]

    In 2009 and 2010, Congress made it effectively impossible for the Democrat to close the facility altogether, but Obama nevertheless successfully lowered the number of people at the facility from 242 to 41.

    “As president, I have tried to close Guantanamo,” Obama said in a letter to congressional leaders on his last full day in office. “When I inherited this challenge, it was widely recognized that the facility — which many around the world continue to condemn — needed to close. Unfortunately, what had previously been bipartisan support for closure suddenly became a partisan issue. Despite those politics, we have made progress.”

    […] Even if congressional Republicans are inclined to ignore every other consideration, the hope has long been that GOP lawmakers would at least care about wasteful spending: It costs American taxpayers roughly $13 million per prisoner, per year.

    […] it’s not uncommon for Republicans to talk with great enthusiasm about the need to cut unnecessary and wasteful government spending. It’s ostensibly the point of the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” led in part by GOP mega-donor Elon Musk.

    Of course, if the party is serious about such a goal, perhaps it can prove it by agreeing to close this exceedingly expensive detention facility?

  255. says

    Followup to comment 153.

    Republicans have had control of both the House and Senate for less than a week, and it’s already a mess, with House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune unable to agree on the path forward to passing Donald Trump’s destructive agenda of cutting taxes for the rich, deporting a major swath of the nation’s workforce, and slashing the federal budget to levels that would require deep cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

    Thune wants to break Trump’s agenda into two bills: one focusing on immigration and another on tax cuts and spending. Johnson wants one bill that encompasses everything.

    In a post on his Truth Social platform on Sunday, Trump said he wants “one powerful Bill” (unnecessary capitalization in the original).

    But shortly after saying he wants one bill, he told conservative radio propagandist Hugh Hewitt that he is not opposed to the two-bill strategy.

    “I’m open to either way as long as we get something passed as quickly as possible,” Trump told Hewitt. [video at the link]

    It’s the clearest sign yet that Trump, who often changes his mind on what he wants to do after watching talking heads on the GOP propaganda network Fox News, could be more of a hindrance than a helper for congressional Republicans.

    But whether to put Trump’s agenda in one bill or two is the least of Republicans’ worries.

    Immigration reform and tax laws are some of the hardest types of legislation to pass. And in the House, Johnson will likely have literally zero votes to spare for the first few months of Congress. That’s because Trump nominated two House members to positions in his administration, and both are expected to be confirmed. This will shrink Johnson’s current 219-vote majority to 217, compared with Democrats’ 215 votes. That means that if just one Republican defects on a vote, it will result in a 216-216 tie, and the bill will fail.

    Given that House Republicans could barely agree on whether Johnson should be speaker or even the rules on how the House will be run for the next two years, it could be nearly impossible to get them all to perfectly stick together to change the country’s immigration and taxation policies.

    What’s more, Republicans want to use budget reconciliation to pass Trump’s policies—a complicated procedural move that will allow the GOP to bypass the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster threshold so they can pass legislation without needing to compromise with Democrats.

    From NBC News:

    The 50-vote reconciliation process means the package must follow strict rules and be limited to matters involving taxes and spending. Under what’s called the “Byrd Rule” (named for late Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va.), senators from either party can challenge parts of a reconciliation bill that don’t meet those criteria. The Senate parliamentarian must rule whether those provisions are really about taxes and spending or not—and if not, they’re stripped out.

    The only way to avoid that is to overrule the parliamentarian, which even some hard-line rank-and-file Republicans are already saying they prefer not to do.

    Democrats, meanwhile, are focused on drawing attention to what is in Republicans’ bills, rather than how Republicans are negotiating them.

    “Don’t pay attention to the debate Republicans are having about passing Trump’s agenda in one bill or two bills. Pay attention to the substance of the legislation—screwing seniors and poor kids in order to pad the pockets of Trump’s ultra wealthy friends,” Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy said on Monday.

    Link

    Republicans in disarray, as predicted.

  256. KG says

    Lynna, OM@210,

    European governments should be blocking Xhitter, and summoning US ambassadors to protest about Musk’s lying interference in their political and judicial systems – which in some cases (e.g. his attacks on UK cabinet minister Jess Phillips) place those he attacks at risk of physical attack.

  257. Reginald Selkirk says

    After Founder’s Arrest, Telegram Began Sharing Info on Thousands More Users With Police

    Since changing its policies in response to the arrest of its founder last year, the messaging app Telegram has vastly increased its cooperation with law enforcement agencies around the world, sharing details about thousands more users than it had previously.

    In the U.S., Telegram provided police with 108 user IP addresses or phone numbers in connection to 14 cases during the first nine months of 2024, according to the company’s quarterly transparency reports. In the fourth quarter of the year, Telegram provided U.S. agencies with IP addresses or phone numbers for 2,145 users stemming from 900 law enforcement requests…

  258. says

    I am deeply saddened to discover that Cassinni scientist Carolyn Porco may be slipping into the transphobic rabbit hole, though maybe she’s always been like this, I don’t know. She spends some energy defending her personal friends Richard Dawkins and Stephen Pinker about their transphobic views, saying she knows them personally and that they could not be sexist. Never mind all of the other problematic aspects of those two.

    She seems mainly stuck on the notion that men would fake being women for the purposes of assaulting women in bathrooms, though the statistics on assault show this to be a patently ridiculous fear.

    I’ve admired her for so long, it’s a bit of a gut punch.

  259. whheydt says

    https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gzn48jwz2o

    US President-elect Donald Trump has threatened “very-high” tariffs on Denmark if it resists his effort to take control of Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory.

    Asked on Tuesday if he would rule out using military or economic force in order to take control of the strategically-important island, he said: “No, I can’t assure you on either of those two.”

    “I can say this, we need them for economic security,” he said.

    Trump’s remarks came as his son, Donald Trump Jr, visited Greenland on the same day.

    Before arriving in the capital Nuuk, Trump Jr said he was going on a “personal day-trip” to talk to people, and had no meetings planned with government officials.

    When asked about Trump Jr’s visit to Greenland, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told Danish TV that “Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders” and that only the local population could determine their future.

    She agreed that “Greenland is not for sale”, but stressed Denmark needed very close co-operation with the US, a close Nato ally.

    Hmmm… He’d piss off significant number of Americans. Those tariffs would affect LEGO pieces and kits.

  261. Reginald Selkirk says

    Dirty deeds in Denver: Ex-prosecutor faked texts, destroyed devices to frame colleague

    When suspicion began to mount that the young prosecutor, Yujin Choi, might have faked her sexual misconduct allegations against a Denver District Attorney’s Office colleague, investigators asked to examine Choi’s laptop and cell phone. But just before Choi was to have turned them in, her devices suffered a series of unlikely accidents.

    First, she said, she managed to drop her phone into a filled bathtub. When she pulled the phone out of the water and found it was not working, Choi went to her laptop in order to make a video call. When the call ended, Choi then knocked over a bottle of water—whoops!—directly onto the computer, which was also taken out of commission. So, when the day came to hand in her devices, neither was working…

    In 2022, Choi complained again. This time, she offered phone records showing inappropriate text messages she allegedly received from Hines. But Hines, who denied everything, offered investigators his own phone records, which showed no texts to Choi.

    Investigators then went directly to Verizon for records, which showed that “Ms. Choi had texted the inappropriate messages to herself,” according to the Times…

    In the end, Choi was fired from the DA’s office and eventually given a disbarment order by the Office of the Presiding Disciplinary Judge, which she can still appeal…

  263. says

    KG @256:

    European governments should be blocking Xhitter, and summoning US ambassadors to protest about Musk’s lying interference in their political and judicial systems […]

    I agree.

    whheydt @259, I see that once again Trump shows us that he is incapable of maintaining normal diplomatic relations with other countries. All he knows how to do is to threaten others in order to get want he wants. I don’t think the threats against Denmark are going to work.

    Reginald @261, Criminals being criminally stupid.

  264. KG says

    Robert Westbrook@258,
    Anyone who counts Dawkins and Pinker as personal friends at this stage has already taken a wrong turning!

  265. Reginald Selkirk says

    @260 Greenland, Panama

    Note these various wacko ideas were never mentioned during Trump’s campaign. Perhaps he would just rather have us talking about that, and not about his hush money case sentencing.

  267. says

    More fuckery and asshattery from Trump:

    We’re going to be announcing at a future date, pretty soon, we’re going to change — because we do most of the work there, and it’s ours — we’re going be changing — sort of the opposite of Biden, where he’s closing everything up, essentially getting rid of $50 to $60 trillion worth of assets — we’ll be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, which has a beautiful ring. That covers a lot of territory. The Gulf of America: What a beautiful name. And it’s appropriate. It’s appropriate.

    Well that’s some performative bullshit. Video at the link.
    Link

  268. whheydt says

    Re: Lynna, OM @ #263…
    Yeah… Denmark isn’t likely to cave to anything Trump has to say.

  270. says

    Followup to comment 247.

    […] Read Zuckerberg’s full babbling screed if you’d like. He explained that Facebook tried and tried to do good fact-checking without “becoming the arbiters of truth.” He whined, “But the fact checkers have just been too politically biased.”

    You know, because any fact-checking that consistently says Donald Trump, Republicans and their media apparatus are full-time lying dogshit motherfuckers is UNFAAAAAAIR and BIASSSSSSSS, and not an indicator that Donald Trump, Republicans and their media apparatus are full-time lying dogshit motherfuckers. […]

    Oh and WAIT WHAT LOL?

    Fifth, we’re going to move our trust and safety and content moderation teams out of California, and our US based content review is going to be based in Texas. As we work to promote free expression, I think that will help us build trust to do this work in places where there is less concern about the bias of our teams. Finally, we’re going to work with President Trump to push back on governments around the world. They’re going after American companies and pushing to censor more.

    Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha, that is so humiliating and embarrassing. We are actually in awe that Zuckerberg is prostrating himself that much to get Trump to shower him with blessings. The moderators will be in RED-BLOODED AMERICAN TEXAS! Working with Donald Trump on CENSORSHIP!

    […] Along with Zuckerberg’s announcement, Joel Kaplan went on “Fox & Friends” this morning to [talk] about Facebook’s new commitment to free speech, because we guess he wanted to make extra sure Father Trump saw it. And he just gushed and gushed and gushed and gushed everywhere about Donald Trump:

    “And we’ve got a real opportunity now,” Kaplan continued. “We’ve got a new administration and a new president coming in who are big defenders of free expression, and that makes a difference. One of the things we’ve experienced is that when you have a U.S. president, an administration that’s pushing for censorship, it just makes it open season for other governments around the world that don’t even have the protections of the First Amendment to really put pressure on US companies. We’re going to work with President Trump to push back on that kind of thing around the world.”

    That was just a sampling of the gushing. If you read the transcript, you see he said that over and over again, like some kind of MAGA automaton.

    So to sum up, Zuckerberg is doing free speech, Zuckerberg is doing community notes, Zuckerberg is moving to Texas. It’s almost like he’s jealous Elon gets to snuggle with Daddy and he’s tearfully protesting that it’s his turn. Maybe he’s trying to show Trump that he’s a better son than Elon, that he can bend over backward for Trump without being a stage-four clinger like Elon. […]

    But we’d suggest it’s the wrong framing for these oligarchs, because it turns out these oligarchs actually don’t care what kind of system we live in. If anything, democracy might be a problem for many of them. So they’re not doing this because they genuinely like Trump or suddenly think he’s smart. Most of them probably continue to believe Trump is an absolute fucking buffoon, one they can manipulate. (Much like Putin and other authoritarian world leaders manipulate Trump.) […]

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/mark-zuckerberg-takes-lead-in-give

    More at the link.

  271. says

    What we know about the California wildfires

    A dangerous windstorm fanned blazes in the Los Angeles area, including the Palisades Fire, while millions of people across Southern California are under a Red Flag warning.

    The Palisades blaze has burned 200 acres as of this afternoon and its cause is under investigation.

    An evacuation order has been issued for the Palisades area by the City of Los Angeles. […]

    Link
    More at the link.

  272. says

    Background information:

    Reporting suggests that Republicans are exploring significant cuts to Medicaid, largely by making eligibility requirements more strict and capping funding. Based on past GOP efforts, advocates and reporters expect work requirements — which would leave many unemployed Americans without health insurance — to play a significant role in the plans. A 2023 Congressional Budget Office analysis estimated that adding work requirements alone could strip hundreds of thousands of Americans of their health insurance and affect several million more.

    During Trump’s first term, Arkansas implemented the strictest work requirements in the country. A recent PubMed Central study of the outcomes in Arkansas said the added requirements “led to coverage losses associated with significant negative impacts on medical debt and affordability of care, without improving employment.” It added:

    We find no evidence that the policy succeeded in its stated goals of promoting work and instead find substantial evidence of harm to health care coverage and access. Our results should provide a strong note of caution for federal and state policymakers considering work requirement policies in the future.

    Congressional Republicans have also hinted at returning to their 2017 proposal of enacting block grants, which cap federal funding to state-level Medicaid programs. As an article from Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) explained at the time, “The potential impact [of enacting block grants] is significant. More than 10 million who got insurance through Obamacare are on Medicaid and could be affected.” […]

    Excerpt from MediaMatters analysis of the lack of coverage:

    Cable news networks largely ignored changes the incoming Trump administration and congressional Republicans are reportedly considering to limit access to Medicaid.

    The proposals have raised alarms among health care advocates, who warn of potentially devastating impacts to vulnerable populations including children, seniors, and people with disabilities.

    Since November 14, CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC have given the Republicans’ potential plans only 40 minutes of coverage. MSNBC led networks with over 33 minutes coverage. However, both CNN and Fox News largely failed to cover the story. CNN devoted just 6 minutes to the potential Medicaid cuts, while Fox News devoted less than a minute of coverage. […]

    Link

  273. Reginald Selkirk says

    Chicago Transit Authority deactivates X social media accounts

    The Chicago Transit Authority is no longer using its main accounts the social media platform X.

    The agency confirmed to ABC7 Friday that two of their accounts are no longer active on the site formerly known as Twitter.

    The CTA and CTA service alerts X accounts now have disclaimers saying they are no longer active.

    The CTA released the following statement Friday:

    “After careful consideration, CTA has decided to suspend the use of its general information (@cta) and service alerts (@ctaAlerts) accounts on Twitter/X.com, as this social media platform no longer provides the value it once did for us to effectively reach and communicate with our riders. The @CTARPM account on X.com is unaffected and will continue to provide project information and updates through the remainder of project work. For real-time service information, CTA riders are encouraged to sign up for our subscription alerts available via text/email, which can be customized to provide information for preferred routes. For the occasional CTA riders, real-time service alerts will continue to available at transitchicago.com.”

    No further information about the agency’s decision to leave the social media site was immediately available.

    For more insight into this, see @36.

  274. Reginald Selkirk says

    Florida grand jury investigating COVID-19 vaccines finds no evidence of criminal activity

    A statewide grand jury convened at the request of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to investigate “any and all wrongdoing” concerning COVID-19 vaccines did not find any evidence of criminal activity, according to a report unsealed on Tuesday…

    DeSantis sought the investigation in 2022, ahead of his bid for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination and as he was bolstering his national profile through hard-line opposition to pandemic lockdowns and mask mandates.

    At the time, DeSantis said the probe would “bring legal accountability to those who committed misconduct” and could help get more information from pharmaceutical companies about the vaccines and potential side effects…

    No mention of how much this witch hunt cost the taxpayers of Florida.

  276. StevoR says

    @258. Robert Westbrook : “I am deeply saddened to discover that Cassini scientist Carolyn Porco may be slipping into the transphobic rabbit hole, though maybe she’s always been like this, I don’t know.”

    Ouch. I respect(ed?) her a lot too. Sigh.

  278. StevoR says

    @275. birgerjohansson : When will Trump be gone and what will be left after him?

    Trump and his crew is destroying the world as we know it and I fear too many under-estimate the damage he will do. Trade being lost and economic catstrophe is the least of it.The world is going to be a very much worse place afterwards and I don’t think things will ever go back to “normal.”

  279. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/vegas-cybertruck-exploder-masculinity

    “Vegas Cybertruck Exploder: Masculinity Is Good, DEI Is Cancer, And The Military Should Kill All Dems In Government”

    “So … your average modern conservative.”

    A lot of right-wing dreams were dashed last week after it was revealed that Matthew Livelsberger, the guy who blew himself up in a Cybertruck in front of a Las Vegas Trump hotel, was not some big (literally) flaming liberal. Even after his family members came forward to talk about how much he loved Donald Trump, many continued to insist that it was all a “psyop” — a term meaning “psychological operation” or “thing that must not have happened because it makes the Right look bad in some way.”

    Over the weekend, however, police shared two notes that had been saved on his cell phone, both of which do seem to confirm his political leanings and deteriorating state of mind.

    In one note, Livelsberger, a Green Beret, implored the military (and attendant independent militias) to occupy DC in order to get all Democrats out of office, on account of how he doesn’t want to be led by people who “only serve to enrich themselves.”

    You know, unlike Donald Trump. (Except for that time he raked in $160 million from foreign countries during his first term, and everything else he’s ever done in his life.)

    He wrote:

    Fellow Servicemembers, Veterans, and all Americans, TIME TO WAKE UP!

    We are being led by weak and feckless leadership who only serve to enrich themselves. Military and vets move on DC starting now. Militias facilitate and augment this activity.

    Occupy every major road along fed buildings and the campus of fed buildings by the hundreds of thousands. Lock the highways around down with semis right after everybody gets in. Hold until the purge is complete.

    Try peaceful means first, but be prepared to fight to get the Dems out of the fed government and military by any means necessary. They all must go and a hard reset must occur for our country to avoid collapse.

    This seems like a weird reaction to Republicans winning Congress, the Senate and the Presidency, but okay. I honestly wish I were more fazed by a “Let’s do a military coup!” manifesto than I am, but once you’ve seen 84,000, you’ve seen them all.

    Spoiler alert, the second note ends with Livelsberger imploring Americans to “rally around the Trump, Musk, Kennedy, and ride this wave to the highest hegemony for all Americans!”

    Why am I telling you the ending first? Because this is the beginning.

    We are the United States of America, the best country people to ever exist! But right now we are terminally ill and headed toward collapse. We are crumbling because of a lack of self respect, morales, and respect for others. Greed and gluttony has consumed us. The top 1% decided long ago they weren’t going to bring everyone else with them. You are cattle to them.

    Definitely a very good way to combat the greed of the “top 1 percent” is to elect them to public office so that they can cut taxes for their friends and cut the social safety net for everyone else, including veterans! Musk, whom he wishes people to rally around, has proposed cutting healthcare benefits for veterans, which might help those with PTSD or similar issues avoid Livelsberger’s fate.

    We have strayed from family values and corrupted our minds and I am a prime example of having it all but it never being enough.

    So we all have to live through a military coup, a plutocracy and the end of democracy because this guy cheated on his wife?

    “Focus on strength and winning,” Livelsberger wrote. “Masculinity is good and men must be leaders. Strength is a deterrent and fear is the product.”

    “The income inequality in this country and cost-of-living is outrageous,” he added, clearly unaware of who supports policies designed to combat those things. “The number of homeless on our street is embarrassing and disgusting. Have some pride and take care of this.”

    I’m pretty sure the solution to this plan, as per those he would like to rally around, would be something along the lines of throwing them in prisons or bringing back workhouses.

    “Stop obsessing over diversity,” he wrote, getting back on message. “We are all diverse and DEI is a cancer. Thankfully we rejected the DEI candidate and will have a real President instead of Weekend at Bernie’s.”

    Well gee. Maybe we wouldn’t need things like DEI if people like this guy didn’t believe, despite all the easily available evidence to the contrary, that a white guy must be more qualified than a woman of color.

    This guy is wacky, but he’s exemplary of something I’ve been saying for a long time now — and no, not just that the people who pull this kind of shit usually turn out to really hate women. It’s that there are so many people out there who have the economic policies of Republicans and Democrats completely switched around in their heads. Or maybe not that, exactly. It’s almost more that these people have convinced themselves that Republicans stand for everything they want and like, even when they are out here actively proposing the complete opposite. [True]

    I actually think they’ve had so many years of having to spin Trump’s most horrific statements into statements that were “good, actually,” having to spin the January 6 insurrection as “peaceful grandmothers” on a “self-guided tour,” that these people are just on autospin mode all of the time. […]

    Curiously, a quick search of the website formerly known as Twitter shows pretty much no posts about Livelsberger since January 2, when it was revealed that he was a Trump supporter — and pretty much all of those were from people trying to claim that was a lie. Comments about Shamsud Din Jabbar, however, have continued unabated, and will likely continue to until we find out what his political leanings were.

  280. says

    New York Times:

    President Biden will travel on Tuesday to the Coachella Valley in California to announce the creation of two national monuments that together will protect more than 848,000 acres of land in the state from drilling and mining as well as wind, solar and other energy development.

  281. birgerjohansson says

    StevoR @ 278
    .
    More details about rambling, insane press conference in Florida 
    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=4j9-6LB71O0
    For the first time, I think there is genuine age-related dementia peeking through the ordinary chaos. This is like the worst election campaign speeches, but he no longer has the stress of the campaign affecting him.

  282. says

    Followup to comments 247 and 270.

    Meta’s new hate speech guidelines permit users to say LGBTQ people are mentally ill

    “Meta’s changes to its hate speech guidelines were among broader policy shifts the company made to its moderation practices.”

    Meta will allow its billions of social media users to accuse people of being mentally ill based on their sexuality or gender identity, among broader changes made to its moderation policies and practices on Tuesday.

    The company’s new guidelines prohibit insults about someone’s intellect or mental illness on Facebook, Instagram and Threads, as have previous iterations. However, the latest guidelines now include a caveat for accusing LGBTQ people of being mentally ill because they are gay or transgender.

    “We do allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality and common non-serious usage of words like ‘weird,’” the revised company guidelines read.

    The new guidelines around hate speech are part of its broader major changes regarding how it moderates online speech on its platforms. [snipped some details comparing Meta’s changes to guidelines Elon Musk employs on X.)

    Among the long list of changes to its new hate speech guidelines is the removal of rules that forbid insults about a person’s physical appearance based on race, ethnicity, national origin, disability, religious affiliation, caste, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity, and serious disease. Meta also scrapped previous policies that prohibited expressions of hate against a person or a group of people on the basis of their protected class and that banned users from referring to transgender or non-binary people as “it.”

    GLAAD, an LGBTQ media advocacy group, denounced the new changes.

    “Without these necessary hate speech and other policies, Meta is giving the green light for people to target LGBTQ people, women, immigrants, and other marginalized groups with violence, vitriol, and dehumanizing narratives,” said GLAAD president and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis in a statement. “With these changes, Meta is continuing to normalize anti-LGBTQ hatred for profit — at the expense of its users and true freedom of expression. Fact-checking and hate speech policies protect free speech.” [I agree.]

    [snipped details of tech leaders cozying up to Trump]

  283. birgerjohansson says

    “Will We Get AGI In 2025?”

    Short version: No.
    Sabine Hossenfelder:
    They are going to use the technology to hit their customers with spam. 

  285. DrVanNostrand says

    I certainly wouldn’t mind if Canada joined the US, and Trump and Republicans would hate the reality of it. But I’m still on team, “Why doesn’t the West Coast and New England join Canada?”. Although both are probably bad deals for Canadians.

  286. StevoR says

    So Trump wants to militariliy attack Denmark to get Greenland against its people’s wishes.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-08/trump-refuse-rule-military-force-panama-canal-greenland/104794196

    Denmark is a NATO member which, if I recall right means all other NATO members incding the USA are then obliged to defend Denmark against the USA’s attack. Right?

    (Am I really the first to not this?)

    Under Trump the USA would literally attack its allies and help its enemies.

    If youcan bear it WARNING : Trump unfiletred deranged ravings listen to ‘All hell will break out in the Middle East’ if captives are not released: Trump press conference here. (12 mins long.)

    Among other things his commenst on J^rioter Ashli Babbitt ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Ashli_Babbitt )

    Americans are you really gonna let this obviously demented dangerous mentally incompetent crook become POTUS?

  289. Reginald Selkirk says

    In “groundbreaking discovery,” Webb telescope spots record number of stars in distant galaxy

    NASA’s powerful Webb Telescope has spotted more than 40 ancient stars in a distant galaxy, researchers said in a new study.

    The study, published Monday in Nature, said the researchers used a technique called gravitational lensing to identify the stars. The phenomenon occurs when light bends around a large celestial body, making objects in space seem closer than they appear.

    Because of this, the scientists behind the study were able to get a look at 44 stars in the “Dragon Arc,” a part of the Abell 370 galaxy cluster. The arc is about 6.5 billion light-years away from Earth. Without gravitational lensing, trying to identify individual stars so far away would be like trying to look at dust on the moon, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said in a statement.

    Even with gravitational lensing acting as a magnifying glass, researchers can usually only spot one or a few stars at a time. Light bent around the galaxy cluster, the Center for Astrophysics said, and turned the Dragon Arc, which is normally spiral-shaped, into a “hall of mirrors of cosmic proportions.” That allowed researchers to see dozens of stars at once…

  290. JM says

    Youtube: Legal AF
    First step in Trump’s multiple appeals is rejected. Among the paperwork he filed was an emergency appeal to block the sentencing Friday. This was rejected but the case taken for an appeal to the full court.
    This was always a long shot to actually be approved but Trump’s lawyers are throwing everything at the wall in the hopes something sticks. The judge’s ruling is a bit amusing though, as the emergency stay was rejected but the date for the full appeal was set for January 21st. This means after the sentencing (when Trump could make a regular appeal) and the day after after his inauguration. At that point almost every reason for making this appeal becomes meaningless and it will probably be rejected and Trump left to make a regular appeal of the case.

  291. Reginald Selkirk says

    “Team Green” Gender Reveals Have Become A Viral Trend On Social Media, So I Talked To A Mom Who Did One To Understand

    Expectant parents revealing the gender of their unborn baby in some way has become just as common as having a baby shower, or just having a baby in general.

    Now, some expectant parents are joining “team green” and making announcements similar to gender reveals on social media. But instead of revealing pink or blue, the soon-to-be parents reveal the color green.

    The term “team green” started popping up on mommy blogs and birthing websites a few years ago. The color green signifies that the parents will find out the gender of their baby when it’s born…

  292. Pierce R. Butler says

    DrVanNostrand @ # 285: … “Why doesn’t [sic] the West Coast and New England join Canada?”

    That would require a process called secession, about which a firm precedent was settled almost 160 years ago – and which (at least) the military aspects of said precedent a majority of the current plurality party would love to apply to the regions you mention.

    Certain Canadians might also object, though they would probably withdraw such demurrals if obligated to instead annex Florida.

  293. DrVanNostrand says

    @292 Pierce

    It’s not a serious proposal, and as I said it’s also probably a bad deal for Canada. But if we’re discussing absurd fantasies, why not add it to the mix? Trump doesn’t even have a “concept of a plan” about how Canada, or any part of it would become part of the US. Similarly, I have no plan about how New England might leave and join Canada. Still, I’d prefer it to living in the same country as the MAGAt shitheads.

  294. says

    TRUMP’S BONKERS Press Conference is the Best Evidence Yet that He is Positively, Irreparably Insane

    If there is one thing that Donald Trump excels in, it is his unmatched ability to find ways to sink to ever deeper depths of depravity no matter how low his previous descent was. And in that endeavor he is constantly underestimated by well meaning observers who were incorrectly convinced that he had hit rock bottom.

    Get used to it America. There is no bottom for Trump. And the press conference that he held on January 7, 2025, will serve as testimony to Trump’s acutely scrambled psychotic state of mind. And true to form, he exceeded the cognitive collapse that he exhibited just the day before on the four year anniversary of his violent and deadly January 6th insurrection. […]

    There was an abundance of derp presented in the presser. Too much to recap in detail without suffering severe derp-exposure. Consequently, what follows are just a half dozen select excerpts that are more than sufficient to demonstrate how mentally diseased our president-elect is.

    FIRST: Trump whined about President Biden’s offshore drilling ban, saying that “625 million acres…That’s like the whole ocean.” However, 625 million acres is only 0.7% of the 88 billion acres of Earth’s oceans. […]

    SECOND: Regarding the January 6th insurrection, Trump was asked if he was “planning to pardon those who were charged with violent offenses.” He replied “We’re looking at it.” Then he went on to demand that “We have to find out about Hezbollah” and their role in it. […]

    THIRD: Trump wouldn’t be Trump if he wasn’t making up stupid stuff like, “This would be the only insurrection in history where people went in as insurrectionists with not one gun. […] And why didn’t they find the pipe bomber. I mean, they know who the pipe bomber is.” […]

    FOURTH: Since he is divinely infallible, Trump insists that “I did nothing wrong.” Well, nothing but inciting an insurrection, sexually abusing multiple women, stealing classified documents and lying about them to the FBI, paying a porn star “Hush Money” and misreporting it on financial forms. And so much more. But other than that… […] [Video of Trump saying “I won all these cases. Nobody has ever won so many cases against the Justice Department.” He didn’t win any of those cases. “He delayed them, so they were dismissed on technicalities” says NewsCorpse on X]

    FIFTH: And then there was this initiative that voters were crying out for: “We’ll be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.” [This video snippet and many other video snippets are available at the link.]

    SIXTH: Finally, when asked if he could assure that he would not use military means to take over Panama or Greenland, Trump responded “I’m not going to commit to that, no.” Because he says that the U.S. “needs Greenland for national security purposes.” Really? Ya mean like Hitler needed England and France and the rest of Europe? […]

  295. Bekenstein Bound says

    birgerjohansson:

    My apologies, I borked the link.

    Eh? It actually worked.

    For once.

  300. JM says

    @294 Lynna, OM: Likely related to Trump’s recent and unhinged public events:
    NBC News: Trump White House seeks to limit staffers who have direct access to the president

    The number of individuals with direct access to the president will be more limited when Donald Trump takes office in two weeks, as incoming chief of staff Susie Wiles seeks to streamline the new West Wing operation.
    In an effort to tighten the lines of communication with Trump, the transition team is cutting back on the number of top White House staff members given the designation of “assistant to the president,” which provides a staffer the privilege of walking into the Oval Office and bringing nonstaff guests in to meet with the president.

    There is only a limited group of people who can even try to drop in on the president when they want and bring people with them. The new Trump administration is trying to get the list down to only a couple. Top positions such as the legislative affairs director, responsible for coordinating with Congress, are not being given access.
    This sounds dangerously like a president who is losing it and the people around him are trying to control things.

  302. KG says

    birgerjohansson@301,
    Yes, “counter-insurgency” warfare seems to lead to atrocities on the part of the counter-insurgent forces even more reliably than inter-state wars.

  305. KG says

    DrVanNostrand@293,
    There’s a difference: given the political will, the USA could invade and occupy much of Canada*, Canada could not invade and occupy any part of the USA. Of course the precondition (the political will) looks absurd right now, but Trump clearly intends to destroy what there is of democracy in the USA, as do his techbro backers such as Musk and Thiel (and remember Vance was Thiel’s candidate for VPOTUS). The idea that the USA would elect a POTUS with such a clear intention would have looked absurd even a decade ago.

    *The most likely target is British Columbia, to join Alaska to the contiguous 48. In the negotiations with Britain over the frontier in that region, the maximal US position would almost have given the USA a land border with (Russian) Alaska.

  306. KG says

    The term “team green” started popping up on mommy blogs and birthing websites a few years ago. The color green signifies that the parents will find out the gender of their baby when it’s born… – Reginald Selkirk@291

    Or possibly some years or even decades later!

  308. KG says

    @260 Greenland, Panama

    Note these various wacko ideas were never mentioned during Trump’s campaign. Perhaps he would just rather have us talking about that, and not about his hush money case sentencing. – Reginald Selkirk@265

    Why should he give a shit about his sentencing? He’s won the election and is returning to power. Rather, he’s seeing how far he can go, and who will bend to his will. And at some stage, he may take revenge on those who won’t – like the governments of Panama and Denmark.

  309. birgerjohansson says

    KG@ 304
    True, but photosynthesis happens near the surface where UV can penetrate. Once life went beyond using simple ambient chemicals for energy the algae would be exposed to UV. While the photochemical smog in the early atmosphere absorbed some UV it was not as effective as ozone. And larger, more complex organisms have more things that will get trashed by the free radical molecules created by ionizing radiation including UV.
    Something held back life for a long time during the proterozoic. Other mechanisms -superhaline water, pH values – have been considered but not been a good fit. Oscillating ozone levels would do the job, according to the article.

    I am content to let experts of the proterozoic biosphere quarrel about which mechanism is most likely, I am not invested in the debate. As long as the result is deemed free from contradictions I will rejoice over science solving another puzzle (incidentally making the case against divine intervention even stronger).

  310. birgerjohansson says

    The absurd ruminations by Tr*mp is both a diversion, and a test how far he can go. There is no need to look for a grand long-term strategy. Dung beetles just follow their instinct and populists follow tactics that have worked in the past.

  312. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    A criticism of the Daily Kos article @294, not Lynna.

    Trump is a con man telling self-serving lies and who knowingly stokes distracting media dunk frenzies with BS. He’s a violent fascist enthusiast of bigotries, which at bottom are incoherent but common in society: a sane malice. He’s ignorant, misinformed, and incompetent, blustering to get his way, facts be damned. That is not evidence of an “acutely scrambled psychotic state of mind”, “cognitive collapse”, “mentally diseased”. When he says “I did nothing wrong,” he either feels entitled to do such things or he’s lying, not delusional. When he suggests investigating Hezbollah for Jan 6th, he’s the meme guy in a hot dog costume pointing fingers away from himself. He has agency and should be legally held liable for his actions. Sadly criminal proceedings have failed to protect us. The 25th ammendment does not even require mental illness. So Kos’ ableism is superfluous.

    Wikipedia – 25th Ammendment

    the principal draftsman of the amendment, writes that Congress deliberately left the terms unable and inability undefined “since cases of inability could take various forms not neatly fitting into [a rigid] definition … The debates surrounding the Twenty-fifth Amendment indicate that [those terms] are intended to cover all cases in which some condition or circumstance prevents the President from discharging his powers and duties”. A survey of scholarship on the amendment found [“no specific threshold—medical or otherwise—for the “inability” contemplated in Section 4. […] The amendment does not require that any particular type or amount of evidence be submitted”]

    Traits such as unpopularity, incompetence, impeachable conduct, poor judgment, or laziness might not in themselves constitute inability, but should such traits “rise to a level where they prevented the President from carrying out his or her constitutional duties, they still might

    He does ALSO have chronic impairments operating his brain, mouth, and body generally: rambling, word salad, slurring, etc. And personality disorders that enact dangerously dysfunctional coping mechanisms and social dynamics. But the national threat isn’t specifically him. He’s just the most glaringly obnoxious symptom of institutional decay. His Republican accomplices will continue to enable him—face-eating leopards with tasty faces that they are—until they get their retirement spine. They ignore violations of rules with specific wordings. Vague wordings and norms hold no sway with them. Certainly not shame or being personally screwed over.

    The Kos article concludes.

    It’s too bad that the 25th Amendment to the Constitution can’t be plausibly invoked once Trump is inaugurated. Because he is unarguably certifiable. […] Maybe there is some principled, non-violent way he could use [Biden’s SCOTUS-granted “absolute immunity”] now to save America from the madness

    The problem is broader than that: what increasingly large numbers of politicians have been allowed to get away with and yet stay in office to continue breaking things.

  313. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Re: Bekenstein Bound @295:
    birgerjohansson meant he forgot to prepend a period to prevent the (working) youtube link from becoming embedded video. Such ‘auto embedding’ makes the blog more resource intensive to load, particularly if allowed to become normalized in long threads. Hence an apology for the faux pas.

  314. Reginald Selkirk says

    @308: He clearly does. It can be a wasate of time trying to find a ‘why’ when dealing with unbalanced people.

    Trump asks the Supreme Court to block sentencing in his hush money case in New York

    President-elect Donald Trump is asking the Supreme Court to call off Friday’s sentencing in his hush money case in New York.

    Trump’s lawyers turned to the nation’s highest court on Wednesday after New York courts refused to postpone the sentencing by Judge Juan M. Merchan, who presided over Trump’s trial and conviction last May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Trump has denied wrongdoing.

    The justices asked for a response from prosecutors by Thursday.

    Trump’s team sought an immediate stay of the scheduled sentencing “to prevent grave injustice and harm to the institution of the Presidency and the operations of the federal government.” …

    It’s a state court proceeding, not federal; and he’s not actually president yet.

  316. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    In news deserts, Trump won in a landslide

    Donald Trump won the 2024 election with one of the smallest popular-vote margins in U.S. history [1.5%], but in news deserts—counties lacking a professional source of local news […] Trump won 91% percent of these counties […] by an average of 54 percentage points. In the few won by Harris, her margin was a comparatively slim 18 points
    […]
    doesn’t imply a cause and effect. That is, people didn’t necessarily vote for Trump because they lack local news. Instead, a simpler and more obvious correlation may be at work: News deserts are concentrated in counties that tend to be rural and have populations that are less educated and poorer than the national average–exactly the kind of places that went strongly for Trump
    […]
    But news deserts do have the potential to affect voting behavior in important ways. When voters lose access to local news, they tend to gravitate toward national news sources […] This kind of news, by definition, focuses on broad national issues—abortion, immigration, the economy, etc.—without regard to local conditions. […] “The general argument is that local news encourages people to consider other dimensions of a candidate’s appeal besides whether they share the same partisanship,” […] If you’re regularly exposed to local news about a candidate who has brought funding to your state for roads or other projects, for example, you might be inclined to cast a vote for him or her even if you don’t share the same party affiliation. […] In fact, access to local news appears to increase split-ticket voting, moderating the partisan drift.
    […]
    News deserts have social consequences for everyone who lives in them, but […] conservative voters may be paying a disproportionate price […]: more political corruption, higher taxes, lower bond ratings, greater social alienation and rising misinformation, as well as the loss of social cohesion when subjects such as high school sports, local obits and community projects aren’t covered. […] conservative voters—the very ones Trump has targeted with his attacks on the press—”should be helping to lead the drive” to save local news.

    lol. See also covid.

  318. Reginald Selkirk says

    Sam Altman’s family responds to lawsuit alleging he sexually assaulted his sister

    OpenAI CEO Sam Altman responded to sexual assault accusations from his estranged younger sister on Tuesday, calling the claims “entirely untrue.”

    According to the Saint Louis Post Dispatch, in a new lawsuit filed Monday, Annie Altman alleges her older brother sexually assaulted her over a nine-year period in the 1990s and 2000s. The suit echoes claims that Annie previously made on social media in 2021.

    Sam Altman acknowledged the lawsuit in a post on X on Tuesday, responding with a statement from his brothers, Max and Jack, as well as his mother, Connie.

    The Altman family alleges the lawsuit’s claims are false. They write that Annie has faced mental health challenges for several years and they are concerned about her well-being. The Altmans say they have tried to help Annie in many ways, including by financially supporting her for several years…

  319. Reginald Selkirk says

    Justice Department says it plans to release only part of special counsel’s Trump report for now

    The Justice Department said Wednesday that it will release special counsel Jack Smith’s findings on Donald Trump’s efforts to undo the results of the 2020 presidential election but will keep under wraps for now the rest of the report focused on the president-elect’s hoarding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate…

    Too Much, Too Little, Too Late – Johnny Mathis and Deniece Williams

  321. KG says

    birgerjohansson@309,

    Once life went beyond using simple ambient chemicals for energy the algae would be exposed to UV.

    Multicellular eukaryotic algae appear to have been around by 1.6 Gya – long before the article you link to suggests a stable ozone layer existed. So they were evidently able to cope with the UV. If there had been any, animals or other herbivores (algaevores?) could have hidden in the depths or under the ocean bed during the day, and grazed on these algae at night.

    Something held back life for a long time during the proterozoic.

    That seems to me to be the “evolution is progress” fallacy. Neither individual organisms, species, nor life itself strives to become more complex.

  322. KG says

    Reginald Selkirk@314,
    But if Trump wanted to avoid people talking about his sentencing, he could shut up and let it go ahead, since he’s already guaranteed an absolute discharge by the judge: his lawsuits about it keep it in the news.

    It can be a waste of time trying to find a ‘why’ when dealing with unbalanced people.

    That must apply just as much to his threats to Panama, Denmark and Canada. All we know is that he wants to make those threats, and doesn’t appear to care about the resultant diplomatic damage to alliances. So the simplest explanation is that he enjoys threatening violence, and does not believe he will suffer any adverse consequences.

  323. says

    CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain @312, thanks for that thoughtful post.

    Your analysis of the situation in which we find ourselves, of Trump, and of the people who support him is accurate in my opinion. The opinion which Daily Kos posted was too far off into speculation territory.

  324. says

    Trump wants to erase his guilty verdict. Judge Merchan has a plan to stop him.
    By Joyce Vance.

    “Judge Juan Merchan understands that jury verdicts matter. And in this case, the verdict matters more than the sentence.”

    Judge Juan Merchan’s decision to set President-elect Donald Trump’s sentencing for Friday, just 10 days before the inauguration, caught a lot of people by surprise. Judge Merchan indicated upfront that he wasn’t inclined to sentence Trump to time in prison and indeed that he was leaning toward an unconditional discharge — meaning Trump wouldn’t have to pay a fine or be supervised by a probation officer. He would walk away a free man, with no further obligations to the court.

    Judge Merchan’s critics had two main questions: Wouldn’t this punishment amount to a slap on the wrist, undermining the rule of law? And why couldn’t the judge wait and leave the sentencing hanging over Trump’s head until after he left office in four years, when his presidential immunity no longer applied?

    It’s not the usual situation a judge finds himself in when sentencing a convicted defendant. But the Supreme Court gave Trump immunity no one else possesses: broad immunity from criminal prosecution for a president’s official acts. The criminal conduct in the Manhattan case occurred before Trump became president and was clearly personal, not presidential, conduct. Trump used the Supreme Court’s ruling last year to delay his sentencing date to a point so close to the inauguration that a sentence including incarceration was no longer a realistic possibility. [Yep. True. Frustrating, but true.]

    But something more important than the sentence is at stake here: the conviction. Judge Merchan underlined the importance of the jury’s decision in his order. “The significance of the fact that the verdict was handed down by a unanimous jury of 12 of Defendant’s peers, after trial, cannot possibly be overstated,” he wrote. “Indeed, the sanctity of a jury verdict and the deference that must be accorded to it, is a bedrock principle in our nation’s jurisprudence.”

    Those aren’t just empty words. Trump was convicted after a fair and extensive trial. After hearing the evidence and listening to both witnesses and the arguments of the defense team, Trump’s jury concluded that he was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

    Trump now wants to erase that verdict and escape being forever labeled a “convicted felon.” He has railed repeatedly about how unfair the conviction was, claiming prosecutors are corrupt and Judge Merchan is “conflicted,” whatever that means. Trump wants the jury verdict, an assessment of his guilt made by his peers, to just go away.

    And that’s what could have easily happened had Judge Merchan left a custodial sentence on the table or decided to delay sentencing.

    The key to making sure Trump can’t wipe out the jury’s verdict is completing the appellate process. The conviction isn’t final until then. The clock for the appeal starts once sentencing is complete. Once Trump is sentenced, he has 30 days to file. If Judge Merchan had put off sentencing until 2029, Trump’s conviction would not be on the path to becoming final.

    Four years is a long time […] If a defendant passes away before an appeal is over, the conviction is extinguished, sometimes referred to as abatement ab initio. Trump will be 82 when he leaves office. Justice delayed can turn into justice denied. And Trump has already benefited enough from delay.

    On Monday, Trump tried to persuade Judge Merchan to hold off on the sentencing. The judge declined. On Tuesday, a New York appellate judge rejected Trump’s emergency stay request. Trump’s lawyers argued that presidential immunity should protect their client, even before he takes office. But the judge wasn’t persuaded. Trump’s crimes predate his first presidency, and there is no legal support for a doctrine of pre-presidential immunity.

    Wednesday morning, Trump escalated the appellate process, petitioning the United States Supreme Court to intervene on his behalf. Whether he can persuade the court to delay his sentencing before Friday remains to be seen.

    If he can’t, the appellate process will proceed. Trump will be able to argue his conviction should be reversed. This case was always headed to that point. But the prosecution was careful in this case, and the judge, despite Trump’s complaints, was fair and deferential to the defendant’s rights. There is every reason to believe the convictions will be affirmed on appeal. If that happens, at the end of the appellate process there will be finality for the conviction, which means Trump will forever be a convicted a felon.

    Trump posted on Truth Social that if it takes place, his sentencing would be “the end of the presidency as we know it.” That’s not the case. […]

    Judge Merchan understands that jury verdicts matter. And in this case, the verdict matters more than the sentence. He took a path designed to ensure a Manhattan jury’s difficult work wouldn’t evaporate and its conviction will stand. And by doing so, he will be remembered as someone who refused to bow to seemingly relentless pressure and instead upheld the rule of law.

  326. says

    From NBC News, as summarized by Steve Benen:

    While the Democratic candidate in North Carolina’s state Supreme Court race appears to have narrowly won her race, the court’s current Republican justices issued an order blocking state officials from certifying the election results. The Democrat’s GOP rival is still trying to throw out 60,000 votes cast in November, which would presumably tip the scales in his favor.

    From Cook Political, as summarized by Steve Benen:

    At his latest Mar-a-Lago news conference, Donald Trump claimed that “nobody even knows” the margin of his popular-vote victory. As it turns out, everyone knows: The Republican won by roughly 1.3 million votes, which works out to be roughly 1.5% of the overall total.

  327. says

    Can Republicans actually change the name of the Gulf of Mexico?

    “It’s unclear just how much of an effort Trump will invest in renaming the Gulf of Mexico, but a related question hangs overhead: Is this even possible?”

    Donald Trump made news on multiple fronts during his latest Mar-a-Lago press conference, but arguably the strangest development was [his] announcement about the Gulf of Mexico.

    According to [Trump], “we” will soon be “changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.” He added that he believes the new name has “a beautiful ring” to it, adding that as far as he’s concerned, rebranding the body of water would be “appropriate.”

    By all appearances, Trump was quite serious about this and gave no indication that he was kidding.

    Soon after, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene appeared on a far-right podcast and said she had already directed her staff to “immediately draft legislation” to implement the president-elect’s latest priority. “Congress has to do this,” the Georgia Republican declared, adding: “You better bet we are absolutely going to change the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Let’s go!”

    It’s difficult to say with confidence whether, and to what extent, the incoming president and his allies will pursue this goal. After all, Trump, who has a notoriously short attention span, floats all kinds of weird ideas that he routinely discards. Similarly, hundreds of legislative proposals are introduced every year that go completely ignored.

    […] a related question hangs overhead: Is this even possible?

    My MSNBC colleague Zeeshan Aleem made the case that this is at least theoretically possible, since U.S. presidents have the authority to “change the names of landmarks.”

    The Washington Post published a related report along these lines:

    The U.S. Board on Geographic Names is a federal interagency organization that is responsible for maintaining uniform geographic name usage throughout the federal government. The board operates under the interior secretary. The board’s Foreign Names Committee is responsible for standardizing foreign place names. The committee is composed of representatives from federal agencies, including several appointees specializing in geography and cartography. Members are appointed every two years. While the BGN does not create names for geographical features, it approves or rejects names proposed by others based on its established policies.

    Trump’s choice to serve as the interior secretary, for what it’s worth, is North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who seems eager to go along with the incoming president’s wishes.

    All of which is to say, it is at least possible for Republicans to pursue such a name change, though it would lead to a related challenge: As Zeeshan’s piece added, if the Trump administration succeeded on this, “that doesn’t mean other countries will go along with changing the name of a massive body of water whose name dates back more than four centuries.”

    As for how our neighbors to the south feel about all of this, Bloomberg News reported that Mexico’s president responded to Trump’s idea by suggesting that instead of changing the name of the Gulf, she’s wondering about renaming part of the United States.

    A day after the incoming US president said the body of water between his country, Mexico and the Caribbean should be called the “Gulf of America,” Claudia Sheinbaum presented early maps of the Americas at her daily press briefing. The Gulf of Mexico’s name has held since the early 17th century and is recognized by the United Nations, she said. Sheinbaum also joked that states including California and Texas could revert to their former name, “America Mexicana.”

    “It sounds good, doesn’t it?” Sheinbaum rhetorically asked reporters.

    If Trump changes the name to “Gulf of America,” the next president can change it back. And, other countries (and map makers) can refuse to go along with Trump.

  328. says

    ACA enrollment reaches new heights, but Republican threats remain
    Video at the link]

    “The strength of the Affordable Care Act has never looked better, but there are ominous, Republican-seeded clouds on the horizon.”

    Four years ago, President Joe Biden set out to lower the uninsured rate and bring health security to more Americans. As the Democrat prepares to leave office, there can be no doubt that he succeeded. The White House boasted in a written statement about the latest Affordable Care Act enrollment totals:

    [As a result of White House efforts,] the Biden-Harris Administration is announcing that it has set another all-time record for ACA Marketplace enrollment, with nearly 24 million Americans signing up for coverage with one week left in the 2025 Open Enrollment Period. A total of 45 million Americans have coverage through the ACA — either the Marketplace or Medicaid expansion — and more people have health insurance today than ever in our nation’s history.”

    The president and his team have every reason to boast, and it’d be a mistake to see the latest good news is some kind of accident. On the contrary, as Biden’s term got underway, Democrats included generous new ACA subsidies in their American Rescue Plan — the party’s Inflation Reduction Act kept the premium assistance in place — and their efforts made “Obamacare” more affordable than ever before. Consumers noticed, and enrollment totals soared.

    The results for health care advocates are worth celebrating: The Affordable Care Act is working, it’s increasingly popular, and it’s brought health security to more Americans than at any time in history.

    That’s the good news. Unfortunately for health care advocates, however, there are ominous clouds on the horizon.

    For one thing, Republicans are poised to have control over the White House and both chambers of Congress, and GOP leaders have been quite candid of late in condemning the nation’s current health care system. Before Election Day 2024, for example, Vice President-elect JD Vance spoke publicly about weakening protections for Americans with pre-existing conditions. Soon after, House Speaker Mike Johnson told a group of voters to expect “massive” health care changes in the U.S. once Donald Trump returns to power. “Health care reform’s going to be a big part of the agenda,” the GOP leader added.

    The House speaker later claimed that he was taken out of context, but a video from the event didn’t do him any favors. When an attendee asked at the event, “No Obamacare?” Congress’ top Republican leader replied, “No Obamacare.”

    Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah declared online soon after, “Kill Obamacare now.”

    After the elections, Trump kept the party’s offensive against the ACA going, declaring on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he believes the Affordable Care Act “stinks.”

    Complicating matters, the Democratic subsidies that have made ACA coverage more affordable are temporary — and they’re set to expire this year, creating what some observers have labeled a health care “time bomb.” Indeed, according to a recent Congressional Budget Office analysis, if the subsidies expire altogether, several million Americans will likely lose their coverage.

    As the last Congress neared its end, several Democrats tried to extend the status quo for another year, but GOP lawmakers ignored the proposal before heading home in mid-December.

    As for what’s likely to happen next, no one seems able to say for sure. A lobbying coalition is taking shape to push Republicans to keep premium costs low, but a variety of key GOP officials have already suggested they’re prepared to see some or all of the subsidies disappear.

  329. says

    […] We are, after all, talking about a Republican [Trump] who’s spent years advocating for U.S. missile strikes into Mexico and eyeing the possible use of military force in Iran. It’s hardly the stuff of isolationism.

    But those who want to see Trump as a champion of peace really ought to know better by now. The charade has unraveled. A leader willing to make veiled threats at a NATO ally [Denmark and/or Greenland] as part of a wildly unnecessary imperialistic pursuit is not a leader who can be counted on for responsible restraint on matters of foreign policy.

    Link

  330. says

    Democrats score wins in the first races since Trump’s re-election

    “Both parties were keeping an eye on Virginia’s legislative special elections this week — and Democrats had several reasons to celebrate the results.”

    […] NBC News reported on the results.

    Democrats won a pair of special legislative elections in Northern Virginia on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, allowing the party to maintain its narrow majorities in both chambers. … In a special state Senate election, Democrat Kannan Srinivasan, currently a member of the state House, defeated Republican Tumay Harding. … And in a special House race, Democrat JJ Singh, a former Capitol Hill aide and small-business owner, defeated Republican Ram Venkatachalam.

    The news for the GOP wasn’t all bad: In a conservative state Senate district west of Richmond, Republican Luther Cifers won his contest on the same day.

    […] control of the chambers in Virginia’s General Assembly was on the line: If the Democratic victories had gone the other way — and in off-year special election contests, one never really knows — Republicans would’ve taken control of the House of Delegates and the state Senate in the commonwealth. With their wins, Democrats instead held on to their narrow majorities, to the chagrin of Republican Gov. Glenn Younkgin, who’s entering his final year in office.

    […] Virginia is one of two states that will hold statewide elections in 2025, including a competitive gubernatorial race, and these state legislative races were, as the NBC News report put it, “an early test of the political environment.”

    But while it’s best not to extrapolate too much from local state legislative special elections, there was also a national dimension to these contests. As a Politico report noted, both parties watched the contests for “clues about Republicans’ durability in a Democratic stronghold that tilted toward Trump in November.”

    For Democrats, the races served as a trial run of their messaging against the incoming Trump administration, which they warned will compromise their individual rights and economic well being. It’s a preview of how Democrats throughout the country will shape their arguments against Trump and his allies.

    Election Day 2025 is a mere 300 days away. Watch this space.

  331. says

    Josh Marshall in 2018:

    With regard to the platforms, however, what we should be thinking about is that we’ve allowed a series of private platforms [like X and Meta] to muscle in on a lot of the public square. Many of those companies have bad values and bad corporate cultures. It is precisely because they have imposed themselves on the public square, have mimicked it, as it were, that they have decided to ape the modalities of ‘free speech’. This may seem like a good thing. But I would argue that it’s not. It’s part of passing themselves off as being something more like governments – ersatz governments with ersatz free speech.

    It is far better to brush the networks back, treat them as businesses and not as quasi-governments with their own corporate versions of free speech, which they very much want to do, on their own terms.

    Josh Marshall today:

    […] It’s not lost on me that there’s a downside to these tech companies pumping up online vigilantes and hate groups. Of course there is. But “content moderation” was just another corporate decision designed to protect profits, every bit as much as “free speech” is today.

    Sites like Facebook continued to be extremism and propaganda incubators not because they allow “free speech” but because their algorithms are extremism incubators by design. [True!!] Now, Zuckerberg panders to Trumpers by announcing that he is lifting “restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that are just out of touch with mainstream discourse.” The most pernicious part of the evolution of Meta’s rulebook is that somehow “Democrats” or “liberals” or “coastal elites” or whatever other swear word you want to use are now somehow on the line for the clunky “content moderation” regimes or speech codes companies like Facebook came up with. When I was at the gym yesterday, I watched a whole business news segment over the chyron, “Meta lifts restrictions on free speech.” These pretensions were always a crock and are now more than ever.

    I’ll say it again. These are private companies. Don’t let them pass themselves off as quasi governments. They’re not. The problem is that they’re so big and their arbitrary decisions cause all sorts of harm across societies. The heart of the problem is that social networks like Facebook are in fact publishers but the nature of the business model makes it impossible to do the kind of oversight of publication that all other publishers are expected to do. That means that one wildly powerful dweeb and his arbitrary decisions have a huge impact across the globe.

    For now I don’t have a solution for that. These companies exist and we have to deal with that. But I don’t want to find myself in a situation where I’m on the line for any of this stuff or carrying the water of whatever division of Facebook is now being relocated to Texas. I don’t want private companies like Meta, often ones with very bad internal cultures, passing themselves off as something verging on “institutions” that right-minded people need to defend. They’re private companies, ones that in addition to helping you keep in touch with friends and relatives also cause a lot of societal damage.

    Zuck’s ‘Content Moderation’ Was Always A Crock

    More at the link.

  332. says

    RFK Jr. faces fresh scrutiny over alleged ties to deadly measles outbreak

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, is receiving renewed scrutiny and criticism for his alleged role in a 2019 measles outbreak that killed over 80 people in Samoa.

    This week, Kennedy is scheduled to meet with Democratic senators at the Capitol to ask for their votes to confirm him.

    Kennedy was chosen by Trump to lead the agency, which has oversight of key organizations like Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and National Institutes of Health, despite Kennedy’s history of attacking vaccination and promoting anti-vaccine conspiracy theories.

    In a new ad campaign and accompanying mini documentary, the advocacy group 314 Action is highlighting Kennedy’s actions promoting vaccine misinformation in Samoa. Kennedy traveled to the nation in 2019, meeting with government officials and anti-vaccine influencers. Soon after, a measles outbreak killed at least 83 people and hospitalized 1,867. Most of the victims of the outbreak were babies and young children.

    In 2021, Kennedy wrote a blog post that described the deadly outbreak of measles as “mild.” [video at the link]

    In 314 Action’s ad, Hawaii Gov. Josh Green, who is also a doctor, said he visited Samoa as part of a vaccination campaign.

    “In the months leading up to that, RFK Jr. had spread so much disinformation that the country stopped vaccinating,” Green said. “And that caused a tragic and fatal spread of the measles.”

    In the ad, Green accused Kennedy of legitimizing “fake health groups,” an action which Green said “killed children.”

    Dr. Heath Chung, an infectious disease specialist, also appears in the ad and attributes the outbreak in Samoa to the spread of anti-vaccine misinformation.

    Samoan health officials have also recently criticized Kennedy’s nomination, citing the effect his promotion of misinformation had in their country.

    “We cannot and should not stay silent. We know what this appointment means. It means more platforms for anti-vaxxers and less funding for vaccines and health programs,” Aiono Prof Alec Ekeroma, who serves as that country’s director of general health, told The Guardian in November.

    Polling shows opposition to Kennedy’s nomination once voters are made aware of his positions. In a poll fielded Nov. 27-29 from Protect Our Care/Data for Progress, only 39% of respondents supported the nomination after they were told about Kennedy’s opposition to drug development, disease research, and vaccination.

    In his first administration, Trump presided over serious mismanagement of the COVID-19 outbreak. […] Kennedy’s nomination is a sign that Trump intends to continue down the same dangerous path when it comes to public health.

  333. says

    Republican takes her transphobic road show to Democrat’s home turf

    Rep. Nancy Mace is taking her bathroom ban tirade to Delaware—the home of Congresswoman Sarah McBride.

    Mace will take the stage Friday at the behest of Delaware Republicans, who extended the invitation back in December.

    […] Mace’s seemingly nonstop X barrage of attacks against transgender people had a goal behind it—to ban McBride, the one trans individual in Congress, from using the bathroom that aligned with their gender identity.

    While Speaker Mike Johnson originally supported this idea and announced a rule to follow suit, the ban was noticeably absent from the Republicans’ House Rules Package when it was voted on last week. […]

    Mace’s spokesperson Sydney Long told Axios that Mace still intends to beat the dead horse that is her anti-trans bathroom ban during her speech on Friday. According to the outlet, Mace will address her transphobic pet project “along with other key women’s issues, including her Preventing Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act.”

    […] The once “pro-transgender” Mace has been on a McBride offensive since she got word that the congresswoman would be joining her in Washington, D.C., spewing vile attacks via X and even selling merch to try to fuel the hatred.

    While Mace is at her podium yelling about who can pee where, McBride will be busy doing her job. In a statement provided to Axios, McBride’s spokesperson Michaela Kurinsky-Malos said, “This weekend Congresswoman McBride will attend a bipartisan meeting with her colleagues from the House to discuss solutions to the most pressing issues facing her constituents.”

    The Delaware congresswoman hasn’t given much airtime to the Republicans arguing over bathroom politics. In a single statement, McBride made it clear that she was in Congress to better the lives of Delawareans and not to fight with her colleagues.

    “This is a blatant attempt from far right-wing extremists to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing,” McBride wrote via X in November. [X post available at the link]

    Mace’s anti-trans bathroom ban is a piece of a bigger picture overlooking the anti-trans efforts in the Republican-led Congress and incoming administration.

    While her personal vendetta didn’t make the cut on the House Rules Package, Republicans managed to tee up a bill that would require student athletes to compete in sports that align with their gender assigned at birth.

    Other attacks targeting the transgender community looming over the country include the Supreme Court case of U.S. v. Skrmetti, which challenges a widely debated Tennessee law banning medical care for transgender youth. […]

  335. Tethys says

    From #296 Birgerjohansson

    Explaining the delayed rise of plants and animals on land

    The “on land” is the pertinent information. Complex multicellular algae are found in multiple locations around the world, but they are from marine sediments.

    The Chuanlingau Formation that contains these early algae fossils is a marine shale, as is noted in the paper.

    during which multicellular algae began to occur and evolve in marine environments. This paper reports well-preserved multicellular fossils from shales of the Chuanlinggou Formation (c. 1.64 Ga) in North China, with emphasis on their holdfast and putative cellular structures.

    https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/pala.12685#pala12685-sec-0002-title

  336. says

    Garland to release Smith’s Jan. 6 report, hold back Mar-a-Lago report

    Attorney General Merrick Garland plans to release only the volume of special counsel Jack Smith’s report dealing with Donald Trump’s plans to subvert the transfer of power after his loss in the 2020 election, holding back on sharing the Mar-a-Lago report while the president-elect’s two co-defendants still face trial.

    Federal prosecutors made Garland’s plans clear in a Wednesday morning filing urging an appeals court to reject a bid from Trump valet Walt Nauta and property manager Carlos De Oliveira to bar the attorney general from releasing the report in its entirety.

    Garland made the determination at Smith’s recommendation “to avoid any risk of prejudice.”

    “The Attorney General determined that he will not make a public release of Volume Two while defendants’ cases remain pending. That should be the end of the matter,” prosecutors wrote.

    The filing says the top members of the House and Senate Judiciary committees will be able to review the Mar-a-Lago report at the Department of Justice (DOJ).

    Garland’s decision, however, all but assures the public will never see Smith’s report reviewing Trump’s mishandling of classified records at his Palm Beach, Fla., resort.

    Under Trump’s DOJ, prosecutors are expected to drop charges against Nauta and De Oliveira, and Trump has moved to stock the top ranks of DOJ with his personal criminal defense team — the same cadre of attorneys who this week have fought to block release of Smith’s work entirely.

    The filing comes amid a broader legal battle by Trump and his co-defendants to block Smith from releasing both sections of his two-volume report.

    The trio first went to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who agreed Tuesday to block release of the whole report without waiting for a promised filing by Smith’s team.

    It was an unusual move for several reasons.

    It’s not clear Cannon still has jurisdiction over the case. Prosecutors have appealed an earlier ruling from her tossing the case after she determined Smith was unlawfully appointed — a decision reversing 50 years of precedent regarding special counsel laws. The matter now rests before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

  337. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/wikipedia-wont-let-elon-musk-fluff

    “Wikipedia Won’t Let Elon Musk Fluff His Resume. Heritage Foundation Will Help By Terrorizing The Editors.”

    If there’s one thing conservatives hate, it’s narratives they can’t control, not even with all the rage and money in the world.

    Predictably, the shrillest among them — Elon Musk, “Libs of TikTok” stochastic terrorist Chaya Raichik, and the Heritage Foundation — are renewing their focus on Wikipedia, a nonprofit and the world’s biggest encyclopedia and fourth-most-visited website in the world. It’s got free, open, transparently edited crowdsourced content, and no less lofty of a goal than “a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge.” Anyone who signs up can edit it, and the edits are overseen by 847 volunteer administrators, all with pseudonyms.

    The nonprofit is not for sale and the anonymous nature of the editors makes them difficult to intimidate. And it means that, say, Elon Musk, who was able to buy X and his very own president, cannot edit his own Wikipedia page or have his Musketeers rename him “Kekius Maximus” or call himself the “founder of Tesla” on there without having another editor or administrator revert the change, RRR GRR! And trolls get blocked, how dare they?!

    That’s also all too much actual free speech for the Heritage Foundation, AKA the Christian Dominionist weirdos who brought us Project 2025. [“all too much actual free speech,” LOL] In documents obtained by Forward, they detail a creepy-as-fuck doxxing plan led by former FBI agent Tom Olohon to “identify and target Wikipedia editors abusing their position” by using hacked usernames and passwords, plus facial recognition software (!). The plan is to make fake Wikipedia user accounts, then try to trick editors into identifying themselves by sharing personal information, or by clicking on malicious tracking links. Whatever would they do with editors’ personal information? Send them fruit baskets, surely!

    The stated justification for identifying and tracking volunteer editors is a nebulous accusation of “anti-Semitism,” though exactly what is meant by that they don’t specify. Perhaps because back in June, Wikipedia editors (which is anyone with an account that’s at least 30 days old and who’s made at least 500 edits) concluded that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) was reliable on other topics, but “generally unreliable” on the topic of Israel and Zionism, because it is an advocacy organization, and content on Wikipedia is supposed to be written from a neutral point of view.

    The Heritage Foundation is also likely not happy with Wikipedia’s Heritage Foundation page, which catalogs their many misdeeds with facts such as:

    In May 2022, the Heritage Foundation completely reversed its position supporting military aid to Ukraine in its attempt to repel the Russian invasion of the nation, which it had previously supported.[84]

    In September 2022, one Heritage employee said he had been “required by management to remove a Twitter post condemning the January 6 United States Capitol attack.”[88]

    On July 12, 2024, Heritage stated a conspiracy theory that Biden could attempt to remain in office following the 2024 election by force,[90] and that the 2024 election was illegitimate in advance.[91]

    The Heritage Foundation has promoted false claims of electoral fraud. Hans von Spakovsky, who heads the Heritage Foundation’s Election Law Reform Initiative, has played an influential role in elevating alarmism about voter fraud in the Republican Party, despite offering no evidence of widespread voter fraud.[189][190] His work, which claims voting fraud is rampant, has been discredited.[191]

    And oh boy are Chaya Raichik and Elon Musk mad about their latest budget. Diversity and inclusion are what encyclopedias are all about, and that just doesn’t sit right with them. [Musk’s post is available at the link]

    There is no “editing authority” at Wikipedia, there is just the consensus of hundreds of editors, who debate each other in exhaustive discussions.

    Also “equity” and “restore balance” would seem to be synonyms, but these dumbfuck snowflakes are hairtrigger-sure that it means “make the web site be mean to conservatives.” What Wikipedia actually means by this is an effort to recruit volunteer editors from regions of the world that don’t historically access Wikipedia, which is a prerequisite to cataloguing all of human knowledge. But to how-dare-you right-wing shit-stirrers, these are double-plus-ungood thoughtcrimes!

    […] Wikipedia’s long been a burr in Musk’s behind, and he’s obsessed with how it portrays him, whine-tweet-pleading in 2019, “Just looked at my wiki for 1st time in years. It’s insane! Btw, can someone please delete ‘investor’. I do basically zero investing.” He would prefer to be known as a “founder” of companies, even though his “founding” activities have been … investing. “Started Zip2 with ~$2k & ~$100k of student debt, rolled proceeds into X/PayPal, rolled proceeds again into SpaceX/Tesla, but these are all companies where I played fundamental founding role,” he huffed.

    He later offered Wikipedia a billion dollars to change its name to “Dickipedia,” because he’s a late-middle-aged dad with the mind of a 12-year-old boy on Twitch. “Please add that to the [cow and poop emojis] on my wiki page,” he continued in another post. “In the interests of accuracy.” (The editors did not.)

    Why don’t conservatives just make their own Wikipedia? They’ve tried! Phyllis Schafly’s son Andrew made Conservapedia, which is as ridiculous and grammatically challenged as you might expect, and full of slobbering praise for its heroes.

    Bias in Wikipedia is a danger to a free society. This list covers a wide range of bias in the English Wikipedia, nicknamed “Woke”-ipedia, website. Although Wikipedia claims to have credibility because anyone can edit it, the website represents the views of its most strident and persistent, and that is, liberal editors. For example, on Christmas Day 2016 (NYC time), Wikipedia’s entry for U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Maryanne Trump Barry prominently and falsely declared: “Her younger brother is [a] loan shark and liar Donald Trump,”[1] something which remained for an unusually-long forty-eight minutes before it was corrected.[2]

    FORTY-EIGHT MINUTES! And that’s unusually slow? It’s sure faster fact-checking than you’re going to get on Facebook or X these days.

    Well, good on ya, Wikipedia. Sounds like it’ll be more indispensable than ever in these post-truth times.

  338. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/until-youre-the-one-filming-the-disaster

    Wildfires driven by extreme winds are burning through the Los Angeles area today, across thousands of acres in dry, steep hilly areas and forcing the evacuations of more than 80,000 residents so far. The first fire broke out in the wealthy Pacific Palisades area Tuesday morning, with winds of up to 80 mph rapidly spreading the flames. Some roads were so clogged with people trying to escape that at one point police urged them to abandon their vehicles and run for their lives; a Fire Department bulldozer had to push aside cars to make a path for arriving fire trucks.

    The AP reports also that the fire was so intense that overnight

    staff at a senior living center had to push dozens of residents in wheelchairs and hospital beds down the street to a parking lot. The residents — one as old as 102 — waited there in their bedclothes as the night sky glowed red from flames and embers fell around them until ambulances, buses and even construction vans arrived to take them to safety.

    Parts of Santa Monica and Malibu are under evacuation orders, with tens of thousands of residents being warned they should be ready to evacuate if necessary. Homes and businesses along Pacific Coast Highway have been destroyed.

    Two more fires exploded overnight over to the east, in Pasadena and Altadena, with wind speeds reaching 99 mph at one point last night. The wind gusts grew so strong that fire officials had to suspend flights of air tankers late in the evening. A fourth fire, in the Sepulveda Basin near Van Nuys, broke out just this morning.

    In at least some parts of the Palisades, firefighters encountered fire hydrants that had no water pressure, although it’s not yet clear how widespread the problem was or what the cause was. Despite that, former LA mayoral candidate Rick Caruso, the billionaire real estate developer who lost to current Mayor Karen Bass in 2022 — and who owns a shopping center in Pacific Palisades — complained Tuesday that the fire hydrant problems reflected a “systemic problem of the city — not only of mismanagement, but our infrastructure is old,” and yes, that is already being echoed in social media posts blaming Bass for not putting out apocalyptic wildfires across LA County.

    Rightwing Twitter is busy retweeting a recording of a phone call Caruso made to a local TV station blaming the devastation on Bass, insisting that “there’s no water in the fire hydrants” anywhere in the Palisades, and calling it “absolute mismanagement by the city.” He complained that Bass was out of the country, that “there’s no resources to put out fires,” and that “it looks like we’re in a third-world country here.” Online rightwingers obligingly added that Bass was visiting Ghana, which of course proves that she caused the fires simply by being Black. More on that in a minute; we’re sure it will be getting uglier.

    The LA fires are being made worse both by the high winds and by drought; as the Los Angeles Times reports, since October 1, the start of the “water year” (also the fiscal year),

    downtown Los Angeles has received 0.16 inches of rain — a tiny fraction of the 4.64 inches that downtown gets, on average, by this point in the season. [!!]

    By contrast, Northern California hasn’t faced such fire weather, with rainfall at above-average levels. Downtown San Francisco has received 10.39 inches of rain since Oct. 1 — above the 9.29 inches of rainfall the city gets on average by this point in the season.

    [So we must conclude that Karen Bass also controls the weather … by being black and liberal.]

    Alex Hall, director of the UCLA Center for Climate Science, told the LA Times that the prior two very rainy years in Southern California were great after an extended drought, but that now there’s “plenty of fuel for potential wildfires.” [Post at the link]

    This is what climate change looks like, although in his call to local TV, Caruso speculated that drought couldn’t really be the problem, insisting instead, “I would bet that” the city and LA County hadn’t done anything at all to mitigate brush accumulations in the hills and canyons “in 30 or 40 years,” making it a gospel fact. Call us crazy, but we’d prefer some evidence that nobody raked the ravines first.

    Fortunately the current US president does not have a personal grudge against California, and the federal government is working closely with Gov. Gavin Newsom to provide firefighting and disaster relief aid. President Biden was actually visiting the Los Angeles area yesterday to designate two new national monuments; that event was cancelled because of the emergency. Biden’s return to Washington was delayed until Wednesday afternoon because of the high winds and because the typical FAA flight restrictions involved whenever Air Force One flies anywhere could have hampered operations for emergency flights.

    Also, in what might as well stand as an example of where America is today, while many residents in the area took care to help neighbors escape the fires, a wealthy real estate guy who once bragged that “real estate ballers don’t pay any taxes!” and during the election called on Donald Trump to cut property taxes once in office took to Twitter to ask last night,

    “Does anyone have access to private firefighters to protect our home in Pacific Palisades? Need to act fast here. All neighbors houses burning. Will pay any amount. Thank you.”

    He clarified in replies that he and his family had left “hours ago” but that he just needed someone to come and keep his property from burning, and later retweeted an Elon Musk tweet accusing Barack Obama of making sure that the “extremely competent” Caruso lost the 2022 election to Bass. Caruso has to be competent, after all, because he was in the news for being a white guy, but Italian.

    […] the replies to Musk mostly called Bass, who won a majority of the vote as if that matters, a “DEI hire.” Just to be clear here, if it turns out that some routine maintenance problem was the reason for some Pacific Palisades hydrants going dry, that’s terrible, but was not the cause in itself for the vast scale of the inferno.

    We’ll have time to ignore lots of similar shit, which will undoubtedly get worse once Trump takes office. In the meantime, we can at least note that not everyone in the area is a rich asshole; during the fire yesterday, actor Steve Guttenberg, who also had to evacuate, was busy helping moving abandoned cars to help fire trucks get through, telling a local TV station that people should leave their keys in their car if they abandon them, so firefighters can at least move them.

    “There are people stuck up there. So we’re trying to clear Palisades Drive and I’m walking up there as far as I can moving cars,” he revealed, pointing up to the hill where traffic was slowly making its way down.

    “There are families up there, there are pets up there. There are people who really need help,” he said. […]

    “Don’t worry about your personal property. Just get out. Get your loved ones and get out.”

    […] he’s a good egg, and public spirited.

  339. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/this-is-the-free-speech-mark-zuckerberg

    “Oh good, people can say women are property and LGBTQ people are mentally ill on Facebook now.”

    When we wrote about Mark Zuckerberg’s love gifts to Donald Trump and the MAGA movement — the elimination of factcheckers, moving the moderators from the land of San Francisco Values to the back booth of a Hooters outside Lubbock, etc. — there was a line in his screed that might have read as gobbledygook to the average reader, but to the trained ear was a dogwhistle to the Nazis that it was open season on Facebook, Threads, and Meta for them to come on in and tiki torch up the place.

    Zuckerberg […] explained that they were going to “get rid of a bunch of restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that are just out of touch with mainstream discourse.” He said they were trying to be “inclusive,” but unfortunately the restrictions had been “used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas.”

    He meant Nazis and Christian nationalist extremists and white supremacists and misogynists […] AKA Trump supporters.

    Those are the opinions that were getting shut down […]

    We wanted to be wrong, even though there was a zero percent chance of that, because we’re not fucking morons.

    Without the fanfare of Zuckerberg’s […] announcement, Wired reports that Meta quietly changed its policies on hate speech yesterday, presumably to reflect the changes Zuckerberg announced.

    These are the things that are now legal again to say, on Facebook. (Click here for the current policy; you’ll see where it says “Today” for the most current version, but if you click on “January 8, 2025,” you can see exactly what they crossed out of the old policy and what they added in to make that current version. Unless they delete it, in which case we screengrabbed it […])

    It used to say they don’t allow “hate speech.” Now it says no “hateful conduct.” […]

    It is now OK to refer to “women as household objects or property or objects in general” and to refer to “transgender or non-binary people as ‘it.’” We know, because they crossed those lines out in the old policy and didn’t rephrase them or otherwise move them around.

    It is now OK to “argu[e] for gender-based limitations of military, law enforcement, and teaching jobs. We also allow the same content based on sexual orientation, when the content is based on religious beliefs.” As long as you say “Simon says God says!” you can be as much of a Nazi as you want! [FFS]

    Come to think of it, that was the original Nazi policy too, more or less, since that was an explicitly Christian movement.

    I bet we’re not allowed to say that on Facebook anymore.

    There’s a whole new section to make sure anti-trans shitheels are allowed to be as hateful as they want. They added these big exceptions to their policy against advocating for denying people access to spaces and social services. After the words “except for gender-based exclusion,” they added, “from spaces commonly limited by sex or gender, such as restrooms, sports and sports leagues, health and support groups, and specific schools.” Subtle!

    It appears to be Facebook legal to call people r*t*rd*d again. Or at least it doesn’t spell out so clearly that it’s not. Read it for yourself and decide on that one
    .
    New text: “We do allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality and common non-serious usage of words like ‘weird.’” Got that? You can totally say LGBTQ people are mentally ill now, because there is political and religious discourse that says that! (From Nazis, white supremacists, Christian nationalists, and other living dogshit Trump supporters.)

    Meta’s hateful conduct policy used to note, from the top, that hateful language online could “promote offline violence.” They sliced that one right outta there, and now the language that appears related to that is near the bottom, and it’s been defanged entirely.

    Based on Wired’s reading of the policy, they think it’s fair game now to say Chinese people are responsible for COVID. Which would seem to be something Donald Trump might personally want.

    Aren’t those just some really important wins for free speech? Aren’t you glad that Donald Trump’s base will now feel more free to be themselves, relieved of accusations of hate speech or worse, when they’re on Facebook looking for people to abuse in order to distract them from the utterly pathetic emptiness of their uninteresting lives?

    Oh boy, America is already great again, we can just feel it.

  340. says

    https://www.nbcnews.com/video/what-led-to-the-wildfire-that-is-engulfing-the-pacific-palisades-228783173533

    The Palisades Fire has forced thousands of people to evacuate from the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles and has caused catastrophic damage. NBC News’ Jacob Soboroff, born and raised in the Pacific Palisades, reports on how the fire spread so rapidly.

    “Pacific Palisades has been wiped off the map.”

    Video at the link, including weather reports describing destructive winds. “Extreme fire behavior likely.”

    Two people have died.

  341. Reginald Selkirk says

    Ukrainian hackers take credit for hacking Russian ISP that wiped out servers and caused internet outages

    Russian internet provider Nodex said it was in the process of restoring its systems after a destructive cyberattack earlier this week that saw hackers compromise its network and wipe its internal servers, causing an immediate and complete collapse of internet connectivity to its Russian customers.

    According to data from networking giant Cloudflare, which monitors internet trends and traffic, the Russian regional ISP’s outage began late on January 6 and continues to show customer internet traffic levels at 0%.

    In a post on Russian social networking site VK, Nodex confirmed the cyberattack. “The network has been destroyed. We are raising it from backup copies,” the post read, according to a machine translation. The internet provider said it had no immediate timeline for its recovery.

    The company later attributed the cyberattack to Ukrainian hackers, which it says caused a “complete failure” in its infrastructure, per the translation.

    A hacking group called the Ukrainian Cyber Alliance took credit for the cyberattack, posting screenshots from key servers inside of Nodex’s network…

  342. says

    “Why would a Senate Democrat consider voting to confirm RFK Jr.?”

    About a week before Election Day 2024, Dr. Jerome Adams, who served nearly four years as Donald Trump’s surgeon general, spoke at a conference and expressed some unexpected concerns — not about his former boss, per se, but about a man who had his former boss’ ear.

    If Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “has a significant influence on the next administration,” the physician said, it could have an adverse effect on “our nation’s health, on our nation’s economy [and] on our global security.”

    The former surgeon general added that he would “advise Republicans to tread very carefully.”

    But what if Republicans aren’t the only ones who need to heed Adams’ warning? The Hill reported:

    A handful of Senate Democrats are said to be leaving the door open to voting for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to become the next Health and Human Services secretary. As preparations for confirmation hearings begin to take shape, multiple sources say Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and John Fetterman (D-Pa.), in particular, are at least considering voting for Kennedy, noting shared critiques on heavy corporate influence over food and a desire to promote a less chemical-laden country.

    While The Hill’s report hasn’t been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, some Democratic senators have said publicly that they’re concerned about the support Kennedy might yet receive from some of their intraparty colleagues.

    To the extent that readers might benefit from a refresher, my MSNBC colleague Zeeshan Aleem explained last year that RFK Jr. “is best known for fringe conspiracy theories tied to vaccines and other medical interventions, such as the belief that antidepressants cause school shootings.”

    NPR had a related report last year, noting, “Wi-Fi causes cancer and ‘leaky brain,’ Kennedy told podcaster Joe Rogan … Chemicals in the water supply could turn children transgender, he told right-wing Canadian psychologist and podcaster Jordan Peterson, echoing a false assertion made by serial fabulist Alex Jones. AIDS may not be caused by HIV, he has suggested multiple times.”

    Kennedy’s views on Covid are every bit as bizarre and unserious, and he’s already demonstrated a capacity for having a disastrous impact on public health policy. By any fair measure, RFK Jr. is among the most indefensible and potentially dangerous personnel choices that Trump has made since winning a second term. [video at the link: RFK Jr.’s nomination for HHS Secretary is ‘dangerous,’ says Dem senator 05:40]
    And he might very well be confirmed anyway.

    To be sure, even if the Senate Democratic minority was united in its opposition, Democrats couldn’t derail this prospective nomination on their own. Some of Kennedy’s reality-based opponents have indicated that they’re hoping that a handful of on-the-fence Senate Republicans will hear from so many physicians, medical professionals, hospital administrators and public health officials in their own states it might put his confirmation in doubt.

    That strategy, however, is predicated on unanimous Democratic opposition to arguably the worst HHS nominee in history — and that is by no means a certainty.

    “Why are we giving RFK Jr. a pass?” Sen. Chris Murphy asked during an interview on MSNBC’s “All In with Chris Hayes.” The Connecticut Democrat added, “Okay, he wants to ban pharmaceutical advertising. That’s nice. He also wants to kill our kids by withdrawing vaccines from our schools and taking fluoride out of our drinking water. Democrats have to fight these nominees.”

    Murphy made related comments to The New Republic’s Greg Sargent a few weeks earlier. “If we just accept that RFK Jr. is a mainstream nominee to head the health agency when he just finished telling us that he thinks maybe Covid was a genetically engineered virus to protect Chinese and Ashkenazi Jews, we’re cooked,” the senator said. “We’re cooked if that, all of a sudden, is a normal thing — to nominate somebody like that, who thinks things like that, to head up the biggest health agency in the world.”

    Whether Murphy can convince his Democratic colleagues — and perhaps four or more of his Republican colleagues — remains to be seen. Watch this space.

    Link

  343. says

    Political violence is supposed to repel us. But Trump allies are acclimating to it, by Rachel Maddow. Video at the link, January 6 presentation.

    In 2018, in Coral Gables, Florida, then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi attended an event for Donna Shalala, a Democratic congressional candidate. In response, the local Republican Party in Miami-Dade County called for a protest of that event.

    During that protest, members of the Proud Boys heckled and shouted expletives at Pelosi as she walked inside. That included Enrique Tarrio, the national head of the Proud Boys. At the time, Tarrio lived in South Florida. He now lives in federal prison after being convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 22 years for trying to overthrow the U.S. government. On Monday, Tarrio’s lawyer wrote to Donald Trump formally asking the president-elect to pardon his client.

    Another attendee of that 2018 protest was Miami-Dade County Commissioner Kevin Cabrera, who can be seen on video pounding the door of Shalala’s campaign office. Trump just named Cabrera as his pick to be the next U.S. ambassador to Panama.

    Cabrera defended his conduct, saying he was just exercising his right to protest, but it’s worth remembering that, at the time, Republicans were actually embarrassed by the display. The head of the Miami-Dade Republican Party later apologized for being there. Other Republicans, including Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, condemned the event.

    Just more than six years later, Rubio is about to be nominated to be Trump’s secretary of state, and the guy who pounded on a door to try to scare Pelosi is set to report to him as a U.S. ambassador.

    The reason that is repellent, the reason that is repulsive, is because we’re supposed to have a sharp line that keeps violent intimidation on one side and politics on the other — never the twain shall meet.

    On Monday, the certification of the 2024 presidential election took place in Washington. It happened, ministerially and ceremonially, like it’s supposed to. That contrasts with what occurred four years ago on Jan. 6 and makes clear the profound difference between the parties.

    Had Democrats won the presidential election, many openly expected and prepared for the possibility of Republicans launching a violent revolt. But if Republicans had won, it was expected Democrats would peacefully accept and participate in the transfer of power. When there’s an expectation of violence if one side loses in an electoral contest, then the political parties in that country are no longer competing in democratic terms.

    That’s part of what we’re contending with at this moment: How do we ever get back to competition in democratic terms? How do we get the Republicans to no longer see physical force and armed conflict as the way they’re going to get their way?

    Well, one big step backward from that as a goal will be Trump’s promised pardons of the people who committed violence in his name that day. The argument now appears to not be about whether Trump will issue pardons to people who took part in the attack on the Capitol, but just how many of them will get the pardon. [Unfortunately, that is accurate.]

    That’s led publications as diverse as the HuffPost and The Wall Street Journal editorial page to try to front page the details of the actual crimes for which some of these people were convicted.

    “Andrew Taake pepper-sprayed police officers defending the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 and hit one with a metal whip. He is serving 74 months at a federal prison in Beaumont, Texas,” HuffPost reported.

    “Christopher Alberts carried a loaded 9 mm pistol onto Capitol grounds that day and hit police officers with a wooden pallet,” the report continued. “He is serving an 84-month sentence at the federal prison in Milan, Michigan.”

    Another example from HuffPost: “Steven Cappuccio held his cell phone in his mouth so he could beat an officer using both of his hands, including with the officer’s own baton. He is doing 85 months at the federal prison in Forrest City, Arkansas.”

    As the outlet noted, all three of those men will be back on the streets if Trump follows through on his pledge to pardon the Jan. 6 insurrectionists.

    According to their analysis, “Of those serving a year or more in prison, a full 57% are there following a conviction in cases involving an assault on a police officer. In all, 83% serving a year-or-more were convicted of committing an act of violence.”

    This means that, with few exceptions, the only people Trump could release from prison with his pardon power are those who attacked a police officer, possessed weapons or explosives, or were convicted of some other violent felony.

    Then there’s the deeply conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page, which published a piece with the headline, “Trump’s Pardon Promise for Jan. 6 Rioters: Does it include the ex-meth trafficker who brought a metal baton and swung it at police?”

    After describing some of the actions of these rioters in brutal detail, the editorial board goes on to write, “Pardoning such crimes would contradict Mr. Trump’s support for law and order, and it would send an awful message about his view of the acceptability of political violence done on his behalf.”

    Now, I take issue with the Journal’s characterization that Trump has always supported law and order; he’s repeatedly praised violence in his name. But that last line is correct — it would send an awful message.

    This Jan. 6, we saw the profound difference between the Democratic Party, offering democratic competition, win or lose, and the Republican Party’s threat of violence.

    Yes, there’s an unnerving, unsettling, fight to remember what actually happened — to be real about how disgusting it all was — while the Trump movement and the Republicans try to say the attack was a bunch of heroes who have been wrongly persecuted for doing nothing wrong.

    But there is an instrumental and practical question at hand, too. Which is, what happens to the future of political violence — in the very short term — if the people who committed violence on the president-elect’s behalf are sprung from prison and celebrated as vindicated heroes when Trump takes office again?

    The idea that there is permeability between violence and politics, that what is supposed to be civic hallowed ground, is fouled by the rioting and looting we saw take place, in Trump’s name, on Jan. 6, 2021.

    That is supposed to repel us and disgust us — indelibly. We are never supposed to acclimate to that. But the Trump side has. And so now, four years later, with just two weeks until Trump is back in power, we must be prepared for what could happen next.

  344. says

    “Utah Wants the Supreme Court to Give It Land Owned by All Americans”
    New York Times link

    No state in recent years has been more aggressive than Utah, home to some of the nation’s most magnificent landscapes, in trying to seize control of land owned by the federal government.

    [I snipped some history about the “sagebrush rebellion” in the 70’s and 80’s.]

    […] with the U.S. Supreme Court firmly in the hands of a conservative majority, Utah’s leaders are making a Hail Mary move. The state is asking the court to bypass the lower federal courts, something it rarely does, to hear its argument that the federal government is required by the Constitution to transfer about half of the 37.4 million acres it owns in Utah to the state.

    The court is expected to decide whether to take up the matter in mid-January. Should it agree to consider the case and side with Utah, tens of millions of acres of land across the West now owned by all Americans could be opened to largely unregulated exploitation of its mineral, fossil fuel, timber and grazing resources.

    Utah and other states supporting its lawsuit see these lands, which the federal government reserved for all Americans when the states entered the union, as potential sources of tax revenue and development opportunities, and have long complained about the lack of local control over lands held by Washington.

    Many of those resources are already being used or extracted under the federal government’s policies of allowing for multiple uses of the land while maintaining sustained yields of their renewable resources. But those lands also contain some of the nation’s most culturally, historically and environmentally significant treasures, which the federal government also is responsible for protecting. Utah’s lawsuit is nothing less than a frontal assault on the long tradition of safeguarding these landscapes in trust for all Americans.

    […] Congress and the executive branch have worked together over decades to increasingly protect federal lands for the benefit of all. The safeguarding of these large landscapes can be justly celebrated as an American political success story. Throughout the Western states, opinion polling over many years has consistently shown that a large majority from across the political spectrum love public lands and want to see more protected. (Although 12 other states have filed briefs urging the court to hear Utah’s claim, only three of them, Alaska, Idaho and Wyoming, have significant amounts of federal lands.)

    Indeed, Utah’s own Office of Tourism has long celebrated what it calls its “Mighty Five” national parks and even trademarked the phrase. It tells would-be visitors in a promotion for the parks to “expect your time spent outdoors to result in soul-awakening experiences.” Together, those parks — Zion, Bryce Canyon, Arches, Capitol Reef and Canyonlands — now attract around 10 million visitors annually. There can be no disputing that visitors to these and other national parks and monuments in Utah are huge contributors to the Utah economy. […]

  345. Reginald Selkirk says

    In maps: Thousands of acres on fire in LA

    …
    Four major fires are currently being tackled.

    The Palisades fire was first reported at 10:30 (18:30 GMT) on Tuesday, and grew in just 20 minutes from a blaze of 20 acres to more than 200 acres, then more than tenfold in a matter of a few more hours. At least 30,000 people have so far been ordered to leave their homes.

    The Eaton fire grew to cover 1,000 acres within the first six hours of breaking out. It started in Altadena in the hills above Pasadena at around 18:30 local time on Tuesday.

    The Hurst fire is located just north of San Fernando. It began burning on Tuesday at around 22:10 local time, growing to 500 acres, according to local officials. It has triggered evacuation orders in neighbouring Santa Clarita.

    The latest of the four fires is the Woodley fire, currently 75 acres in size. It broke out at approximately 06:15 local time on Wednesday.
    …

  346. Reginald Selkirk says

    What’s closed on national day of mourning for Jimmy Carter

    The US will honor the late former President Jimmy Carter, who died at age 100 on December 29. President Joe Biden declared January 9 as a day of mourning in an executive order – the same day as the official state funeral at the Washington National Cathedral…

    Many services, businesses and financial centers will be operating as usual, as it’s not a federal holiday. But make sure to check local store hours before heading out…

    Here’s what’s closed on Thursday, January 9.

    Nasdaq will close all of its equities and options markets on the national day of mourning. It will also observe a moment of silence at 9:20 am EST in honor of the former president. The bond market will close at 2 pm EST, according to a recommendation by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association…

    The New York Stock Exchange will not trade…

    The US postal service will suspend regular operations on January 9, according to the National Postal Mail Handlers Union. The union noted that there may still be limited package deliveries.

    Chief Justice John Roberts ordered the Supreme Court building closed on Thursday…

    As part of the executive order, all federal departments and agencies will be closed. But some vital employees for national defense and security may still be working that day…

  347. Reginald Selkirk says

    Minnesota judge orders Mike Lindell’s MyPillow to pay nearly $778K to delivery service DHL

    A Minnesota judge has ordered MyPillow to pay nearly $778,000 for unpaid bills and other costs to package delivery service DHL, which had sued the company that’s synonymous with its founder, chief pitchman and election denier Mike Lindell.

    The award includes over $48,000 in interest and over $4,800 for DHL’s attorney’s fees. The order, signed last month by Hennepin County Judge Susan Burke, said MyPillow had agreed in October to pay DHL $550,000 but failed to do so and did not send anyone to a hearing last month on DHL’s effort to collect…

  350. Reginald Selkirk says

    DOJ officials may have tried to sway 2020 election for Trump, watchdog says

    Three senior U.S. Justice Department officials committed misconduct in the final months of Donald Trump’s first presidency by leaking details about a non-public investigation, a move that may have been intended to sway the 2020 election, the department’s internal watchdog concluded in a new report.

    Reuters obtained the December report by Inspector General Michael Horowitz through a public records request. The report found the officials improperly shared details with two media outlets about the department’s plans to collect data on COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes located in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Michigan, four states with Democratic governors who had come under fire for their handling of the pandemic.

    The leak “will be our last play on them before the election but it’s a big one,” one of the officials wrote in a text obtained by investigators.

    The report did not identify the employees, though one of them worked in the Justice Department’s public affairs office. They no longer work at the department, according to the inspector general’s office…

    It took four years to find this out?

  351. Reginald Selkirk says

    Cybertruck Owner Who Decried Taxes Mocked for Begging for Help as California Wildfire Threatens His Property

    A West Coast-based real estate mogul and Elon Musk fan named Keith Wasserman triggered a tidal wave of schadenfreude on social media after begging for “private firefighters” to come “protect our home” in the city as it’s menaced by raging wildfires.
    …
    But Wasserman didn’t get much pity online. Instead, he was swiftly mocked for asking for special treatment while thousands of Californians had no choice but to leave their homes behind — especially because, netizens were quick to point, a mere three months ago, Wasserman begged president-elect Donald Trump to cut taxes…

  352. Reginald Selkirk says

    Police find nearly 1,500 stolen chocolate bars in trunk of car

    The Antwerp police found 1,444 stolen chocolate bars in a car’s trunk during an alcohol check. The incident happened during the Christmas holidays but was only announced by the police on Tuesday.

    A mobile police unit was carrying out alcohol checks on the Boomsesteenweg in Wilrijk (a district of the city Antwerp) on 26 December. Spotting the upcoming check, one car with two passengers turned right around. Shortly afterwards, however, the duo was caught, although they also tried to flee on foot.

    “In the trunk of the car, we found a large quantity of chocolate: 361 packages with a total of 1,444 chocolate bars,” the police said…

  353. Reginald Selkirk says

    Cheese recalled in 5 states: Throw out ASAP to avoid listeria concerns

    A New Jersey-based distributor is recalling two types of cheese products sold in five states.

    Abbey Specialty Foods, which is based in Fairfield, New Jersey, is recalling certain batches of Wicklow Gold Nettle & Chive and Wicklow Gold Cheddar Tomato & Herb cheese due to possible listeria contamination.

    The affected batches had a sell by date of June 2, 2025, and were sold in five different states, including Massachusetts, Maine, Ohio, Colorado and New Hampshire, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration…

  354. whheydt says

    Re: Reginald Selkirk @ #352…
    Math works out to four bars per box. Those are either very large bars or very small boxes.

  355. whheydt says

    Kyiv independent has an article, that as a minor note, points out that estimated Russian military losses are now over 800K. By comparison, Britain had 750K military casualties in WW2. To which I would add that the Russian losses are in less than 3 years, while the British losses were over nearly 6 years.

  356. Bekenstein Bound says

    All this political drama, and it might be overtaken by events if 2025 ends up being the year the climate, hopped up on carbon and huffing oil fumes, well and truly goes nuts.

  357. johnson catman says

    re whheydt @355: How many casualties did the USSR suffer in WW2? Have the tactics of Russia in Ukraine evolved from the tactics of the USSR in WW2?

  358. whheydt says

    Re: johnson catman @ #357…
    According to Wikipedia, somewhere between 10 and 11 million. Not sure the Russian tactics have changed much, and since weapons have changed dramatically, it has cost them a lot of the sort of gear that they used in WW2.

  360. StevoR says

    <

    blockquote>The great rainmaker, La Niña, could be back for the fourth time in five years, increasing the prospect of a soaking start to 2025 across most of Australia. … (snip) … Your average La Niña forms in winter, peaks in late spring, then gradually weakens through summer. However, the current edition has not played by the rule book — for only the second time in 75 years, its onset has arrived in the middle of summer.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-07/australia-la-nina-could-be-back-summer-wet-weather/104787346

    caveat ; not for certain yet this la Nina is. Or maybe isn’t?

  361. StevoR says

    Despite California’s long history with destructive fires, the fact that these fires are burning in unusually dry winter months has highlighted how climate change is reshaping fire seasons around the world… These devastating fires are burning in what’s usually California’s wetter months, but the rains have not come this winter.

    Downtown Los Angeles has recorded just 0.3 inches of rain since May. One-third of the state, mostly in the southern regions around Los Angeles, are in drought.

    “There has been very little rain and typically … this is when southern California [would get] its needed rain for the entire year, during the winter months — it just has not happened,” meteorologist Jonathan Porter explained.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-09/la-fires-climate-change-conditions-santa-ana-winds/104798394

  362. lumipuna says

    Re 248 (Lynna quoting the Daily Kos):

    […]It didn’t take long for the world’s richest man to get back to his hateful roots after calling for “positivity.”

    In response to a post on X on Sunday from a student who accused the billionaire of “the largest spreader of disinformation in human history” and “hijacking political debates,” Musk’s reaction was predictably offensive.

    Instead of a nuanced reply or a diplomatic counterpoint—or even just ignoring the post altogether—Musk hit back with a hostile, derogatory comment: “F u r*t*rd.” [Musk spelled out the offensive word starting with “r”]

    This fine incident was noted by the Finnish public broadcaster Yle – and reportedly by several other Finnish and international media outlets.

    https://yle.fi/a/74-20135239

    According to Yle, the person in question is a Finnish guy named Joni Askola, who works as doctoral researcher at the Carolinian University in Prague and uses his Twitter account mainly for soliciting aid for Ukraine. His tweet did not tag Musk, and wasn’t getting much attention until Musk replied to it (insert a Finnish language rendering of Musk’s “argument” quoted above). Askola did not continue the argument, to avoid getting his account suspended.

  364. lumipuna says

    I just saw from the Finnish news that Greenland is having a general election this spring. A major theme will be (again) independence vs. status quo relationship with Denmark. A Danish political expert estimates that the result could be affected by the future foreign policy prospects for independent Greenland – specifically what the US wants, what kind of deals and compromises could be made etc. Good luck trying to figure that out right now, I’d say.

  365. StevoR says

    Without looking it up which nation would folks here guess hosts the most refugeees and forcibly displaced people?

    (Will provide answer later.. Give folsk time tocome up with answers first.)

  368. StevoR says

    Via PBS Newshour – seen on the telly & photographed :

    Social media algorithms tyopically feed male accountsanti-feminist or other extremist content within 23 minutes of logging on.

    Dublin City University’s Anti-Bullying Centre Study (April 2024).

    For website of prmary source here see : https://antibullyingcentre.ie/

  371. KG says

    Tethys@335,
    It’s true that the headline of the article birgerjohansson@296 linked to includes the qualification “on land”, but two of the authors of the peer-reviewed paper it refers to are quoted making no such qualification:

    “The origin and diversification of complex life on Earth remains one of the most profound and enduring questions in natural science,” said Jingjun Liu, a doctoral student in Earth and planetary sciences at Yale and first and corresponding author of the new study.

    Indeed, scientists have long wondered why land plants did not emerge on Earth until 450 million years ago, even though their progenitors, cyanobacteria, had been in existence for 2.7 billion years. Likewise, there are no fossils of complex land animals or plants before the Cambrian era (541 to 485 million years ago) despite the evidence of much older microfossils.

    “The only existing explanation states that this delay is an intrinsic characteristic of evolution—that an enormous amount of time is required,” said Noah Planavsky, a professor of Earth and planetary sciences, faculty member of the Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture, and senior author of the new study. “Yet that notion fails to explain how and why complex life originated and diversified.”

    And birgerjohansson@309 doesn’t seem to think the authors’ claim is that lack of a stable ozone layer “held back life” only on land.

    Following the link from the article to the actual peer-reviewed paper (which is largely paywalled), we find:

    Significance
    The Earth’s ozone layer is a crucial prerequisite for the evolution of complex life on land. Our research demonstrates that sufficient atmospheric oxygen alone was not enough to establish a reliable ozone layer throughout evolutionary history. Instead, the evolving marine iodine cycle on Earth has fundamentally shaped the stability and abundance of the ozone layer for approximately two billion years following the initial oxygenation of the atmosphere. The resulting elevated flux of UV radiation may have restricted complex life to the ocean and potentially explains the relatively late colonization of multicellular life on land.
    Abstract
    The origin of complex life and the evolution of terrestrial ecosystems are fundamental aspects of the natural history on Earth. Here, we present evidence for a protracted stabilization of the Earth’s ozone layer. The destruction of atmospheric ozone today is inherently linked to the cycling of marine and atmospheric iodine. Supported by multiple independent lines of geological evidence and examined through an iodine mass balance model, we find that elevated marine iodide content prevailed through most of Earth’s history. Since the rise of oxygen ~2.4 billion years ago, high marine iodide concentrations would have led to significant inorganic iodine emissions to the atmosphere, facilitating catalytic ozone destruction and resulting in atmospheric ozone instability with periodic or persistently lower ozone levels. At a global scale, unstable and low ozone levels likely persisted for about two billion years until the early Phanerozoic, roughly 0.5 billion years ago. The delayed stabilization of the Earth’s ozone layer holds significant implications for the tempo and direction of the evolution of life, in particular life on land.

    So the authors express themselves somewhat ambiguously, making explicit claims only for life on land, but failing to note that “complex life” (if by that we mean multicellular plants, animals or fungi) did not appear in the ocean until the Edicaran* (635Mya-538.8Mya) – and their proposed mechanism can’t readily account for that “two billion years” delay.

    *If we discount the “Francevillian biota”.

  373. Reginald Selkirk says

    Archaeologists just mapped a Bronze Age megafortress in Georgia

    A sprawling 3,500-year-old fortress offers tantalizing clues about a culture that once dotted the southern Caucasus mountains with similar walled communities.

    Archaeologists recently used a drone to map a sprawling 3,500-year-old fortress in the Caucasus Mountains of southern Georgia. The detailed aerial map offers some tantalizing clues about the ancient culture whose people built hundreds of similar fortresses in a mountainous region that spans the modern countries of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey. Based on their survey and excavations within the fortress walls, Cranfield University archaeologist Nathaniel Erb-Satullo and his colleagues suggest the fortified community may have been a place where nomadic herders converged during their yearly migration, but the evidence still leaves more questions than answers…

  374. Tethys says

    @KG

    You are the person who is sniping at Birger over UV and ozone layers. He didn’t write the paper. The authors are obviously aware their fossil algae come from a marine sediment. Nobody is claiming these are living on land, and the lack of an ozone layer is commonly held by scientists to be the factor that prevented algae growing on land.
    (The sun is a deadly laser.)
    We have stromatolites and fossil algae right here in Minnesota that is older than 1.6 billion years old, but they all come from marine sediments. The BIF in association with the stromatolites are pretty cool too

    KG replying to Birger’s @296,
    I’m not convinced by the claim that lack of an ozone layer prevented the evolution of complex life, because the latter began in the oceans – and sufficient depth of water blocks UV rays.

    They aren’t claiming anything about complex life evolving. They are just noting WHY there wasn’t life on the land at the time the algae lived. Algae doesn’t live in the deeps as it requires sunlight to survive.

  376. Reginald Selkirk says

    Million year-old bubbles could solve ice age mystery

    What is probably the world’s oldest ice, dating back 1.2m years ago, has been dug out from deep within Antarctica.

    Working at temperatures of -35C, a team of scientists extracted a 2.8km-long cyclinder, or core, of ice – longer than eight Eiffel Towers end-to-end.

    Suspended inside the ice are ancient air bubbles which scientists hope will help solve an enduring mystery about our planet’s climate history.

    The European scientists worked over four Antarctic summers, racing against seven nations to be first to reach the rock under the frozen continent.

    Their work could help unravel one of the major mysteries in our planet’s climate history – what happened 900,000-1.2 million years ago when glacial cycles were disrupted and some researchers say our ancestors came close to extinction…

  380. Reginald Selkirk says

    Mysterious Red-Painted Dog Penis Bone Found in Ancient Roman Shaft

    Bioarchaeologist Ellen Green from the University of Reading in the UK has uncovered a painted dog baculum, or penis bone, dating back over 2,000 years. Scientists found the painted bone within a first-century BCE Roman shaft in Surrey, England. Archaeologists discovered the bone among other skeletal remains, and it might have been used in fertility or good luck rituals, as first reported by Live Science. Green describes the red-stained artifact in a study published on December 25 in the Oxford Journal of Archaeology.

    Archaeologists discovered the 13.1-foot-deep (4-meter-deep) ancient Roman shaft (a former quarry, not the penis) in 2015 at a site called Nescot near the town of Ewell, and uncovered hundreds of human and animal skeletal remains. The researchers specifically uncovered the remains of over 280 domestic animals, including dogs, pigs, cattle, sheep, goats, and horses. Most were without evidence of butchering, disease, or burning. Of those animals, almost 200 of them were dogs—but only one of their penises was painted…

  381. KG says

    They aren’t claiming anything about complex life evolving. They are just noting WHY there wasn’t life on the land at the time the algae lived. – Tethys@374

    Try rereading my #371. The quotes I reproduce from the paper’s authors at birgerjohansson’s link, and the “Significance” and “Abstract” sections of the paper itself, are systematically ambiguous. Yes, they refer specifically to “complex life on land”, but they also use language suggesting that their mechanism is relevant to the evolution of “complex life” as a whole – which it is not.

  382. says

    Chris Hayes details the astounding amount of anti-trans propaganda put out by the right wing.

    For example, Hayes notes that every major football game that ws hosted on TV was infected with multiple anti-trans advertisements.

    Video at the link. 3:30 minutes.

  383. says

    CNN: “President-elect Donald Trump’s team was given the questions asked by Fox News anchors at an Iowa town hall last January in advance by someone inside the network, according to a forthcoming book, in what would be a serious breach of journalism ethics.”

    No wonder Trump accuses other politicians of that ethical breach, it’s what he does.

  384. says

    Followup to comment 383.

    New book accuses Fox News of giving Trump town hall questions in advance

    A new book accuses a Fox News insider of leaking questions to Donald Trump ahead of a town hall event hosted by the conservative network in early 2024.

    In January, Trump was the featured guest for a town hall in Des Moines, Iowa, as part of the network’s “Democracy ’24” programming. But according to the book “Revenge: The Inside Story of Trump’s Return to Power” by Politico reporter Alex Isenstadt, Trump and his team knew what questions would be asked by Fox hosts Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum.

    Isenstadt writes, “About thirty minutes before the town hall was due to start, a senior aide started getting text messages from a person on the inside at Fox. Holy s–t, the team thought. They were images of all the questions Trump would be asked and the planned follow-ups, down to the exact wording. […].”

    Isenstadt reports that with questions in hand, the Trump team was able to come up with “workshopped answers” that would make the candidate appear confident and capable. For context, this debate occurred as Trump was being challenged for the party nomination by figures like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former Gov. Nikki Haley.

    The book reports that among the subjects Trump knew to expect was a question about how he would balance governing with plans for “retribution.”

    And in fact, Baier asked Trump, “There are questions about how much a second term of a Donald Trump presidency, second term, would be about retribution and looking backwards in grievances and how much would be looking forward?”

    Trump’s response? “I’m not going to have time for retribution. We’re going to make this country so successful again, I’m not going to have time for retribution and remember this, our ultimate retribution is success.”

    […] after Trump had secured the nomination and lost his debate to Vice President Kamala Harris, he and other conservative commentators falsely alleged that Harris had been given her questions ahead of time.

    The made-up story was given so much credence by conservatives that Pennsylvania Rep. Dan Meuser said he planned to bring representatives from debate host ABC to Congress as part of a probe into the matter.

    Isenstadt’s book also reports that the Fox host who Meuser was speaking to, Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo, was being considered by Trump to be his running mate. Bartiromo was one of Fox’s biggest promoters of the lie that the 2020 election was stolen by Democrats. Ultimately Trump instead went with Sen. JD Vance to be his running mate—and like Bartiromo, Vance repeatedly lied in service of Trump’s political ambitions.

    Despite the network’s purported surprise at the alleged leak, Fox has been joined at the hip with Trump for years and in fact the network played a vital role in building him up as a political figure after years on entertainment television. Fox promotes Trump and tears down his rivals and that relationship is certain to endure for years to come.

  386. says

    Jordi Pérez Colomé of El País in English interviewed disinformation researcher Renee DiResta, formerly of Stanford University’s now-closed Internet Observatory.

    Q. Why do you prefer the word “propaganda” to “misinformation”?

    A. Misinformation implies that the problem is one of facts, and it’s never been a problem of facts. It’s a problem of people wanting to receive information that makes them feel comfortable and happy. Anti-vaccine messages don’t appeal to facts, but to the identity of the recipient. They’re saying: “If you are a person on the right, you should not trust these vaccines.” It’s very much tied to political identity. Misinformation implies that if you were to say that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is an absolute clown who knows absolutely nothing about vaccines or their relationship to autism, and that this has been researched to ad nauseam by scientists, if it were a problem of misinformation, you would assume that people would say, “Oh, here’s the accurate information, so I’m going to change my mind.” But that’s not the case. It’s a topic of identity, of beliefs, and that’s why propaganda is a more appropriate term. […]

    Q. On the internet it is very easy to find an identity that fits every ideology.

    A. All of this comes from how the media that has emerged on the internet has oriented itself around identity and niche. An influencer is nothing more than a person who positions themselves as someone normal, as being just like you. And you look for people who are just like you to tell you stories. We call that media now. And that is media now, but that doesn’t mean it offers news. Just because it’s content doesn’t mean it’s information or facts. It’s all become quite blurry.

    I disagree with Ms. DiResta that propaganda messaging appeals only to the people on the right (e.g. anti-vaccine “misinformation” also appeals to some people into “wellness”, anti-immigrant Latinos). I do think that propaganda is “a topic of identity” and that there are varied reasons that propaganda appeals to various individuals and/or groups. […]

    Text quoted above is one of several reports posted here.

  387. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/libsoftiktok-knows-who-to-blame-for

    “LibsOfTikTok Knows Who To Blame For Los Angeles Fires, It Is Black People And LGBT People And Women And …”

    The fires in Los Angeles are so awful it’s hard to put into words, and as we’re writing this, it’s Wednesday night, so we don’t know what the news will look like come morning.

    Pacific Palisades, between Santa Monica and Malibu, has been devastated […] Altadena, above Pasadena, has been terrorized by the Eaton Fire, and the first five deaths were reported there. Last night around 5:45 p.m., a new fire, the Sunset Fire, blew up in the Hollywood Hills in Runyon Canyon and just … Jesus Christ. Thousands of homes and other buildings have been destroyed. Late last night, suddenly a new fire blew up in Studio City.

    It’s so, so, so awful.

    […] MAGA Americans are complete and absolute garbage, so they’re spending this time deciding which minorities they can blame the fire on.

    Like Chaya Raichik, AKA the friendless loser behind the LibsOfTikTok Twitter account. […]

    Jamelle Bouie BlueSkied this screengrab of Raichik whining that “The LA Fire Dept passed a ‘racial equity plan’ to end ‘systemic, institutional, and structural racism’ in LA. Part of it is a chart to map out the race of every employee to make sure they’re racially diverse enough.” [Social med