Monday, December 2, 2024

Joe Biden pardons his son Hunter Biden - The Washington Post

In a lengthy statement on Sunday night, released just as he was preparing to depart for Africa, the president said that his son had been "being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted." He said that he did not interfere with the cases but that the cases were brought about because of political pressure on federal prosecutors. 

"No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter's cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong," he said. "There has been an effort to break Hunter — who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution. In trying to break Hunter, they've tried to break me — and there's no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough."


Thanksgiving

Is it safe to have a child? Americans rethink family planning ahead of Trump’s return

"We have two children and I have desperately wanted a third – but now I am fearful of being able to get adequate care if I get pregnant," wrote another woman who lives in Louisiana. "I can't risk leaving my two children behind if [I] die because I can't get adequate care here. It feels like a dystopian novel, and yet here we are." 

These worries are not necessarily new. In 2023, a Pew Research Center surveyfound that 47% of 18- to 49-year-old US adults say they are unlikely to ever have kids – a steep jump from 2018, when 37% said the same. Of the people who are unlikely to have kids, 38% said "concerns about the state of the world" were a major part of their decision-making. Roughly a quarter pointed to fears about the environment....

WOTM: Arguments Ain't Gonna Cut It (misterdeity)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S3CIO6ubug

‘He is one of us!’: US anti-vaxxers rejoice at nomination of David Weldon for CDC

The move comes as US faces increased threats from bird flu, mpox, measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases…


Inmates burn themselves in protest at ‘inhumane’ prison conditions

The caucus claimed in its statement: "People who have been incarcerated at Red Onion State prison describe being regularly subjected to racial and physical abuse from correctional officers, medical neglect including the withholding of medicine, excessive stays in solitary confinement with one report of 600 consecutive days, inedible food having been covered in maggots and officers' spit, and violent dog attacks."… 

A report from more than 20 years ago from Human Rights Watch said Red Onion "raises serious human rights concerns"…

Trump Will Overplay His Hand. Here’s How to Be Ready. - POLITICO

Trump's return to power certainly poses challenges to U.S. democracy. But he will make mistakes and overplay his hand — at home and abroad. America will survive the next four years if Democrats pick themselves up and start learning from the successes of opponents of autocracy across the globe...

Trump's tariffs could raise the prices of these everyday goods

The National Retail Federation warned in a statement Tuesday that "lower prices and increased tariffs are mutually exclusive. It's one or the other; not both."…

Why the House GOP’s big immigration crackdown may be doomed - POLITICO

The looming struggle over immigration underscores the huge challenges Republicans face in delivering on their policy promises next year with a narrow margin in the House, the chaotic influence of Trump and internal divides even on issues that otherwise appear to unite the party...

How Kash Patel, Trump’s FBI Pick, Embraced the Unhinged QAnon Movement – Mother Jones

…At the end of Trump's first presidency, when he was a Pentagon official, he spread the bonkers idea that Italian military satellites had been employed to turn Trump votes to Joe Biden votes in the 2020 election. And he has falsely claimed that the Trump-Russia scandal was a hoax cooked up by the FBI and so-called Deep State to sabotage Trump...

WOTM: Religion Makes Philosophers Stupid, Part I (misterdeity)

Interview: 

Trump’s Conspiracist Cabinet (Conspirituality podcast episode #234)

Since the election, Democratic voter disbelief and despair has alternated between grief and rage. We watched some erstwhile vociferous critics of Trump in the legacy media, like Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, kiss the ring and bend the knee, while others adopted a contorted posture of seeming legitimization, like NPR hosting Leonard Leo for a nice long sit-down interview.

Meanwhile, the big egos of MAGA 2.0 seem to rise like Soviet propaganda banners over the American landscape. Trump has named his cabinet picks at lightning speed. His list includes a pro-wrestling executive, a Hare Krishna cult member, a tech billionaire, an anti-vax conspiracy peddler, a FOX News host with far-right tattoos, an alt-med snake oil salesman, two sex offenders, a COVID-contrarian doctor—and, contrary to his claiming to know nothing about it during the election, prominent Project 2025 authors.

What most high profile nominations all have in common is being completely unqualified for the job. Maybe that’s the point. We look at the cabinet picks that intersect with our beat, as pseudoscience conspiracism now completes its journey from the social fringes to deciding White House policies—and all the consequences that entails.
Interview: 


Without Prejudice (Andrew McCabe and Allison Gill; Jack: A Special Counsel podcast, Episode #105)

This week: 
  • Judge Cutkan dismisses the election interference case against Trump without prejudice; 
  • Ken Paxton’s shredder truck lawsuit is dismissed; plus 
  • listener questions and new name suggestions.
Interview: 


SWAJ Rewind: Hitler, Trump, and Fascism (Bradley Onishi and Daniel Miller; Straight White American Jesus podcast)

Brad gives a preview of his new book by discussing how some of Trump’s tactics and myths are comparable to what Hitler used to gain power in Germany. Brad is careful to point out that his comparison is just that – a comparison. He is not arguing that Trump and Hitler are identical. 

Rather, his argument is that Trump’s Big Lie and the myth that the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago was unconstitutional and illegal are resonant with the Stab-in-the-Back myths Hitler used in Germany to convince his followers that their country had been stolen from them and only he could return it to glory.
Interview: 


Trump’s Junk Drawer (Allison Gill and Pete Strzok; Cleanup on Aisle 45 podcast episode #201)

Trump's cabinet picks might be more at home in a junk drawer than in a functioning government. But that's a MAGA feature and not a bug. We go over the latest picks. and Rudy news.
Interview: 


Sunday, December 1, 2024

Musk could use the ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ for self-enrichment

Musk could use the 'Department of Government Efficiency' for self-enrichment

Rebels enter Aleppo three days into surprise offensive

Insurgents had recaptured territory around Syria's second city with civilians including children killed in fighting…


MPs vote for bill to legalize assisted dying in England and Wales

Terminally ill adults with less than six months to live will be given right to die under proposed legislation…

Trump defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth’s mother called him ‘an abuser of women’ | Trump administration | The Guardian

"You are an abuser of women – that is the ugly truth and I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women for his own power and ego," Penelope Hegseth wrote in the email obtained by the New York Times...


The deep historical forces that explain Trump’s win

"…That social contract began to break down in the late 1970s. The power of unions was undermined, and taxes on the wealthy cut back. Typical workers' wages, which had previously increased in tandem with overall economic growth, started to lag behind. Inflation-adjusted wages stagnated and at times decreased. The result was a decline in many aspects of quality of life for the majority of Americans. One shocking way this became evident was in changes to the average life expectancy, which stalled and even went into reverse (and this started well before the Covid pandemic). That's what we term "popular immiseration". 

With the incomes of workers effectively stuck, the fruits of economic growth were reaped by the elites instead. A perverse "wealth pump" came into being, siphoning money from the poor and channelling it to the rich. The Great Compression reversed itself. In many ways, the last four decades call to mind what happened in the United States between 1870 and 1900 – the time of railroad fortunes and robber barons. If the postwar period was a golden age of broad-based prosperity, after 1980 we could be said to have entered a Second Gilded Age..."



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