Donald Trump on TV acting like a psycho It was horrible. I keep up with him, as you know. I read his silly feed on his silly social media platform and I watch his videos. And I’ve watched his interviews and rallies. But I have not seen him at a normal campaign event since 2020 and even though I know he will never change, it’s still a shock to see him lie so relentlessly — and worse, watch the audience cheer and applaud as if he’s said something hilarious or profound. I confess that it shook me a bit. If anything he’s worse than he was before. Oliver Darcy, the media reporter sent this newsletter last night: It’s hard to see how America was served by the spectacle of lies that aired on CNN Wednesday evening. Kaitlan Collins is as tough and knowledgable of an interviewer as they come. She fact-checked Trump throughout the 70-minute town hall. Over and over and over again, she told him that the election was not stolen. That it was not rigged. That there was no evidence for the lies he was disseminating on stage. “The election was not rigged, Mr.
Reading
I recently caught up with an activist friend I’ve known for twenty-five years. We got into this stuff at the tail end of what were then called the crypto wars, a set of legal and policy battles to free strong encryption from the US and UK’s security services and allow it to be used to […]
by Gary Gardner
Experts have warned for decades of potential water scarcity in many regions, but over the past decade the warnings have nearly morphed into large-scale catastrophes. In 2014, water in reservoirs supplying Sao Paulo, Brazil dropped to just five percent of capacity, and residents found themselves on the threshold of severe shortages. In 2017, the mayor of Cape Town warned residents of the impending arrival of “Day Zero,” when critically low reservoir levels would trigger a shutoff of city taps and lead to queues of residents waiting for water at standpipes.
The post Whose Taps Will Go Dry First? appeared first on Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy.
Hat, cattle, etc. The GOP’s “throw it against the wall and see what” shtick just is not working anymore. Not even with the oft-complicit The New York Times. The RW distraction machine is sputtering. Rep. Jim Jordan’s House Judiciary Committee released an interim report on the Hunter Biden faux financial scandal on Wednesday. The report and the press conference announcing the release landed with a loud plop. After four months of investigation, House Republicans who promised to use their new majority to unearth evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden acknowledged on Wednesday that they had yet to uncover incriminating material about him, despite their frequent insinuations that he and his family have been involved in criminal conduct and corruption. No evidence is no impediment to the ongoing smear campaign. But not even Fox & Friends is buying what House Republicans are selling. Heather Cox Richardson calls the report “a bizarre effort.” Of course. It’s who MAGA Republicans are: A press conference the House Oversight Committee also held this morning got more attention than Jordan’s report, but it, too, was a fizzle.
No time for melting down Hats off to Digby. She will be along presently with a recap of last night’s CNN-sponsored, Donald Trump freak show. The excerpts were bad enough. The intertubes are full of it this morning, literally and figuratively. The extremist right is gleefully declaring that liberals are “melting down” over Trump’s demented display of sociopathy. Yup, that’s our guy, they cheer. Over at The Atlantic, Arthur C. Brooks examines the psychological impacts of working to make the world a saner, safer place. Fighting back can come at a cost. Activism can make you miserable. If you expect to sustain it, choose a variety that doesn’t. And work that doesn’t turn you into what you loathe and to us vs. them-ism. The reflex my generation had for taking to the streets (pointlessly, for the most part) continues among the latest generational cohort of activists. The mental health impacts are a mixed bag: Although nearly a third of the students believed that their advocacy work improved their well-being, 60 percent reported harm to their mental health.
After almost 79 years on this beleaguered planet, let me say one thing: this can’t end well. Really, it can’t. And no, I’m not talking about the most obvious issues ranging from the war in Ukraine to the climate disaster. What I have in mind is that latest, greatest human invention: artificial intelligence. It doesn’t seem that complicated to me. As a once-upon-a-time historian, I’ve long thought about what, in these centuries, unartificial and — all too often — unartful intelligence has “accomplished” (and yes, I’d prefer to put that in quotation marks). But the minute I try to imagine what that seemingly ultimate creation AI, already a living abbreviation of itself, might do, it makes me shiver. Brrr… Let... Read more
There are several lights now flashing red on the dashboard: the gap between income and inflation, growing household borrowing and the rising cost of that borrowing. There is a relationship between these developments, but it isn’t the one you have most likely heard about, the so-called ‘wage-price spiral’. The wage-price spiral is the bogus idea […]
Thanks for coming, everyone. We all know why we’re here: our counterfeit money operation is in danger of going belly up. Now, I don’t want to come down on anyone—this is just about seeing what we can do better.
First off, our “superbill” project has been a disaster. In retrospect, it was misguided to think that a bill would be worth more simply because it is larger. Several bankers pointed this out when we asked them, but we figured they were just jealous because their bills were so tiny. In any case, we’ll have to shutter the initiative because last night a stack of twenties the size of doors fell on Hugo and crushed his spine.
The crane we bought to lift the bills also set us back.
Last week I was walking back from the subway after a day in the office, chastising myself for yet again not thinking in good time about how I would feed myself that evening when out of the corner of my eye, I spotted some stoop bounty. Vegan, bunny-backed bounty to be precise: ten or so cartons of something called Annie’s Vegan Mac Shells & Sweet Potato Pumpkin stacked inside a big cardboard box marked TAKE ME!
I picked up one of the cartons to investigate, and my stomach was encouraged. A cartoon rabbit smiled back at me, languorously draping its paws over the lower part of a circle banded with the words BUNNY OF APPROVAL. The whole color scheme was soft yellows and purples, and there was a sun and a leaf motif—so I figured it must be wholesome and good. Piled high on a spoon in the center-front of the carton was a photo of the mac shells. I will admit they did look like a really constipated, beige shit, but being both curious and lazy, I remained positive and took just one carton, waving it toward the house in a gesture of gratitude.
In today's BCTV Daily Dispatch: Disney/DeSantis, Daredevil, Seinfeld, AEW, Bob's Burgers, Doctor Who, AHS, Night Court, Babylon 5 & more!
The campaign group, Republic have called for an investigation into the arrest of eight of their members, including Chief Executive Graham Smith, ahead of the organisation’s planned protest of the King’s coronation. This demonstrates the effects of the government’s anti-democractic legislation in practice, from the Public Order Act to the Online Safety Bill, our ability […]
Texas oil and gas companies could soon have their business cases heard by judges handpicked by a close ally: Gov. Greg Abbott.
In the latest in a series of damning testimonies from voters across England, Byline Times reveals how the new mandatory voter ID requirements have created confusion, frustration - and potentially a real risk of discrimination. Josiah Mortimer reports.
- by Aeon Video
Despite the White House’s rhetoric about supporting global democracy, the U.S. sold weapons in 2022 to 57 percent of the world’s authoritarian regimes.
The post Biden Is Selling Weapons to the Majority of the World’s Autocracies appeared first on The Intercept.
- by Moti Mizrahi
On this week’s Lever Time: David unpacks the dangerous influence of PragerU with the hosts of The Audit podcast.
‘Class struggle,’ Bob Gillespie was fond of saying, ‘is 24 hours a day, seven days a week.’ It was a lesson he learned in his poverty-stricken childhood, during national service as a bombardier in Hong Kong, and as a printshop labourer fighting for a somewhat shorter week of 40 hours. And he held to it […]
Under Title 42, many migrants to the US were blocked from requesting asylum at all – what lies ahead with the policy expiring?
The Metropolitan Police – which has already been found to be institutionally corrupt, racist, misogynist and homophobic – was responsible for the highest number of recent misconduct trials
Vogue Editor-in-Chief Edward Enninful understands we have to go beyond stunning photography and glorious clothes – and push for further discussion around the disability narrative, writes Penny Pepper
Screw the brunch, kids.
Tucker heads to Twitter.