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Public defenders and legal professionals said they never see the leniency offered to Trump given to other defendants.

The post A Tale of Two Justice Systems: Only Trump Gets Convicted of 34 Felonies and Receives No Punishment appeared first on The Intercept.

Developers and real estate interests crushed efforts to limit development in high-wildfire-risk areas — including in L.A. neighborhoods now in ashes.

I would post something about the animals and the fires but I just don’t have the heart. I put up some links last night if you want to check out some of the various organizations that are working in that area. The devastation is going to be immense for them just as it is for the humans. It’s all bad. Here are some zoo animals frolicking in the snow. It made me feel better, anyway.

On Tuesday, January 7, 2025—just its second day of the session—the Idaho legislature sent a...

Source - Patreon

Source - Patreon

Source - Patreon

They aren’t even waiting until their Dear Leader is inaugurated: Acres of orange fields sat unpicked in Kern County this week as word of Border Patrol raids circulated through Messenger chats and images of federal agents detaining laborers spread on local Facebook groups.  The Border Patrol conducted unannounced raids throughout Bakersfield on Tuesday, descending on businesses where day laborers and field workers gather. Agents in unmarked SUVs rounded up people in vans outside a Home Depot and gas station that serves a breakfast popular with field workers.  This appears to be the first large-scale Border Patrol raid in California since the election of Donald Trump, coming just a day after Congress certified the election on January 6, in the final days of Joe Biden’s presidency. The panic and confusion, for both immigrants and local businesses that rely on their labor, foreshadow what awaits communities across California if Trump follows through on his promise to conduct mass deportations. “It was profiling, it was purely field workers,” said Sara Fuentes, store manager of the local gas station.

The prison occupies a powerful place in the American imagination. In film and television it...

An area larger Manhattan has burned down. In the middle of fucking winter.

I’ve been watching the reaction, and there’s a lot of screeching about DEI and bad fire management and so on and it’s true that California’s fire management isn’t good.

Whatever.

California’s had shit water management forever, and decades of shitty fire management. What’s changing is the climate.

California was paradise because it had a mediterranean climate. That climate is shifting north. California is moving towards a new climate. Like most such changes it’s a fits and starts thing: some years its the old normal, others it’s the new normal. The old vegetation, suited for the old climate, will go, often in fire, sometimes replaced more gently.

Michael Tomasky wrote an excellent piece today about the unaccountable president, laying out the process by which he gets away with everything. No one expects anything of him and no matter what he says, the right wing media, the Congress and his allies in the judiciary will back him up. As an example he suggests that even if Trump were to be found to have given nuclear secrets to North Korea he would either claim it was fake news and the entire wingnuts apparatus would launch into gear calling it another hoax or he would admit it, saying it was a perfect move of a very stable genius and they’d all back his decision as necessary for national security despite its madness. That is not an exaggeration. I believe there is nothing that can make them abandon their support at this point. He writes: Trump will be a completely unaccountable president, then, for this very simple reason: The only three power systems capable of holding him to account—the right-wing media, Republicans in Congress, and the Supreme Court—have no interest in doing so.

The urban inferno is a warning about America’s future — if we do not combat the climate crisis and adapt to its threats.

The author on losing his home to wildfire, finding strength in solitude, and his new book Aflame

The post Pico Iyer’s Wide-Awake Silence appeared first on Nautilus.

Apparently: Putin is very eager to meet Trump face to face, the Kremlin is making no prerequisite demands for the meeting to take place. There has presumably been a lot of back channel diplomacy before this official meeting. The Russian side aims to exclude Ukraine from the process completely and present itself to Trump as the side willing to compromise, while blaming Kyiv (and Biden’s administration) for the continuation of the war. Sounds totally believable. I wonder if Trump will let anyone take notes. Two buds hands in glove.

It seems like Western countries cannot draw lessons from their shameful past. Just as they appeased the Nazi and apartheid regimes, they are repeating their mistake by appeasing the Zionist regime in occupied Palestine while it’s waging a war of genocide against the Palestinian people. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has sent Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus to Continue reading »

The Eagles classic “Hotel California” could be considered an allegory for membership in the imperial system of the United States. At least to this point, that appears to be the mindset prevalent in Australia’s political, defence and security class, regardless of the harm that membership causes. It is time to check out. The end of Continue reading »

In Asian media this week: Biden insults close ally in protecting US interests. Plus: Indonesia becomes full member of BRICS; Myanmar resistance gaining wider control; Survival now Pentagon’s Pacific strategy; Yoon hiding behind barricade of buses and barbed wire; Jakarta launches free meals program. Joe Biden’s dying-days decision to reject Nippon Steel’s A$22 billion bid Continue reading »

Mark Dreyfus, the Australian Attorney-General, is travelling to Israel to pay fealty to an indicted war criminal, Benjamin Netanyahu. Dreyfus, a member of the current Australian Labor government has not criticised the ongoing genocide. Netanyahu wants the Albanese Government to ban protests in Australia against the Palestinian genocide, which Dutton would attempt, but Labor cannot Continue reading »

As the Trump presidency looms across America and the world, Australia faces major foreign and security policy challenges on three fronts: (i) How would a Dutton government respond? (ii) How would a renewed Albanese government respond? (iii) How would a minority Labor government respond? As blusterer-in-chief, Donald Trump is notorious for setting off policy hares Continue reading »