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Created
Sat, 01/02/2025 - 01:00
Is there any point to keeping count? Remember when politicizing a tragedy was gauche? Not just among Republicans inside the Beltway but among Fox News hosts and right-wing talkers? Well, those tragedies typically involved mass shootings, often at schools. But a mass casualty event in D.C. involving an airliner and an Army helicopter in the first month of Donald Trump’s watch? It’s a perfect opportunity for the president to make political statements and display his skill at stopping the buck anywhere but his desk. Glenn Kessler at the Washington Post documents that the president’s rants attributing blame for the midair collision on his doorstep this week to DEI policies were four Pinocchios-worthy (gift link): In the aftermath of the deadly collision between a jetliner and a Black Hawk helicopter at Reagan National Airport, Trump held an extraordinary news conference during which he speculated on the cause of the accident. At length, he attacked former presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden for imposing what he called “a big push to put diversity” that he said weakened the Federal Aviation Administration.
Created
Sat, 01/02/2025 - 00:01

A Labour government is struggling for legitimacy following its support for a brutal invasion in the Middle East. It is wishing into existence a UK ‘Silicon Valley’ in Oxford and Cambridge, dogged by infighting, trying to get a controversial Heathrow expansion over the line, and leaning into right-wing thinktanks’ demands for planning liberalisation. If Timbaland […]

Created
Sat, 01/02/2025 - 00:00

Part One: The Kidz

Dana Wilkinson, Kidz Bop Producer: People don’t remember this, but there was a draft in the early 2000s. We’d show up at some third-grader’s door, and they could only bring one duffle bag and a handful of their homeland’s soil with them. We called them the Kidz Korp.

Eileen Atwater, Kidz Bop Kid: The Kidz Korp was run by Irving “Big Irv” Schopenhauer, who was a studio exec from the 1940s.

Harry Collins, Kidz Bop Kid: Big Irv was strict but fair. We could only eat cat food and cigarettes, but we could have all the cat food and cigarettes we wanted.

Mike “Fancy Feast” Lewis, Kidz Bop Kid [archival interview]: We all ate the cat food. I don’t know why I’m the only one who got the nickname Fancy Feast… I’ll die a happy man if no one ever calls me Fancy Feast again.

[Ed. note: Mike “Fancy Feast” Lewis was killed in 2014 when his tanning bed fused shut and burst into flames.]

Harry Collins: Fancy Feast said that? Crazy.

Created
Fri, 31/01/2025 - 20:09

Li Andersson is not like most other left-wing politicians. She is young, personable, charismatic, and very down to earth. She’s also pretty good at winning elections. I met Andersson at Käänne Festival — a conference she organised to bring the left together in the wake of a strong performance in the recent European Parliament elections. […]

Created
Fri, 31/01/2025 - 13:41
Devastation across Gaza as Palestinians return to rebuild makeshift homes. Craig Murray witnesses devastation in Lebanon that shows Israel plans to make more land inhabitable. Owen Jones points out that the world is turned on its head. At home, Peter Cronau calls for interrupters to scrutinise the platforms of Peter Dutton. There has never been Continue reading »
Created
Fri, 31/01/2025 - 12:00
Not happy and for good reason: Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader in the Senate, has reportedly been criticised by some of the party’s state governors for not resisting Donald Trump’s agenda and cabinet nominees strongly enough. The exchange took place in a conference between Schumer and six Democratic governors that laid bare differences within the party over how to counteract a seemingly rampant Trump as he wreaks upheaval across the political landscape with an avalanche of executive orders, the New York Times reported. The governors, led by JB Pritzker of Illinois and Maura Healey of Massachusetts, pleaded with Schumer to slow down the confirmation of Trump’s cabinet by persuading fellow senators to vote against his nominees wherever possible. They said the party needed to generate more public opposition than senators had managed in the chamber so far. The appeal came in the week the Senate is meeting to confirm two of Trump’s most contentious cabinet picks, Robert F Kennedy Jr, as health and human services secretary, and Tulsi Gabbard, for the role of national intelligence director.