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Trump on Trump 2.0 Not-so-veiled threats and rumors of political retribution are par for the course Donald Trump cheats on. In interviews with Time magazine, the dictator-in-waiting lets everyone know just how far he will go if he wins a second presidential term. Time: Every election is billed as a national turning point. This time that rings true. To supporters, the prospect of Trump 2.0, unconstrained and backed by a disciplined movement of true believers, offers revolutionary promise. To much of the rest of the nation and the world, it represents an alarming risk. A second Trump term could bring “the end of our democracy,” says presidential historian Douglas Brinkley, “and the birth of a new kind of authoritarian presidential order.” Trump 2.0 will be the unitary executive theory on steroids. Nowhere would that power be more momentous than at the Department of Justice. Since the nation’s earliest days, Presidents have generally kept a respectful distance from Senate-confirmed law-enforcement officials to avoid exploiting for personal ends their enormous ability to curtail Americans’ freedoms.
He’s a funny little chap: a sharp dresser with a sleek grey jacket, a white waistcoat, red shorts, and a small grey crest for a hat. With his shiny black eyes and stubby black beak, he’s quite the looker. Like the chihuahua of the bird world, the tufted titmouse has no idea he’s tiny. He swaggers right up to the feeder, shouldering bigger birds out of the way. A few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have known a tufted titmouse from a downy woodpecker. (We have those, too, along with red-bellied woodpeckers, who really should have been named for their bright orange mohawks). This spring I decided to get to know my feathered neighbors with whom I’m sharing an island off... Read more
Source: Celebrating Links Across Species appeared first on TomDispatch.com.
“We do not want to be a democracy”* Republicans want to roll back the 20th century a quarter of the way into the 21st. They’ve made no bones about it for decades. In his heyday during the George W. Bush administration prior to the September 11 attacks, Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform busily strong-armed Republicans into signing his anti-tax pledge. He dreamed of returning America to “the McKinley era, absent the protectionism.” He wanted, famously, to shrink government “down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.” Norquist was a radical for his day. But not so radical that he imagined chucking the Constitution itself along with the last 100 years. Among today’s MAGA Republicans, he’s a RINO. Nancy MacLean, author of “Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America,” suggests the remnant of the southern planter class, economic royalists and academic libertarians, undertook affecting a restoration of elite dominance beginning in the late 1940s. Their goal: to save capitalism from democracy.
Been There, Smelled That explores the aromas of places around the world. Travel writer Maggie Downs investigates some of the world’s most potent smells, looks at how odor cultivates a connection to place, and presents how humans engage with smells, from scents that have endured generations to the latest innovations in aroma-making.
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I believe it’s impossible to experience Spain without encountering ham. But in my case, it was by accident.
I was staying at a boutique hotel in one of those postcard-perfect Andalusian villages. Before jumping into the shower, I noticed there wasn’t any soap. I called down to the front desk and did my best to communicate despite knowing limited Spanish. Twenty minutes later, I was surprised when a smiling employee knocked on my door and presented me with a platter of ham.
“Red touch yellow, legless fellow. Red touch black, legs they lack.”
Remembering that neither coral snakes nor scarlet kingsnakes have legs.
“Uplifting. Star-spangled. Anthem.”
Remembering the letters in “USA.”
“A caT has two. A dOg has one.”
How many horns common household pets would have if those household pets had horns, and also if cats had two of them while dogs only had one.
“Red touch yellow, kill a fellow. The largest nation, Russian Federation.”
Distinguishing between a coral snake and the country of Russia.
“An airplane takes you up to a different plane. A submarine goes in the water.”
Determining whether a vehicle is an airplane or a submarine.
“ER = Eating Rounds. ING = Inside, Normally Garments.”
Remembering whether plates go in a dishwashER or a washING machine.
“Red sky in the morn, a day is born. Red sky at night, a day takes flight.”
Distinguishing between sunrise and sunset.
This week’s local elections will be the last significant electoral test for the main political parties before the next general election. Polls indicate that the Conservatives are certain to receive a drubbing, signalling that the end of the road is near for a government that is exhausted and all out of ideas and ambition. Labour […]
In today's BCTV Daily Dispatch: Watchmen/NIN, Always Sunny/Seinfeld, X-Men '97, Doctor Who, Superman & Lois, The X-Files/Taylor Swift & more!
. As argued by Susan, the universalist ideas of the Enlightenment are still relevant, despite the numerous criticisms that have been levelled against them. The Enlightenment was characterized by a spirit of exploration that led to new discoveries in both science and culture. Rather than promoting a narrow worldview, it encouraged people to question assumptions […]
Festus Akinbusoye is in hot water over potential ethics breaches as complaints mount
- by Shayla Love
- by Adam Frank
The Conservative candidate against London Mayor Sadiq Khan joined a series of events with the extreme anti-ULEZ campaigner
Gaza solidarity encampments have spread to university campuses across the country, inspired by the movement in the US.
The post Uni encampments for Gaza demand end to ties with Israel first appeared on Solidarity Online.
Students in America and increasingly across the world are demonstrating against the Gaza genocide. They’re right to do so, opposing a genocide is never the wrong thing to do.
Student protests that began in the United States have spread to other countries .
At the University of Melbourne in Australia this morning, students pitched tents and began their protests against the genocidal war in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/8oyRXhvRks
— S p r i n t e r F a c t o r y (@Sprinterfactory) April 25, 2024
During the past decade, it has become obvious that economic interconnectedness did not bring forth frictionless international relations as many liberal theorists had predicted. To the contrary, the fact that economic integration has been profoundly uneven has enabled the weaponisation of asymmetrical economic relations for the achievement of geopolitical and/or economic goals (Whyte 2022; Farrell 2023). The weaponisation of the unique international role of the US dollar is one of the most consequential examples of this trend. For instance, in the period since 2001, US sanctions designations have expanded by an extraordinary 933%. In the context of Russia’s war in Ukraine, dollar hegemony made it possible to freeze Russia’s foreign reserves and expel the country from the SWIFT payments system and US correspondent banking.
Are they the new soccer moms and NASCAR dads? Dan Pfeiffer looks at the latest (outlier) CNN poll that has the whole beltway gasping with excitement over the prospect that Biden is in the dirt with young people, Black and Hispanic voters. He noted that the polls shows that 25% of Trump voters are what he calls “conviction sensitive” voters who might be persuaded to abandon him if he’s convicted of a crime: Even more interesting, the topline numbers are the characteristics of these conviction-sensitive voters. According to CNN: In other words, these are the exact voters who propelled Trump to his very narrow lead in the polling average. Younger voters, independents, Black and Latino voters are groups Trump struggled with in 2020 but is doing better with now.
Airline-bankrolled lawmakers just advanced a bill that could undermine Biden’s promise of automatic refunds on canceled or delayed flights.