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ABC News: Authorities are investigating a Tesla Cybertruck explosion on Wednesday outside the Trump Las Vegas hotel in Nevada as a possible act of terror. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said it was investigating a fire at the entrance to the tower. The public was told to avoid the area, though the police noted the fire had been put out. The driver pulled into the valet area of the hotel and the vehicle exploded, according to an official. The driver is apparently dead and, so far, the only casualty from the incident. Seven bystanders had minor injuries, authorities said. Investigators do not know what caused the blast, such as whether something was wrong with the vehicle or whether something external prompted it. Determining what was behind the explosion is the key focus of the probe. An official briefed on the probe told ABC News that the Tesla Cybertruck had a load of fireworks-style mortars onboard. Investigators are urgently working to determine a motive and whether the driver intended to set off an explosion and why. You CANNOT make this shit up.
Will they finally catch on? I keep saying that reality is going to bite Trump eventually. I refuse to believe that his con game isn’t going to catch up with him and I don’t think for a moment that he’s got some kind of magic that transcends all reason. He’s a very lucky guy who happened into the political world at a time when celebrity, social media and right wing propaganda outlets were ascendant in our society and he exploited it like the grifter he is. But the cult he built is like all cults — it’s strong until it isn’t. And its strength is about to be tested. The New Republic’s Robert McCoy took a look at the weird phenomenon as well as the possible reckoning ahead: Consider these archetypal dispatches from the 2024 campaign trail. “A lot of people are happy to vote for [Trump] because they simply do not believe he will do many of the things he says he will,” an October New York Times “campaign notebook” entry observed.
Here’s a virtual toast to your flourishing in 2025. But more so than any other year, our wishes should not just be from person to person, but rather wishes for societies – and the society of societies, global humanity. I haven’t felt so gloomy about politics, broadly defined, in a very long time. A genocide […]
Danny Shaw has been traveling to Cuba since 1995 in support of the country’s socialist revolution. Unsatisfied with the official proclamations and guided tours for international leftists, he embarked on a project of first-hand ethnographic research across the country over the decades. With a command of Cuban Spanish, Shaw wandered off the beaten path, independently evaluating conditions in the country. Surveying the perspectives of some of the most marginalized populations in Havana, he assesses their responses to the US unilateral […]
The post Will the Cuban revolution survive the storm of 2025? first appeared on The Grayzone.
The post Will the Cuban revolution survive the storm of 2025? appeared first on The Grayzone.
At this point we have very limited information about the attack in New Orleans last night. It’s a horrific assault which the authorities are saying they don’t believe was done as a lone act of terrorism. The story is unfolding and very little is known as yet except for the fact that the perpetrator was an American from Texas whom they think was flying an ISIS flag. If you’d been on Elon’s hellhole for the past few hours — or watching Fox News — you would have been told that he was an illegal immigrant who had come over the border unlawfully in the last few days, among other lies. I’m not going to speculate about what this is about but I wanted to alert everyone once more to the fact that Twitter is a cesspool of misinformation on any day but especially at times like these, much of it led by dishonest MAGA leaders. It’s a terrible space during any kind of emergency nowadays which is truly sad because it used to be so good. BlueSky doesn’t have the scale but if you got there at least you won’t be confronted with a bunch of MAGA weirdos, foreign bots and racist miscreants flooding the zone with lies.
Remember yesterday when I called Elon the son Trump never had? Well… Donald Trump Jr. has trashed his father’s annual New Year’s Eve bash at Mar-a-Lago on his “Triggered with Don Jr.” podcast, calling it “amateur night” and saying guests have often treated him like a “freaking imbecile.” Footage of this year’s celebrations captured Donald and Melania Trump, running mate J.D. Vance (and his wife Usha) and partying MAGA supporters clapping and singing along to Village People’s “YMCA.” He was there but he wasn’t having any fun. Probably because Lara Trump was singing. And then there was this which angered Don Jr’s pals to no end: It seems his voters didn’t know about this, since he never mentioned it. In fact, he was on record opposing the H-1B visas for years: Many of the rubes won’t know about this or they’ll forgive him. But it’s caused a huge rift among the big MAGA grassroots leaders. It’s going to be a problem.
I hope you had a good year and that next year is good for you. It’ll be a bad year for the world, but that doesn’t mean it has to be for individuals.
I’ll probably hold off on the promised “what can Europe do” post till next week.
Feel free to use as an open thread.
He’s the smartest broke billionaire in the room No superlatives are too bigly to describe El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago. Trump knows competence “I always felt we have to have the most competent people in our country. We need competent people. We need smart people coming into our country.” It takes a very stable genius to recognize other extraordinary people like RFK Jr. and foreign models. Trump knows social media Days ago, Trump filed an amicus brief on his desire to rescue TikTok from the Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act that will likely ban the app in the U.S. on January 19. Even the Wall Street Journal found Trump’s argument preposterous. He wants the Court to treat him (a private citizen) as though he’s co-president with Joe Biden before being sworn in (Raw Story): “The brief is extraordinary in several ways, none of them good,” the board said, later adding: “Mr. Trump wants the Court to treat him as if he’s already President before he’s inaugurated.” Trump for all intents and purposes is a “private citizen” until he’s inaugurated, the board countered.
You don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone People with higher profiles have warned what could happen to this country under Donald Trump if he were reelected to the White House. I did so myself in 2024 here and here and here. Those three posts all referenced Michael Lewis’s “The Fifth Risk,” his celebration of selfless dedication, essentially, in public service by geeks more interested in mission than in money. Blasphemy! In a few short weeks, America will embark on a journey into the unknown. Dave Neiwert published “Alt America” in 2017 about the rise of the eliminationist alt-right movement. Trumpism, an expression of that movement, seeks not only to eliminate non-white immigrants but those very civil servants who make the nation you know the nation you know. Stephen E. Hanson and Jeffrey S. Kopstein consider what it means that Trump 2.0 will be staffed with incompetents and cronies chosen more for their loyalty to one man than to stewardship of the republic that will be 250 years old in 18 months. What Trump and those backing him intend for this country is not new, inventive, or an improvement on popular sovereignty.
Our most-read article of 2024.
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Originally published March 27, 2024.
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Dear Students —
I am sorry to say that I will need to cancel all classes for an indeterminate length of time while I work on doing my job.
I realize you think that teaching is my job, but there are many other aspects to being a professor. In the unlikely event that you are curious about what else a professor might have to do, here are a few of the issues that need my attention.
The recent change to our course-management system has meant that I need to re-upload every document and assignment and reassign every homework. I will be attending three two-hour training sessions to help me do this. I was staying ahead of the class for the first few weeks, but I’ve finally lost that battle.
The post Doctor Who Magazine 612 appeared first on Doctor Who Magazine.
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Thanks to all our contributors this year. On to 2025!
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24. We Are Not a ‘School’—We Are a Hospital System with a Football Team
by Andrew Patrick Clark
23. I Am a Boomer’s iPhone and I Will Not Be Silenced
by Julia Bensfield Luce
22. Deciphering Your Daughter’s ‘MOM’ Texts
by Dani Bostick
21. Gen Z Beowulf
by John-Clark Levin
How skincare has, and hasn't, changed across generations of women.
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UPDATE: U.S. District Senior Judge Richard J. Leon has awarded pro-regime change journalist Shane Bauer a whopping $113 million in money seized from Iran by the US sanctions regime. Together with his ex-wife, Sarah Shourd, and their friend, Joshua Fattal, Bauer sued the Iranian government for millions in damages they claim to have incurred during their two year-long imprisonment in Tehran. The three Americans were arrested by Iranian soldiers near the border of the Kurdistan region of Iraq in 2009. […]
The post US judge awards pro-regime change journo Shane Bauer $113 million seized from Iran first appeared on The Grayzone.
The post US judge awards pro-regime change journo Shane Bauer $113 million seized from Iran appeared first on The Grayzone.
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