Reading

He could go down in history as one of the worst Elon Musk’s entrepreneurial philosophy when he acquires a company is to immediately shut down everything and then restore a few once they get the lay of the land and determine what he thinks is necessary. We saw that at Twitter when he came in and fired everyone, determined that any kind of moderation was unnecessary and it’s now overrun with bots, disinformation, foreign propaganda and Nazis. He likes that. He fired the disaster team that made Twitter an important resource during those times, getting out information you could rely on as real. As we found out during the LA fires, it’s completely useless for that purpose now. He thinks the United States federal government is just like twitter. For instance he said this just the other night: “Regulations, basically, should be default gone,” Musk said. “Not default there, default gone. And if it turns out that we missed the mark on a regulation, we can always add it back in.” “These regulations are added willy-nilly all the time.

Last week, Trump released an executive order pledging to combat antisemitism by ordering a draconian...

We’re proud that Jason Roeder’s funny and poignant Griefstrike! is a semi-finalist for the 2025 Thurber Prize. Here’s an interview we did with Jason when the book first came out.

Elon Musk and his allies have been sowing chaos in the civil service and hijacking government infrastructure. Journalist Nathan Tankus explains why.

After plunging USAID and its network of contractors into chaos, communications breakdowns and bureaucratic snafus leave projects stalled.

The post Marco Rubio’s USAID “Humanitarian Waiver” Isn’t Helping Restart Lifesaving Programs appeared first on The Intercept.

He really thinks the Palestinians are pets who can be rehomed to a “farm in the country.” He’s doubling down. (I wonder if everyone is aware that Trump’s new Ambassador to Israel,Mike Huckabee, has said that there’s no such thing as a Palestinian? Yeah…) This is awfully cute:  Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz on Thursday proposed offering residents the right to resettle in any country that will have them after U.S. President Donald Trump‘s plan to take over Gaza and relocate Palestinians to neighboring countries. Saying the people of Gaza should have the same right to freedom of movement and migration that was the norm around the world, Katz announced on X that the plan would provide a range of exit options, including via land crossings, as well as special arrangements to depart by sea and air. He singled out Canada as a top potential destination due to what he said was its “structured immigration program” and previously stated willingness to accept migrants from Gaza.

Within 24 hours of Trump’s inauguration, Amazon and UnitedHealth asked his regulators to help crush their shareholders’ demands for transparency.

A billionaire-backed effort to equate criticism of Israel with hate speech is rolling out during the Super Bowl—here’s who is behind the effort and why.

The post Tom Brady & Snoop Dogg’s Super Bowl Ad Isn’t What You Think—Here’s Who’s Behind It appeared first on MintPress News.

We’ve all been there. One day, you’re driving to the grocery store, minding your own business, and then you see it coming from the opposite end of the street. At first, you panic and wonder if it’s the off-screen entity from Bird Box that drives people to death if looked at. But then, just as quickly, you feel it: a deep, primal rage. The future isn’t just coming for us; it’s coming in the shape of a post-apocalyptic wedge that was designed by someone who still owns the Entourage movie on Blu-ray. It’s the Cybertruck, and it’s here to ruin your whole day.

That’s why we’re here.

The lobbyist-turned-AG just limited enforcement of anti-corruption laws regulating foreign agents trying to influence U.S. officials.

This is written by Jay Michaelson a visiting professor priest at Harvard:  I’m posting in response to the many sincerely anguished claims that not enough is being done to stop Trump.  This is not reflected in the facts. – Represented by Public Citizen Litigation Group and State Democracy Defenders Fund, the Alliance for Retired Americans, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) filed suit on Monday against the Treasury Department “for sharing confidential data with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), run by Elon Musk.”  Go to Public Citizen’s website to learn all about this lawsuit, which is very likely to prevail. – On USAID, appearing with other Democratic lawmakers outside USAID offices on Monday, Representative Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) shouted, “Elon Musk, you didn’t create USAID. The United States Congress did for the American people … like Elon Musk did not create USAID, he doesn’t have the power to destroy it. And who’s going to stop him?

One of President Biden’s final acts as US president was to grant clemency to American...

Join the fight or be political roadkill First: Get busy. Talk is cheap. Action is better (and empowering). Even if it’s just leaving a voice message with your representatives, filling out an online response form or sending an efax. To Republicans and Democrats. Regularly. Not one and done. No, it’s not as sexy as going to a big rally with your tribe or launching that nonprofit you’ve been rolling around in your head. Neither is hunkering down with an M4 in a cold, wet foxhole. Deal with it. The unsexy stuff matters: Back when we had a Democratic congressman here, I knew the staff and would call the office to gauge the temperature on hot issues. I’d ask how the calls were running on a bill progressives wanted passed. Ten to one against. “Where are the Democrats?” they asked, exasperated. They’d voted, reset their politics to cruise control and went back to complaining. Do that now and Musk-Trump-MAGA will eat you for lunch. But just as Trump is a blustering fraud, so is their mob-speak. Their goal here is simple: Bark loudly enough that the other dog rolls over on its back and pees in the air in submission.

Betar U.S. said it has shared with the Trump administration a list of the “names of hundreds of terror supporters.”

The post The Far-Right Group Building a List of Pro-Palestine Activists to Deport appeared first on The Intercept.

Netanyahu’s longtime confidant has been embedded in Washington for years. His latest mission? Cementing unconditional U.S. backing for the next phase in Israel’s Gaza offensive.

The post Israel’s Shadow Diplomat: How Ron Dermer is Orchestrating US Policy From Inside appeared first on MintPress News.

I don’t know what inspired this flash of productivity, but I made this dinner in 2 evenings back-to-back with 194. Individual Meat Loaves.  This moment of achievement was in 2024, so I don’t remember this knocking my socks off. Speaking of knocking (get it–Knockwurst?) I used brats instead. I don’t understand a hot potato salad.Continue reading 193. Hot German Potato Salad with Knockwurst →

This past weekend my partner and I got together with a group of friends. We’ve been meeting every six weeks or so since 1982. Originally, this group of lesbians convened to talk about sex: what we were doing, what we wanted to do, what we fantasized about doing. But you know how it is with any relationship. Over time, it can come to embrace so many other things. That’s how it’s been with the group we call “Group” (or sometimes “A Closed Group with No Name”). We’ve seen each other through breakups, new lovers, job changes, housing worries, ailments, the deaths of lovers, caring for aging and dying parents, and now confronting our own age and the nearness of our... Read more

Source: King Donald appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

An FBI official urged the American Academy of Forensic Sciences to cancel a conference presentation titled “Taking on the FBI.”

The post Forensics Experts Challenged the FBI. So the FBI Tried to Censor Their Conference. appeared first on The Intercept.