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Here is another piece of Michael Podhorzer’s in-depth analysis of the election using some of the very reliable vote cast data. He finds that the problem is not that voters moved right — Trump got essentially the same proportion of the electorate he got in 2020 — it’s that a lot of Democrats decided not to vote, especially in Blue states. There may have been many reasons for the loss but it does not appear that it was a rousing endorsement of Trumpy fascism. One reason this happened is because Trump the pathological liar has the benefit of people not believing anything he says, which I would never have thought would be an asset for a politician but here we are: Anat adds: “Further, as we heard from this cohort across focus groups, they’re skeptical that electing Democrats would actually prove an effective check on MAGA’s power.” This is the one-two punch that knocked out Harris’s chances this year: disaffection with Democrats, combined with incredulity at the idea that Trump might actually implement the worst parts of the MAGA agenda. Why did they think the Democrats would be an ineffective check?
I’ ve been reading some of the reporting on the Las Vegas Tesla suicide attack and it just gets weirder and weirder. I won’t go into all the crazy stuff out there right now about Chinese drones and Afghan war crimes because it all seems way too out there to even analyze at the moment. You can click that link if you’re curious. But there is some easily verified stuff in the attacker’s “manifesto” that’s been released that isn’t getting any coverage and it’s ridiculous. Yes, he was obviously a disturbed man who suffered from PTSD after many deployments. He needed mental health help that he reportedly didn’t obtain from the military for fear of losing his position as a special forces specialist. But he was also a radicalized, red-pilled MAGA cultist little different than the ISIS radicalized former vet who killed all those people in New Orleans. Josh Marshall writes: [A]t least for the moment there is a pretty striking lack of attention to the political motives he expressed in at least two documents or what I guess we might call minifestos that investigators found on his iphone.
In this video, Tulsi Gabbard pledges her undying love and devotion to her guru Chris Butler who, as reported in the New Yorker, asks his followers to eat his toenails as a gesture of devotion. pic.twitter.com/GMjO26TBNI — I was warning about this back in 2005. (@brucewilson) January 3, 2025 Wonkette took a look at Gabbard’s cult in its inimitable fashion: The group is called Science of Identity Foundation (SIF), founded by an acid-dropping white surfer guy named Chris Butler, AKA Guru Dev Srila Siddhaswarupananda Paramahamsa, AKA Jagad Guru, AKA Sai Young, in the 1970s, as an offshoot of the Hare Krishnas, AKA the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. Butler got his start as a guru teaching mediation and yoga, and was drawn to the Krishnas, but he didn’t want to shave his head or wear robes or do other Hare Krishna stuff. So he founded his own thing, which involved him living with two dozen 18-to-22-year-olds in a Quonset hut under a freeway, beating bongos and arranging his followers’ marriages. Two of his hut-dwellers were Tulsi Gabbard’s parents, Mike and Carol, who joined the group in 1983.
Via Raw Story: Politico reported Friday evening that Johnson securing the 218 votes necessary to be speaker came with conditions. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who is a member of the arch-conservative House Freedom Caucus, told the outlet that there would be potential “consequences” for the speaker if he failed to uphold his end of the bargain on certain sticking points “Let’s make no mistake about it. There will be things that are, in fact, red lines that we need to deliver,” Roy said, referencing Johnson’s reliance on Democratic votes to push a must-pass government funding bill across the finish line in late December. “We can have no more of the nonsense that happened before Christmas.” They changed the rule on the Motion to Vacate to require 9 votes to take out the Speaker. Roy pointed out that there were 9 votes that objected in one way or another to the speaker yesterday. He said there were more ready to join in if Johnson didn’t do exactly what they wanted him to do. It’s not going to be pretty. But nobody deserves it more than this wrecking crew.
The 2000 residents of Diego Garcia were forcibly removed to make way for a giant US military base. A repost from May 30, 2024 Will the same happen to the 593 Australian residents on the Cocos Islands that lies south of Sumatra in the Indian ocean? The Australian Government has committed over $600 million to the military Continue reading »
The wall I am talking about here is known as the separation wall, which the Zionist occupiers of our land began building in 2002. Two years later, on 30 July 2004, The International Court of Justice issued a “first advisory opinion”, finding that the construction of a separation wall inside the occupied Palestinian territories had to Continue reading »
Voted many times by UK and US magazines as the most important public intellectual in the world, Noam Chomsky, scientist, linguist, human rights activist, suffered a stroke at age 95 and can no longer speak. Yet as 2025 begins, Chomsky at 96 gifts the world his examples of inquiry and dissent. These qualities he might Continue reading »
On June 21 1994 Indonesia’s information ministry withdrew the press permits of the weekly magazine Tempo, the weekly political tabloid Detik, and Editor, a new news weekly. Their critical reporting upset President Soeharto, particularly Tempo revealing conflict between cabinet ministers in the government purchasing naval vessels from the former East Germany. Journalists, rights activists, academics, Continue reading »
If only for Australia’s own security concerns, the strict application of ABC Editorial Policies in regard to Syria is vitally important. For the ABC to display bias for radical Islamist groups cannot bode well for us. It contravenes Australian beliefs and values meant to unite us. [This text below is a complaint sent to the Continue reading »
There is a belief widely held across the Western world: Chinese students are schooled through rote, passive learning – and an educational system like this can only produce docile workers who lack innovation or creativity. We argue this is far from true. A repost from November 05, 2024 In fact, the Chinese education system is Continue reading »
How long will Elon Musk last in the Trump orbit? Currently he seems to be ubiquitous but that presents a problem for Donald Trump and his massive ego. Musk has been a major presence in the Trump campaign – financially, through social media and also through encouraging tech bro endorsements. He has been promised big Continue reading »
Announced by the incoming Labor government, the University Accord process and review is being touted as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reimagine the role and funding of Australia’s 40-plus universities. With 1.5 million students enrolled, including 500,000 international students, and generating $35 billion in revenue, universities have been struggling in the wake of COVID-19. Andrew Norton, Continue reading »
Anyone who is not aware of the Israeli attempt to sink the aptly named USS Liberty in 1967 — and even those who are well acquainted with this brutal and deadly attack — should find it very worthwhile to watch the remarkable interview of a Liberty survivor at the link transmitted below, which, encouragingly, has Continue reading »
Just so we’re all clear, it is a fully established fact that the IDF is directly, deliberately killing civilians in Gaza. There was a time in the early days of the genocide when this could be disputed, but that is no longer true. The facts are in and the case is closed. It’s happening. Israeli Continue reading »
Whiny baby actually induced someone to ask if Biden would rescind the order: And then … what the hell? Is he on drugs?
On serving honorably With deep irony, Phil Klay, a novelist and a Marine Corps and Iraq war veteran, describes Donald Trump as “the least hypocritical president of my adult life.” The flag-hugging con man holds nothing sacred, defends no American values or principles. Asked about the nation’s military policy in Iraq, Trump’s response was “take the oil.” Twice. “A dumb answer, but a clear one,” Klay observes. “What a thing to ask soldiers to fight for.” But it was “bracing cynicism” that was “almost refreshing.” Even if it repudiates Americans’ belief, despite our failings, that when the country goes to war it must conduct itself and fight honorably. Trump famously considers those who serve honorably “suckers.” Klay recalls his Marine training (gift link): When I started Marine training, our instructors constantly harangued us candidates about the core military virtues and told story after story of past heroes who had lived them.
California looks to the renewable future, while New York probes the polluted past.
What will you see? Perhaps you noticed? C-Span operator swept their cameras about the U.S. House chamber on Friday during the vote to reelect Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) as Speaker. A huddle of white Republican men gathered here. A diverse cluster of Democractic women gathered for a selfie there. The cameras opened up the proceding, untethered from their normally fixed gaze. This is typical during a State of the Union Address but not House business as usual. Heather Cox Richardson took note in her Letters from an American substack: Today a new Congress, the 119th, came into session. As Annie Karni of the New York Times noted, Americans had a rare view into the floor action of the House because the party in control sets the rules for what parts of the House floor viewers can see. Without a speaker, there is no party in charge to set the rules, so the C-SPAN cameras recording the day could move as their operators wished. They did. Limiting what the public can can see of the House chamber will return soon enough. Limiting what you can see is already happening elsewhere. Over at The Washington Post, editors were deciding what their subscribers would see.
Doctor Who writer Steven Moffat on the recurring theme of people's consciousness and bodies being copied after death, and if they're the same.
MMTists often like to position themselves as the only ones to properly understand the ‘operational realities’ of modern monetary systems. Ironically, many of the claims made by MMTists on this topic are misleading at best. One common rhetorical tactic that I’ve noticed they employ, which often catches their critics out, is to use the term […]
On 9 February 1967, hours after the US Air Force had levelled the Port of Haiphong and several Vietnamese airfields, NBC aired a Star Trek episode featuring a concept that clashed mercilessly with what had just happened in Vietnam: the Prime Directive – a general ban on its Starship captains from using superior technology (military […]
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