No defense except offense A call for a lefty demagogue has popped up for the second time in a week. This time from Jonathan Last at The Bulwark. Trumpism represents a break from the old politics for which America has few defenses. Trump has “extrapolated existing dynamics while also transforming the public’s attitudes toward violence, democracy, and the rule of law,” he writes. So now what? Setting aside his ‘druthers (and morality, for the moment), how do we win elections in this environment? Joe Biden’s (and Democrats’) theory of the case was, as I’ve complained, same-old, same-old. Govern and run on kitchen tables issues, insists Nancy Pelosi’s generation. Democrats did, and delivered for red, rural areas in particular where Democrats have bled support. Who noticed? And Trump? Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty are museum pieces, not guideposts, these days. A plurality of Americans is now more interested in pulling up the ladder behind them, Last suggests. (I’m reading between his lines.) They’d rather kick down than lift up latecomers to the threadbare American Dream. Making the pie higher is out. Zero-sum is in.
Reading
My name: Burnt Pepperidge.
My profession: winning.
I stand at the starting line and survey the obstacle course like a snake surveys a nest of bird eggs.
My body is the serpent. The Wipeout obstacles are my bird eggs.
Prepare, obstacles. Prepare to be gobbled up by my hungry snake mouth. My voracious mouth of serpent hunger.
I have come here to win, and I do not care what happens to my body.
I am an empty submissive vessel for the game show Wipeout to enter and fill.
Oh, with such alacrity will I be entered.
Oh, with such alacrity will I be filled.
Here, standing at the top of the course with manliness and anticipation, I feel reverent and erect.
I am full of pain and light. I am full of adrenaline and testosterone, chlorine and spit.
Buzz. The Buzzer sounds.
It is time.
Down. Down. Down. I’m running.
I’m running down the red-padded hill of the course.
My arms are swinging with speed. With such speed they swing.
Media outlets rush to condemn climate change campaigners as "middle class" protesters causing "chaos" while ignoring greater disruption by millionaire landowners
- by Aeon Video
- by Karin Schlapbach
- by Christopher J Hopwood
A Byline Times investigation reveals how consumers are being offered the illusion of choice, while being sold the same food, from the same kitchens, under entirely different brands
New government reports warn that the rise of crypto-related economic risks could trigger widespread financial disruption.
Here is a ten-point plan for exposing the Reform party leader and his followers
The UN Security council has voted for an unconditional, immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, 158 countries voted yes. Yoav Gallant visits the White House, no arrest took place there. Senator Payman calls out anti-semitism but also calls for recognition of Islamophobia. An IDF soldier boasts of the ocean views amongst the destruction in Gaza. Continue reading »
At the moment, the UK Chancellor is getting headlines with her tough talk on government spending and her promise to keep an “iron grip on the public finances”, which she defined as “taking an iron fist against waste”. Okay. This tough guy talk (guy being generic) seems to be the flavour of the month with…
The country’s largest insurers spent $120 billion on stock buybacks since 2010, with nearly half of that spent by UnitedHealth.
I’ve noticed something interesting. Every time I write about what might be done to stop the Israeli genocide, actions which would require serious fighting, people say “well I understand whey they don’t want to do that because Israel will bomb the hell out of them.”
And that’s true (though not as true when it comes to Iran, which has plenty of effective AD.)
The issue here is that there’s a genocide going on. My estimate for casualties is over half a million, and other people are starting to make the same estimates. For the past two months Israel has basically let no food into Northern Gaza. The number at the end will probably be over a million dead.
If something doesn’t look right … that’s because it isn’t. Many of you may be having trouble accessing The AIMN, but if you did, you will have noticed that it looks different or has content missing. There’s a simple explanation: we’re migrating the site to a larger server, and Murphy’s Law dictates that such things…
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As it turns out most Americans don’t care all thatm uch about abortion rights after all. And that means they don’t care all that much aboutwhether some women lose their health or their lives for lack of ability to obtain one. I wish I could say that shocks me, but it doesn’t. When the price of eggs is higher than it was four years ago nothing else really matters. Here’s how it’s going in the courts: The case now before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, centers on whether federal emergency room mandates — enshrined in EMTALA, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act — preempt state abortion bans when they conflict. EMTALA requires that emergency rooms stabilize patients in crisis. Idaho maintains that they don’t overlap, that the ban’s exception for preventing the woman’s death covers all emergencies.
Instead of making Trump fire him, Christopher Wray let Trump off the hook and has politely bowed out and resigned today. This is not how this is supposed to work. The whole idea of the year term was to keep the FBI director out of partisan politics while not allowing him to create a J. Edgar Hoover-style fiefdom of its own. As with so much else, Trump cares nothing about intentions, traditions or norms and the fact is that he has the power to fire him so there was never any doubt that he would do it. Everyone in America exists to serve him. Here’s the usual classy response from Trump: