This is what it’s come to. A right wing podcaster troll is now working at the highest levels of the FBI with virtually unfettered power under a similar right wing troll as his boss. He does have law enforcement experience as a NY police officer for four years and a secret service agent for nine. So there is that. But it’s his record as a right wing gadfly that really qualifies him for the job as Kash Patel’s deputy. As you can see above, he is uniquely suited to the job of wreaking revenge on MAGA enemies. It’s his raison d’etre. The job doesn’t require confirmation so I assume he’ll be starting right away.
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The last several decades of what is termed the neoliberal era has led to some fundamental changes in our social and economic institutions. It was led by the interests of capital reconfiguring what the polity should be doing, given that most of the significant shifts have come through the legislative or regulative capacity (power) of…
I think we knew that the feds under Trump would not zealously go after gun crimes. It was always going to be a free-for-all. But this is a little bit different. President Donald Trump’s newly-confirmed FBI director, Kash Patel, is expected to take on another top law enforcement role in the administration as head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, according to a White House official and two other sources familiar with the plan. Patel’s appointment could be made official as soon as next week with a swearing-in ceremony, the sources said. The ATF, a law enforcement agency housed in the Department of Justice, is responsible for enforcing federal laws regarding the illegal use, sale and trafficking of firearms and explosives, as well as the illegal diversion of alcohol and tobacco products. It has been a frequent target of Republican lawmakers who perceive the agency as infringing on the Second Amendment, particularly as former President Joe Biden empowered it to regulate the sale of “ghost guns” and close a loophole that eased the process of buying a firearm.
And it’s extremely dangerous I wrote earlier about the reporting that Musk is threatening to shut down Starlink, his satellite service on which Ukraine depends for all its communications unless they capitulate to Trump’s demands to allow him to seize whatever natural resources he wants and hand their country to Putin. The idea that this man has such power over world events is like something out of a James Bond film. Only there’s no James Bond, just GOP cowards, feckless Democrats and a plodding judiciary. It’s actually much worse than I realized. Josh Marshall wrote this thread on BlueSky last night, jumping off an earlier post about what historically happens when someone becomes more powerful than the sovereign (“over-mighty subjects”) which, in our American democracy, is something called “the American people.” Musk is a quintessential “over-mighty subject” perhaps the mightiest ever: A couple years ago the Times did a really strong package about the power of SpaceX. Not only is SpaceX.
Count on one thing: in some almost unimaginable future, no American president (if we even have them anymore) is going to rename a mountain for Donald Trump as he’s recently tried to do with North America’s tallest peak. He wants Alaska’s Mount Denali (to hell with Native American names!) to be called Mount McKinley in honor of President William McKinley, the man who, in the 1890s, launched this country as an imperial power of the first order. Of course, it’s just possible that someday someone running (or do I mean: walking, hobbling, limping?) this country might rename the Bertha Rogers Borehole, the deepest hole (now plugged and abandoned) in North America, for President Trump. After all, it should be clear... Read more
Source: D Is for Donald (and Decline) appeared first on TomDispatch.com.
Αυτές οι γερμανικές ομοσπονδιακές εκλογές μόνο ως ένα αρνητικό παράδοξο μπορούν να χαρακτηριστούν: Ταυτόχρονα ασήμαντες – με την έννοια ότι θα καταλήξουν σε μια άλλη παραλλαγή του ίδιου, σχεδόν μόνιμου, συνασπισμού Χριστιανοδημοκρατών και Σοσιαλδημοκρατών, ίσως με μια μικρή δόση ψευδο-Πράσινων – τον ίδιο δηλαδή συνασπισμό που έβαλε τη Γερμανία στο δρόμο προς την συνεχόμενη αποτελμάτωση. […]
The post Το απεχθές παράδοξο των γερμανικών ομοσπονδιακών εκλογών του 2025 – Euronews appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.
This German federal election is a paradox: Simultaneously irrelevant – in the sense that it will result into another variant of the same, quasi permanent, coalition of Christian & Social Democrats, perhaps with a splattering of the pseudo-Greens – the same coalition that put Germany on the road to a secular slump, will continue to […]
The post The sordid paradox that was the 2025 German federal election – Euronews appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.
The BBC has bowed to pressure and removed the documentary “Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone”. An Israeli soldier shows affection to a Hamas fighter on release. The Jewish Council of Australia shares an excerpt from the interview between Dr Gabor Maté and Emeritus Professor Andrea Durbach about Zionism, trauma and the Palestinian experience. Continue reading »
Enrique Tarrio, a domestic terrorist is wandering around Washington getting in the faces of Capitol Police officers: Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio—released last month after Trump pardoned him along with 1,500 other Jan. 6 rioters—confronted ex-Capitol police officer Michael Fanone, who was injured defending the Capitol from criminals like Tarrio. Fanone: “You are a fuc*ing traitor to… pic.twitter.com/HKGXVJzgnq — Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) February 23, 2025 Fanone responded: “You are a fucking traitor to this country.” He actually is a real life seditionist, convicted by a jury of his peers and sentenced to 22 years in prison. Trump pardoned him. Now he’s stalking people who defended the Capitol. That happened today at the Never Trumper Principles First confab: Meanwhile, check out who’s manning top jobs at ICE: Fear of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids began to spread the day after President Donald Trump was inaugurated for the second time.
Peter Dutton’s minister for home affairs, Barnaby Joyce, has demanded that the Government put together a plan to bail out American ‘restaurant’ Hooters and potentially nationalise it, as the chain enters administration. ”What sort of a World are we living... Read More ›
So – Germany has elected, and the results look grim: a huge shift the right, with large wins for a party, the AfD, parts of which have officially been declared anti-constitutional (but a ban does not seem on the horizon). I spent the first few hours after the polls had closed with a group of […]
Remember when Trump ordered that nursing babies be yanked away from their mothers during the first term? Yeah, that was really popular. Now they’re going after the unaccompanied minors who are in the U.S. usually living with relatives: The Trump administration is directing immigration agents to track down hundreds of thousands of migrant children who entered the United States without their parents, expanding the president’s mass deportation effort, according to an internal memo reviewed by Reuters. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo outlines an unprecedented push to target migrant children who crossed the border illegally as unaccompanied minors. It lays out four phases of implementation, beginning with a planning phase on January 27, though it did not provide a start date for enforcement operations. More than 600,000 immigrant children have crossed the U.S.-Mexico border without a parent or legal guardian since 2019, according to government data, as the number of migrants caught crossing illegally reached record levels.
Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – February 23, 2025
By Tony Wikrent
Trump’s assault on the Constitution
Friday Night Massacre in the Military
Joyce Vance, Feb 22, 2025 [Civil Discourse]
Doctor Who star Jodie Whittaker on the responsibilities that came with playing the Thirteenth Doctor, advice for Ncuti Gatwa, and more.
A smattering of the egregious tap-dancing from the Trumpers to give Putin the big win they all want him to have. FOX: But fair to say Russia attacked unprovoked into Ukraine? PETE HEGSETH: Fair to say it's a very complicated situation. pic.twitter.com/GyXUJQc4uJ — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 23, 2025 FOX: But fair to say Russia attacked unprovoked into Ukraine? PETE HEGSETH: Fair to say it’s a very complicated situation. Witkoff: "The war didn't need to happen. It was provoked. It doesn't necessarily mean it was provoked by the Russians. There were all kinds of conversations back then about Ukraine joining NATO. That didn't need to happen. It basically became a threat to the Russians." pic.twitter.com/ZimoQk7wbV — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 23, 2025 Trump’s special envoy to hell Steve Witkoff, real estate developer. He says: “The war didn’t need to happen. It was provoked. It doesn’t necessarily mean it was provoked by the Russians. There were all kinds of conversations back then about Ukraine joining NATO. That didn’t need to happen. It basically became a threat to the Russians.
One key fact was absent from virtually all of the reporting around the astonishing events of this past week. It was scarcely mentioned in stories about the Munich Security Conference, the call between Presidents Trump and Putin, the freezing out of the Europeans, the jaw-dropping statements by US Defence Secretary Hegseth, the ending of cherished Continue reading »
Air Vice Marshal John Blackburn RAAF (retired) noted in his 2014 report on fuel security that Australia only had sufficient stores to supply service stations and hospital pharmacies for three days, retail pharmacies and chilled/frozen goods transport for seven and dried goods for eight. The social and economic consequences of such a collapse in our Continue reading »
. In case you want to solve the problem yourself, here’s a Python script yours truly made (assuming the utility function is of the natural log kind and with some explicit numerical parameterization):
Dastardly robots, unfriendly skies, and more from The Lever this week.
Here’s an executive summary for a potential primer on ZIRP. I invite you to share any thoughts or suggestions on Discord if there are areas that need further detail or clarification