Look, it's manifestly obvious that bombing small boats making local transit in the Caribbean is unjustifiable and no one should have to explain it, but here's a link just to be sure. We all know what it's really about, which is why Atros titled his post about the oil tanker seizure with, "Is It Filled With Drugs" But just in case you need it, here's every reason not to believe a word of it. "104 murders in 107 days The Trump administration's assault on alleged drug boats has killed about one person per day since early September. These are murders, and basic humanity demands that we not get complacent about them. One of the more surreal phenomena of the last year is the way in which our fleeting news cycle and plodding legal system combine to distract us from this administration's atrocities. On the legal side, the federal courts operate on a 'doctrine of regularity' that presumes the executive is always acting in good faith, even when it clearly isn't. The courts end up negotiating balances between constitutional rights and government power based on a reality that doesn't exist. Even when they do get it right, that can take weeks or months, leaving the administration to continue its harmful policies in the meantime. Meanwhile, on the news side, we have only a day or two to be outraged at the latest horrific thing before we're inured to it and analysts start breaking it down into its component parts. So instead of focusing on the insanity of snatching people off the street and sending them to an overseas torture prison, to give one example, discussion quickly turns to whether the prisoners can be brought back with a habeas petition or class action, which federal court has jurisdiction over them, how many of them really do have a violent criminal record, or the meaning of their tattoos. It isn't that these things aren't important. It's that the rapid zooming in to a granular level shifts our focus away from the shocking inhumanity of what was done to these men in our name." This is a long read, but if your right-wing friends and relatives are trying to get you to support a war on Venezuela, just send this to them.
"New Face of GOP Healthcare Fix Is Senator Linked to Largest Medicare Fraud Scheme in US History: US Sen. Rick Scott, former CEO of the company that was at the center of the biggest Medicare fraud scheme in American history, has emerged as the most vocal Republican proponent of healthcare reform, warning his fellow GOP lawmakers that continued refusal to engage with the issue risks a 'slow creep' toward single-payer healthcare. On Thursday, according to Axios, Scott (R-Fla.) is 'convening a group of House and Senate conservatives on Capitol Hill to pore over fresh polling to develop GOP alternatives to the Affordable Care Act.' Late last month, Scott unveiled his own proposal titled the More Affordable Care Act, which would keep ACA exchanges intact while creating 'Trump Health Freedom Accounts' that enrollees could use to pay for out-of-pocket costs. Scott's plan, as the health policy group KFF explained, would allow enhanced ACA tax credits to expire and let states replace subsidies in the original ACA with contributions to the newly created health savings accounts. 'Unlike ACA premium tax credits, which can only be used for ACA Marketplace plans, the accounts in the Scott proposal could be used for any type of health insurance plan, including short-term plans that can exclude people based on preexisting conditions,' KFF noted. 'States could also waive certain provisions of the ACA, including the requirement to cover certain benefits.' 'While ACA plans would still be required to cover people with preexisting conditions under the Scott proposal,' the group added, 'it is likely that the ACA marketplace would collapse in states that seek a waiver under his approach.' Last month, amid the longest government shutdown in US history, Scott leapt at the opportunity to champion possible Republican alternatives to the healthcare status quo, despite his ignominious record."
"Why Is Warner Bros. for Sale at All? Its product has never been more critically or financially successful. Why is it auctioning itself off? THE SIMPLEST ANSWER FOR WHY Warner Bros. wants a merger is to cover for other failed mergers. [...] But more than that, it presumes that Warner Bros., a historic American company that is doing about as well as it ever has, simply must sell itself. This 'there is no alternative' mindset, sold by Wall Street for 40 years, has warped our thinking. Especially if the cable channels are split off, Warner Bros. can be a profitable company, with no need to indulge its executives' dreams of a quick payout." And no matter who wins, this kind of consolidation will absolutely hurt not just the mythic "Hollywood" but all those creators our entertainment depends on. And even fewer oligarchs will have even more control of what stories will be told.
You know, another reason I don't want her winning the Maine primary is that I don't think the Democratic Party should have another high-profile official who votes like this. "Janet Mills' Veto Record: Corporations Over Workers, Renters, And Tribal Rights: The Democratic Party leaders' choice for a key 2026 Senate race has spent six years vetoing collective bargaining rights, wealth taxes, renter protections, and tribal sovereignty protections. [...] Since entering the race, Mills' campaign has highlighted her stances on a host of progressive causes, including her labor advocacy and her efforts to protect health care and abortion rights. But the governor's veto pen tells a different story, say her critics."
"'Feckless' Ken Martin Rebuked Over DNC Decision to Bury Autopsy of 2024 Election Disaster: [...] The New Republic's Greg Sargent argued in a Thursday piece that the decision by the DNC to bury the report 'should unleash harsh criticism and recriminations' because it 'could end up protecting key actors inside the party from accountability over the blown but winnable contest.' Sargent then pointed the finger at Future Forward, a super PAC that he said has earned a reputation for blowing large sums of money on ineffective television ads. [...] 'Ken Martin seems determined to become the Merrick Garland of DNC Chairs,' added Hauser, 'a feckless amiable sort unwilling to take on the powerful people who scream out for stringent accountability. Democrats ought to re-center their entire party around holding elites, be they from Big Tech, the Democratic Party establishment, Big Oil, or Trump's kleptocratic regime, accountable.'"
There's a UK magazine also called Prospect, but it claims to be unbiased, which I never believe. I don't want my news to say it's unbiased so much as I want it to be honest about what its biases actually are. In an article discussing charges of left-wing bias at the BBC, it would be nice to see some acknowledgement that anyone on the left will tell you that the BBC has become increasingly right-wing. But there is this, anyway: "A firestorm has ripped through the BBC—but no one will say why: Called before MPs, none of the characters who supposedly see so much wrong with the corporation would make a case for institutional bias. It may not have been a coup, but whoever leaked the so-called Prescott dossier on allegations of BBC bias to the Telegraph three weeks ago—'Not Me Guv!'—certainly pulled off a PR coup. You will remember the outpouring of seismic outrage earlier this month as the Telegraph skillfully dribbled out selected highlights from a report written by Michael Prescott, a former adviser to the BBC, suggesting that the national broadcaster was woke to its roots and more or less beyond salvation."
Jordan Baraab on "Washington Post's Road to Anti-Union Perdition: potential future housemates announced that the Post was banned in a group house I visited when I moved to Washington DC. The reason: its opposition to a staff organizing campaign. But since last year when the Jeff Bezos-owed Post refused to endorse a Presidential candidate, and then later announced that the paper's new north star would be 'free markets and personal liberties,' the Post has accelerated its journey down the anti-union rabbit hole — safety or human rights be damned."
RIP: Steve Cropper 1941-2025: Cropper, who has died aged 84, demonstrated in his early recordings as a member of the instrumental quartet Booker T and the MGs – notably their first hit, "Green Onions" – and in his backing work with singers such as Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett that a single chord, struck with exquisite timing, could say as much as the longest, loudest solo. He also enjoyed success as a songwriter, co-writing "In the Midnight Hour" for Pickett, Knock on Wood for Eddie Floyd, and, most significantly, "(Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay", a reflective ballad recorded a few days before Redding died in a plane crash in December 1967. Cropper and Redding had worked together on the song, whose gentle introspection seemed to suggest a new artistic direction for the singer. Released within a month of Redding's death, it went straight to the top of the charts." And just for fun, a clip from The Blues Brothers.
RIP: "Arthur D. Hlavaty (1942-2025). Twelve-time Best Fan Writer Hugo nominee Arthur D. Hlavaty died December 9. He is survived by his spouses Bernadette Bosky and Kevin Maroney. Bosky announced his passing with full medical details in a public Facebook post. The specific cause of death is not known, other than it must have had 'much to do with his long-time, severe COPD.' The Fancyclopedia has a long list of his apazines and other publications. Some of his best-known personalzines were: Derogatory Reference [1990-], The Diagonal Relationship [1977-82], The Dillinger Relic [1980s]" I was delighted when I first received an issue of The Diagonal Relationship and looked forward to meeting him. For a long time such encounters at conventions were normal occurrences, before I moved across the pond. He's still been a presence on Facebook, but his health has been a rollercoaster in this last year. He will very much be missed.
RIP: "John Varley (1947-2025) Acclaimed sff writer John Varley died December 10 'at his home in Beaverton, Oregon, with his sisters Kerry and Francine and his brother-in-law Jerry by his side. He had been suffering from COPD and complications of diabetes, and had been failing badly, with several stays in the hospital, over the past few weeks'. [...] Varley was a 15-time Hugo finalist, winning for his novella 'Persistence of Vision' (1979; also a Nebula winner), short story 'The Pusher' (1982), and 'Press Enter[]' (1985, and another Nebula winner). He has also won multiple Locus Awards and Seiun Awards. He was presented the Robert A. Heinlein Award by the Heinlein Society in 2009 for hard SF inspiring space exploration. His 1977 short story 'Air Raid' was expanded into the 1983 novel Millennium, which he also adapted for the 1989 movie of the same name." I can't tell you how much we loved those early short stories of his. A world where you could pop down to the local shop to get a new lung installed in minutes, where everyone tried a sex change now and then and you could even get alterations for living in otherwise hostile environments. He was a great guy and very forthcoming about what he was doing. Chip Delany once asked me to introduce them and he happened to be across the room chatting with Stephen Donaldson at the time, so I dragged him over and we were instantly dwarfed between those two redwoods.
RIP: Rob Reiner (1947-2025), actor and director; and Michelle Singer Reiner (1967-2025), photographer and producer; stabbed to death, apparently by their son. We first met Rob as the "Meathead" son-in-law of Archie Bunker on All in the Family but soon came to know him as the director of stellar films that made us feel and laugh. It's not an accident that comedy-writer Carl Reiner's son had the same first name that Carl had given the character he originally wrote for himself, comedy-writer Rob Petrie, who was ultimately played by the now 100-year-old Dick Van Dyke. Michelle Singer met her husband when he was making When Harry Met Sally, which changed the ending of the film, and she went on to produce movies he directed. The link is to the timeline we have so far of the discovery of their deaths and the police investigation (and the shocking insistence of the president of the United States that this, too, is all about him).
"Pepsi and Walmart's Monopolization Machine Revealed: Today on TAP: An unsealed lawsuit that Trump's FTC tried to bury puts the pricing schemes of business on full display. Before Lina Khan exited the Federal Trade Commission, the agency sued Pepsi for violating the Robinson-Patman Act, which bars suppliers from price discrimination, i.e., charging retailers different wholesale prices for their goods. That was about the extent of what we knew: The lawsuit was heavily redacted, as is customary in government cases against business. Typically, the two sides will argue about what the public can see and what constitutes proprietary business information, and a judge decides what to release. In this case, Khan's replacement at the FTC, Andrew Ferguson, sided with Pepsi lobbyists and dropped the case right before it could be unsealed. Ferguson and his Republican colleagues then demeaned Khan's efforts, claiming that the lawsuit was 'purely political' with 'no evidence,' and an 'insult to the Commission's credibility.' This was easy to say when the case that could serve as a rebuttal was primarily blacked-out lines on a page. If it ever became public, the name-calling might look foolish. Funny story: The Institute for Local Self-Reliance just got the case unsealed. We now know what Khan had on Pepsi. And yes, Andrew Ferguson looks foolish. Here is the lawsuit, now with minimal redactions. It shows that Pepsi was diligently working to create a 'price gap' between retail giant Walmart and its competitors. Robinson-Patman Act opponents often claim that enforcing the law simply denies consumers discounts at big-box, low-cost retailers. But the lawsuit shows how this went in both directions.
Oh, look, you can make your complaints about Media Bias to the White House! I don't suppose they'd be interested in the fact that The Seven Richest Billionaires Are All Media Barons.
"The Authoritarian Stack: How Tech Billionaires Are Building a Post-Democratic America — And Why Europe Is Next In late July 2025, deep within the Pentagon's bureaucratic machinery, the U.S. Army quietly signed away a piece of its sovereignty. A ten-billion-dollar contract with Palantir Technologies—one of the largest in the Department of Defense's history—was framed as a move toward 'efficiency.' It consolidated seventy-five procurement agreements into a single contract." All of the worst people in the world belong to this club that you're not in.
Max Sawicky reckons "U.S. Democratic Socialism Has A Future: I wouldn't have thought so, but now I think I can see a path. The recent electoral successes are attracting thousands of supporters to Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) to join its most famous member, Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. I'm told just the New York City chapter is up to 13,000 members."
Adam Bonic says, "Money Doesn't Buy Elections. It Does Something Worse: Campaign ads barely move the needle. The real influence is hiding in plain sight. For fifteen years, I've tracked the flow of political money in America—who gives, who gets, and what it buys. After all that, I can say this with confidence: the narrative most Americans hear about money in politics largely misses the real story. The real story isn't about the ads you see but the power you don't. It's about the candidates who never run, the policies that never get debated, and the slow, systemic drift of our democracy away from the will of the majority. We tend to imagine corruption as a transaction: money buying votes, quid pro quos in backrooms. But money's real power is quieter and deeper. It decides which candidates get to run, which policies are thinkable, and whose voices get amplified or ignored. It has rewritten the rules of self-government—slowly, invisibly, and almost entirely within the law."
I can't quite work out the trajectory of these people unless it's just the money. Suddenly people who are doing just fine create a victimology of themselves and go all-out on being monsters. How does it happen? "The Inconvenient Scholarship of Kevin Roberts: Samuel G. Freedman traces the long and contradictory intellectual journey of the man behind Project 2025. IN THE WANING DAYS of 2023, several months before Project 2025 catapulted Kevin Roberts into political infamy, the Heritage Foundation president was chatting on his podcast with a similarly polarizing figure, psychologist Jordan Peterson. At Peterson's prompting, Roberts took on the subject of what 'so-called progressivists' have done to higher education. Without naming the institution or the exact years, Roberts alluded to New Mexico State University, where he had been an assistant professor from 2003 through 2005. He described a symposium on Ronald Reagan in which he and a fellow conservative asked to be included on the panel to 'offer a balanced opinion.' But rather than include the dissidents, Roberts continued, the other members of the history department, all 'big libs,' canceled the conference altogether. 'I think they were fearful of the facts that we would bring to the table,' Roberts told Peterson. 'And so, […] if that anecdote's helpful, it's helpful in this way: that is just emblematic of everything that's wrong with [the] university.' In the same portion of the podcast, Roberts provided another account of his persecution. This anecdote referred to his scholarly expertise in Black enslavement, which had been the central subject of both his master's degree at Virginia Tech University and his doctorate at the University of Texas's flagship campus in Austin. 'I'm decidedly a middle-aged bald white guy,' Roberts said, 'which means that I could no longer, according to the powers that be in academia, be a specialist or an expert in African American history.' On one level, the stories that Roberts shared in the podcast were entirely predictable examples of a victimization narrative favored by certain conservatives. His depiction of universities so dominated by left-wing ideologues that they cannot bear even one opposing voice on the faculty, his portrayal of a hiring and promotion process deformed by racial bias against white males—these are assertions entirely consistent with Project 2025." But it doesn't seem to have happened like that at all.
He promised that he'd just be calling balls and strikes, but nobody believes that anymore. "This Is All John Roberts' Fault: Trump owes his corrupt and abusive reign to one man. [...] The Roberts court has spent Trump's second term not applying the law so much as clearing it out of his way. In a matter of months, the court's 6–3 GOP-aligned majority has permitted a long list of lawless actions, including firing independent agency commissioners, using racial profiling in immigration sweeps, disappearing immigrants to authoritarian and war-torn nations, and defying Congress' power of the purse. But the court's acquiescence to an antidemocratic America didn't start in 2025. Roberts has been embedding white-dominant authoritarianism into the country's source code for two decades. It's impossible to imagine today's crisis without the Roberts court having first undermined the foundations of our democracy."
"Extrajudicial Killings From Barack Obama to Donald Trump: If Obama could kill a 16-year-old American boy without accountability, why wouldn't Trump believe he has the same power to snuff out the lives of civilians with no due process?"
"Paul McCartney's 6 best guitar solos with The Beatles: Though he was technically their bassist, Paul McCartney was responsible for many fine six-string moments in The Beatles catalog"
Tom Robinson, "Truce"
No comments:
Post a Comment