"St Michael's Tower on Glastonbury Tor peeping out of it's silky blanket of mist. Taken about 45 minutes before sunrise." Michelle Cowbourne lives around Glastonbury and takes lots of picture there. I recommend the slideshow at her Visions of Somerset website.
I wish I had written this: "The Land of Greater Fools: Watching Trump launch a crypto coin days before his own inauguration that instantly made him billions of dollars richer is kind of impressive, in the way that you might be impressed by watching the planes strike the twin towers on 9/11. People said this was bad, yes. But do you understand the level of corruption that is on full display here? This is—I don't want to be hyperbolic here—a level of public corruption that is, let's conservatively say, one thousand times worse than the Watergate scandal. That was just an instance of a paranoid president trying to steal secrets from his political opponents and then covering it up. This, on the other hand, is the president-elect of the United States of America putting out a big bucket that says 'BRIBE ME' right before he takes office. Anyone can now buy an imaginary 'coin' and the money will go directly into the pockets of the Trump family, as they run the United States government. That is what happened here. Donald Trump's net worth went up by tens of billions of dollars in one day. In one day! The day before his inauguration! [...] The problem with this impulse is that inherent in the hope of working with this guy is the accompanying understanding that you must not try as hard as you can to smash the guy at the same time. You can't say 'Donald Trump is a loathsome fascist' and then say in the next breath 'We look forward to crafting a worker-friendly trade policy with you, sir.' Yet, hey, guess who the people are who, collectively, are nurturing all of these disparate hopes of winning on their pet issues? They are the opposition. We are entering an age of gangster style fascism. We are going to need all of the opposition that we can get. If most of the opposition is busy flattering itself that they can soften Trump on this or that, they are not doing their most important work: Trying to destroy his entire political project. That political project is, I remind you, one of destroying the rest of us. An opposition that can't dedicate itself to being the opposition is a weak opposition, indeed. And Trump has always enjoyed a weak opposition." There's a lot more, go read the rest.
The American Prospect has been doing a daily round-up of what the new Trump administration is up to. On Day One they introduced it this way: "Donald Trump is president, and he wants you to know that on his first day, he got things done. A lot of things. Almost 100 things, or maybe 200 things; whatever number it takes to give the appearance of forward motion. This was a key insight that Joe Biden, now a private citizen, never bothered to learn: In a 24/7, post-by-post information environment, presidents making it clear that they are 'doing things' matters a lot more than the substance, at least in short-term public perception. Let's speak the truth, a rare commodity over the next four years: The federal government takes action 200 times on a slow day. Like, that's a day-after-Christmas level of workload. And many of these 'actions' are just plans to make plans, or plans to write reports, many of which in Trump's first term were not completed (I know, I tracked them all). Others are really important, though sometimes not in the way you think. Others are asking for legal challenge so deeply that there's already litigation in place. What this moment calls for is clarity: to contextualize and explain, clearly and succinctly, what Trump is doing and who really benefits. So that's what we're going to do today. Below, you will find a rolling tally of the most important executive orders and their meaning, compiled by our staff. Keep checking back for updates." Obviously, they can't hit everything, but you'll still learn a lot more from them than you'll get from any other news source.
"Biden commutes life sentence of Indigenous activist Leonard Peltier, 80: [...] Peltier has maintained his innocence since he was arrested in connection with the deaths and had for decades been supported by advocates for his release by Coretta Scott King, Nelson Mandela and Pope Francis. James H Reynolds, the US attorney who handled the prosecution and appeal of Peltier's case, publicly apologized, calling the prosecution and incarceration of Peltier 'unjust' and has called for his immediate release." This should have happened a long time ago, but Biden left it for the last minute, and then Trump became president and pardoned the J6 gang.
Dday in The American Prospect, "The Essential Incoherence of the End of the Biden Presidency: One reason the president goes out with low approval ratings is that his agenda was internally contradictory. [...] The Biden White House has been active, too, in these final days. And some of their announcements help unlock the key to why, despite a generally populist economic agenda, voters were so frustrated with the president, sending him out the door with the lowest approval ratings of his entire term. Too often the White House would operate at cross-purposes to its more populist agencies, sometimes contradicting the very arguments the president himself was making in public. This dichotomy between values and actions grates on people, alienates potential allies, and gives voters little sense of a coherent agenda."
"Baltimore homicides and shootings fall to lowest levels since 2015: Baltimore finished 2024 with a second consecutive year of historic decreases in gun violence unlike the city has seen since the 1970s. The decrease in gun violence from last year has brought needed optimism to a city that has long struggled to bring down its homicide rate, which still remains well above the national average. Police say 201 people were killed, with more than 400 people shot and wounded. Experts in gun violence prevention, city officials and anti-violence workers attributed the decline to a variety of factors: statewide and national efforts to fight 'ghost guns,' political stability in City Hall, and the maturation of the mayor's approach to pairing policing with services and support." Homicides were 342 in 2015, 263 in 2023, and 201 in 2024.
"'Crushing Blow to the Labor Agenda' as Manchin, Sinema Block Biden NLRB Nominee: In a move likely fraught with major implications for worker rights during the impending second administration of Republican President-elect Donald Trump, Democratic-turned-Independent U.S. Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema on Wednesday blocked Democrat Lauren McFerran's bid for a second term on the National Labor Relations Board. With every Republican senator except Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas voting against President Joe Biden's nomination of McFerran for a new five-year term, the fate of the woman who has led the agency since 2021 was up to Manchin and Sinema—who, as More Perfect Union founder and executive director Faiz Shakir put it on social media, "consistently spoiled the story of 'what could have been'" by years of fighting to thwart their own former party's agenda. Sinema struck first, her "no" vote on McFerran grinding the confirmation tally to a 49-49 tie. Manchin, who showed up later, cast the decisive vote, negating speculation that Vice President Kamala Harris, the Senate president who lost the presidential contest to Trump last month, would break the stalemate." The even more infuriating thing is that if Kamala Harris had been on time, she could have cast the deciding vote before Manchin got there to gum up the works. Just absolutely useless.
"Israeli prosecutor says state has no rape cases against Palestinians from 7/10 raid: Regime representative admits what UN and others already said – but still wants to murder Palestinians. Israeli media outlet Ynet has published an interview with Moran Gaz, until recently, the head of the security cases division at the Southern District Prosecutor's Office in Israel and a member of 'Team 7.10,' which responsible for cases involving captured Palestinians in connection with the October 7th attacks. Gaz has admitted that, despite having over fourteen months to investigate the Israeli regime's claims of 'mass' and 'systematic' rape on 7 October 2023, her department has no evidence of any rapes or sexual assaults and is filing no cases for prosecution." That doesn't mean she isn't every bit as venomous against Palestinians, though.
"Judge threatens to break the UK's wall of secrecy around Assange's persecution: For years, the UK and Sweden stymied Freedom of Information requests to hide why prosecutors under Keir Starmer pursued the Wikileaks founder. Finally the game may be up. After nine years of legal battles, a British judge has finally challenged the wall of secrecy erected by British and Swedish authorities around the legal abuse of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Judge Foss, sitting at the London First-Tier Tribunal, has ruled that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) must explain how it came to destroy key files that would have shed light on why it pursued Assange for 14 years. The CPS appears to have done so in breach of its own procedures. [...] A few CPS emails from that time were not destroyed and have been released under Freedom of Information rules. They show that it was the UK authorities pushing reluctant Swedish prosecutors to pursue the case against Assange. Eventually, Swedish prosecutors dropped the case after running it into the ground. In other words, the few documents that have come to light show that it was the CPS – led at that time by Keir Starmer, later knighted and now Britain's prime minister – that waged what appears to have been a campaign of political persecution against Assange, rather than one based on proper legal considerations."
"'Don't Be Fooled': Laken Riley Act Not About Crime by Migrants—It's a Right-Wing Power Grab: With the U.S. Senate poised to vote on the Laken Riley Act on Friday, immigrant rights advocates are warning that—despite claims from proponents that the bill is aimed at protecting American communities from violent crime—supporters of the legislation are actually advancing a dangerous "Trojan horse" and securing a power grab for xenophobic right-wing authorities. [...] Immigration attorney Ben Winograd of the Immigrant & Refugee Appellate Center offered a hypothetical scenario under the bill: 'Imagine a man who is a U.S. citizen marries a woman who entered the country illegally. He abuses her constantly, and after learning that she intends to leave him, he calls the police and (falsely) claims that she stole some of his property.' 'If the police arrest the woman, she would be subject to mandatory detention while in removal proceedings—even if the police determined that the accusation was bogus,' said Winograd. 'The Laken Riley Act would allow any person with a grudge against an undocumented immigrant to make them subject to indefinite mandatory detention simply by leveling a false accusation of theft.'"
Jack Smith spills the beans: "In the newly released report, Smith detailed how Trump and his allies tried to 'induce state officials to ignore true vote counts,' manufactured 'fraudulent slates of presidential electors in seven states that he had lost,' directed 'an angry mob to the United States Capitol to obstruct the congressional certification of the presidential election,' and leveraged 'rioters' violence to further delay it.' 'In service of these efforts, Mr. Trump worked with other people to achieve a common plan: to overturn the election results and perpetuate himself in office,' the report added."
RIP: "Peter Yarrow of folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary dies aged 86: a vocalist with the US folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary, has died aged 86. The cause was bladder cancer, which Yarrow had been diagnosed with four years ago. Yarrow took lead vocals on Puff, the Magic Dragon, The Great Mandella and Day Is Done, songs he either wrote or co-wrote with Noel Paul Stookey. Stookey is the last surviving member of the group, as Mary Travers died in 2009." You probably had to be there, but they were an incredible influence.
RIP: "Sam Moore of Sam & Dave, at 89. "That tells you a great deal about the esteem Sam & Dave were held in by their fellow musicians, but, in truth, it is only scratching the surface: their songs were covered by everyone from the Temptations and Tom Jones to Eurythmics and Elvis Costello. At the height of their 60s success, they were called 'the greatest live act of all time' by Otis Redding's manager, whose own charge was hardly a slouch on stage. Nevertheless, after co-headlining with them on the 1967 Stax/Volt tour, Redding declined to share a bill with the duo nicknamed Double Dynamite again: he felt he had been thoroughly upstaged." (There's a great video of Sam & Dave doing "Hold On, I'm Comin'" on that page.) Their most famous track, of course, was "Soul Man."
RIP: "Garth Hudson, founder member of the Band and Bob Dylan collaborator, dies aged 87: Hudson was the last remaining member of the folk-rock group, releasing 10 studio albums with them and touring with Dylan in his newfound electric period. The multi-instrumentalist, who played keyboards and saxophone for the bestselling 1960s folk-rockers as well as Bob Dylan, died peacefully in his sleep at the Woodstock nursing home he lived in, the executor of his estate confirmed to the Toronto Star. Hudson's variously spirited and melancholy organ lines were a key part of the Band's sound – including his psychedelically vamping intro to Chest Fever – and he was also an accordionist, including on the Dylan-penned When I Paint My Masterpiece. Hudson was also responsible for recording and archiving the sessions that became The Basement Tapes, with the Band and Dylan playing ad-hoc songs in a house in upstate New York."
RIP: "Jules Feiffer, award-winning political cartoonist and writer, dies at 95: Feiffer was known for his weekly comic strip in the Village Voice called Feiffer. It was a fixture throughout the late 1950s until 1997 and syndication meant it appeared in publications such as the New Yorker, Esquire and the Observer." Gosh, it really feels like it's the end of some eras.
Marc Andreessen has been running around telling a bunch of stories meant to make CEOs look like innocent bystanders being attacked by the likes of the CPFB, and he also seems to think Hillary Clinton was president "Marc Andreessen, the billionaire tech investor who co-founded Netscape, has recently been making the rounds on various podcasts to talk about how the Democrats were so very mean to him and forced him to become a supporter of Donald Trump. Andreessen's obnoxious whining wouldn't otherwise be notable, given how many guys in the tech industry have blamed backlash against 'wokeness' to explain their support of the MAGA movement. But a new interview released by the New York Times on Friday is interesting, if only because the Times cleaned up its own transcript to make Andreessen sound like less of an idiot."
I still think it's almost impossible to find a verdict for who has been the worst president of my lifetime, which is longer than Mehdi Hasan's, but I can't help nodding at a lot of this: "Joe Biden had one job. And he failed. [...] Joe Biden had one job. Not getting bills passed or executive orders signed. Not fighting foreign wars or securing the border. No. It was defeating Donald Trump. Denying him the presidency. Ending the threat he posed to our democracy. That was Biden's one job. He said so himself. From the moment he announced his (third) campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2019, he made clear that he wanted to lead us to victory 'in the battle for the soul of this nation'. When he formally accepted his party's nomination at the Democratic national convention in the summer of 2020, he said he was running to 'save our democracy' and to ensure the United States became 'a light to the world once again'. This was a battle, he declaimed, 'that we, together, will win'." Well, that didn't happen, and if he'd really wanted to do that, he should have done the things Mehdi mentions in this column once he was in office. But he never should have been in office. The best thing he could have done was drop out of the race and endorse the front-runner.
"Sony Video Chief Admits Strategic Mistakes," or how DRM killed the Walkman.
"Kamala Harris Paid the Price for Not Breaking With Biden on Gaza, New Poll Shows: Twenty-nine percent of non-voters who supported Biden in 2020 said U.S. support for the genocide was the top reason they sat the 2024 election, according to a survey by YouGov. [...] Of course, diverging from Biden on Gaza risked losing voters who supported his policy. But a close look at the survey suggests that risk was low compared to the potential reward. Voters who were with Biden in 2020 and stuck with Harris in 2024 were asked if breaking with him on Gaza would make them more or less enthusiastic about voting for Harris. By a 35 to 5 margin, they said doing so would have made them more enthusiastic to vote for her, with the remainder saying it would have made no difference. Meanwhile, Democrats' unshakable commitment to the war also blended with concerns that the party was not focused on issues that mattered to Americans, as I argued previously. The survey showed that the issue of Gaza was most salient among white voters, 34 percent of whom said it was the top reason they didn't vote for Harris, and Hispanic voters (27 percent), while less so with black voters (just 9 percent)."
Peter, Paul & Mary, "Wasn't That A Time" live, 1967.
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