Music: Nuspirit Helsinki — ‘Circular Motion’
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris should not run again in 2024
David Ignatius writes: Joe Biden launched his candidacy for president in 2019 with the words “we are in the battle for the soul of this nation.” He was right. And though it wasn’t obvious at first to many Democrats, he was the best person to wage that fight. He was a genial but also shrewd campaigner for the restoration of what legislators call “regular order.” Since then, Biden has had a remarkable string of wins. He defeated President Donald Trump…
She’s 25, idealistic, and believes she has the formula for Democrats to win North Carolina
Politico reports: At 25 years old, Anderson Clayton could pass for a college student. The North Carolina Democratic Party chair’s persona is reinforced by the bag slung over the shoulder, her colorful overalls and bright yellow Croc sandals, the half-consumed Venti iced coffee in her hand, and the youthful southern drawl with which she speaks. But she’s not a student. She’s the linchpin for Democrats winning over her state. And a lot of pressure is now falling on her after…
The right-wing ReAwaken America conspiracy-fest is more openly bloodthirsty than before
Katherine Stewart writes: The first thing I noticed at the latest stop on the ReAwaken America Tour in Las Vegas in mid-August was that the T-shirts are getting nastier. “Size Matters” blared one man’s shirt over enlarged images of bullets of various calibers. “It’s RINO Season,” read another, with an image of Trump carrying a long gun. Another man’s T-shirt featured dozens of white male soldiers and the words “Diversity is Destruction” across the bottom. There was the old standby,…
Judge Cannon restricts Trump’s access to classified info in docs case and limits what he can say
NBC News reports: The judge presiding over the federal criminal case alleging Donald Trump willfully mishandled national security secrets issued an order Wednesday limiting the former president’s access to the evidence while also barring him from publicly discussing sensitive material. The 16-page order from U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon is largely in line with a proposal submitted by special counsel Jack Smith’s team in July for how national security information at the center of the case should be handled by…
In war’s wake, Russia’s ethnic minorities renew dreams of independence from Moscow
Courtney Dobson writes: “I burned my Russian passport — I was so angry,” Nikita Andreev said. It was Feb. 27, 2022, three days after Russia initiated its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and Andreev was attending an anti-war demonstration in the U.S., where he has been living since 2011. The act, Andreev told New Lines, was spontaneous. Perhaps he was caught up in the moment as he stood near an open pit, surrounded by people singing Ukrainian folk songs and waving…
The Libya floods: a climate and infrastructure catastrophe
Bob Henson and Jeff Masters write: Africa’s deadliest storm in recorded history struck eastern Libya on Sunday and Monday, leaving thousands dead and an already struggling society faced with a mammoth recovery effort. Storm Daniel’s preliminary death toll of 5,300 in Libya as of Wednesday morning surpasses the 1927 floods in Algeria (3,000 killed) as the deadliest storm in Africa since 1900, according to statistics from EM-DAT, the international disaster database. Storm Daniel is also the deadliest storm globally since…
Giant cracks in the ground emerging across U.S. Southwest, scientists warn
Science Alert reports: The United States has been pumping so much groundwater that the ground is beginning to split open across southwestern parts of the country for miles on end. These giant cracks, aka fissures, have been spotted in states including Arizona, Utah, and California. Groundwater is one of the main sources of freshwater on Earth – it provides almost half of all drinking water, and about 40% of global irrigation. But humans are pumping groundwater faster than Earth can…
Music: Nuspirit Helsinki — ‘Orson’
Trump faces another 14th Amendment candidacy challenge, this time in Minnesota
CNN reports: A liberal group filed a lawsuit Tuesday to block former President Donald Trump from the 2024 presidential ballot in Minnesota, the second major lawsuit in two weeks that hopes to invoke the 14th Amendment’s arcane “insurrectionist ban.” The cases are seen as legal long shots. Trump denies wrongdoing and has vowed to fight to remain on the presidential ballot. The new Minnesota lawsuit was filed in state court by Free Speech For People, one week after another group…
What Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orbán understand about your brain
Marcel Danesi writes: Why do people believe some politicians’ lies even when they have been proven false? And why do so many of the same people peddle conspiracy theories? Lying and conspiratorial thinking might seem to be two different problems, but they turn out to be related. I study political rhetoric and have tried to understand how populist politicians use language to develop a cult-like following, divide nations, create culture wars and instill hatred. This pattern goes back to antiquity…
How Trump’s DOJ gave Biden a major assist in the coming impeachment probe
Politico reports: Joe Biden has a literal Trump card to play against the House’s new impeachment inquiry. In January 2020, the Donald Trump-led Justice Department formally declared that impeachment inquiries by the House are invalid unless the chamber takes formal votes to authorize them. That opinion — issued by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel — came in response to then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to launch an impeachment inquiry into Trump without initially holding a vote for it….
The real aim of McCarthy’s impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden
Molly Olmstead writes: Republicans have threatened to impeach President Joe Biden so many times that it’s become natural to tune out every new attempt. The calls started before his presidency even began, when right-wingers put credence behind the false narrative that Biden had “stolen” the 2020 election. Since then, Republicans have called for a Biden impeachment over—among other things—immigration policies; military decisions; COVID-related restrictions and measures; classified documents; and accusations of abusing the FBI and other agencies for Biden’s own…
Biden impeachment inquiry gives White House a fight it’s ready for
CNBC reports: The White House’s oversight and investigations war room finally got the battle on Tuesday that they’d been arming themselves for. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s announcement that he has directed GOP led House committees to open an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden was the long anticipated retribution that White House aides had been waiting for, after House Democrats twice impeached Donald Trump during his one term in office. Ever since Republicans retook the House majority last year, the…
Coming together as things fall apart
Astra Taylor writes: Since 2020, the richest 1 percent has captured nearly two-thirds of all new wealth globally — almost twice as much money as the rest of the world’s population. At the beginning of last year, it was estimated that 10 billionaire men possessed six times as much wealth as the poorest three billion people on Earth. In the United States, the richest 10 percent of households own more than 70 percent of the country’s assets. Such statistics are…
Iran’s researchers increasingly isolated as government prepares to wall off internet
Science reports: Last year, a machine learning expert in Silicon Valley embarked on a long-distance partnership with two neuroscientists in Tehran, Iran. They planned to gather data on how neurons respond to visual cues, hoping to develop a marker for early detection of Parkinson’s disease. “I’d handle the modeling and analysis, and we’d co-author papers,” says the U.S.-based computer scientist, who asked to remain anonymous because he has family in Iran. Then, on 16 September 2022, Mahsa Jina Amini, a…