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Trump keeps musing about journalists being raped in prison — he’s not joking

Trump keeps musing about journalists being raped in prison — he’s not joking

Rolling Stone reports: Donald Trump ended his pre-midterm rally blitz in disgusting fashion, calling House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “an animal,” championing the death penalty, and giddily imagining the prison rape of the journalist who reported on the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. “The leaking from the Supreme Court is unbelievable,” the former president said Monday night at a rally in Ohio. “But you get the information very easily. You tell the reporter who is it … and…

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Meet the ‘Black Robe Regiment’ of extremist pastors spreading Christian nationalism

Meet the ‘Black Robe Regiment’ of extremist pastors spreading Christian nationalism

Vice News reports: Days before the midterm elections, Pastor David MacLellan was ready to preach far-right politics through Bible verses to his small congregation. MacLellan, a hulking man with a long, grizzled black beard, isn’t an ordinary pastor. He proudly identifies himself as a far-right, extremist pastor and a Christian nationalist, someone who believes American politics should reflect fundamentalist Christian values. And he’s part of a growing national religious political movement called the Black Robe Regiment, a modern-day group inspired…

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How supergenes fuel evolution despite harmful mutations

How supergenes fuel evolution despite harmful mutations

Carrie Arnold writes: Thousands of miles from home in the steamy Amazon rainforest in the mid-1800s, the British naturalist Henry Walter Bates had a problem. More than one, really; there were thumb-size biting insects, the ever-present threat of malaria, venomous snakes, and mold and mildew that threatened to overtake his precious specimens before they could be shipped back to England. But the nagging scientific problem that bothered him involved butterflies. Bates had noticed that some of the brightly colored Heliconius…

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Climate change threatening ‘things Americans value most,’ U.S. report says

Climate change threatening ‘things Americans value most,’ U.S. report says

The Washington Post reports: Climate change is unleashing “far-reaching and worsening” calamities in every region of the United States, and the economic and human toll will only increase unless humans move faster to slow the planet’s warming, according to a sprawling new federal report released Monday. “The things Americans value most are at risk,” write the National Climate Assessment authors, who represent a broad range of federal agencies. “Many of the harmful impacts that people across the country are already…

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A technologically advanced society is choosing to destroy itself. It’s both fascinating and horrifying to watch

A technologically advanced society is choosing to destroy itself. It’s both fascinating and horrifying to watch

Landon Parenteau/Unsplash, CC BY By Christopher Wright, University of Sydney; Daniel Nyberg, University of Newcastle, and Vanessa Bowden, University of Newcastle As world leaders assemble for the United Nations climate change conference (COP27) in Egypt, it’s hard to be optimistic the talks will generate any radical departure from the inexorable rise in global carbon emissions over the past two centuries. After all, before last year’s Glasgow talks, experts warned the summit was the world’s last chance to limit global warming…

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How a GOP Congress could roll back freedoms nationwide

How a GOP Congress could roll back freedoms nationwide

Ronald Brownstein writes: If Republicans win control of one or both congressional chambers this week, they will likely begin a project that could reshape the nation’s political and legal landscape: imposing on blue states the rollback of civil rights and liberties that has rapidly advanced through red states since 2021. Over the past two years, the 23 states where Republicans hold unified control of the governorship and state legislature have approved the most aggressive wave of socially conservative legislation in…

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Putin ally and mercenary chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, brags about Russia meddling in U.S. midterm elections

Putin ally and mercenary chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, brags about Russia meddling in U.S. midterm elections

The New York Times reports: With alarm over foreign manipulation of the U.S. midterm elections swirling ahead of Tuesday’s vote, an influential Russian businessman and close associate of President Vladimir V. Putin sardonically boasted on Monday that Russia was interfering in the election. “Gentlemen, we have interfered, we do interfere and we will interfere,” the businessman, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, known as “Putin’s Chef,” said in a statement posted by his catering company in response to a question from a Russian…

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U.S. privately asks Ukraine to show it’s open to negotiate with Russia

U.S. privately asks Ukraine to show it’s open to negotiate with Russia

The Washington Post reports: The Biden administration is privately encouraging Ukraine’s leaders to signal an openness to negotiate with Russia and drop their public refusal to engage in peace talks unless President Vladimir Putin is removed from power, according to people familiar with the discussions. The request by American officials is not aimed at pushing Ukraine to the negotiating table, these people said. Rather, they called it a calculated attempt to ensure the government in Kyiv maintains the support of…

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Trump’s Twitter clone has turned into his albatross

Trump’s Twitter clone has turned into his albatross

The Washington Post reports: The co-founders of former president Donald Trump’s post-presidential start-up, Trump Media & Technology Group, had a name for June 11, 2021: “meltdown day.” Andy Litinsky and Wes Moss, former contestants on Trump’s reality show “The Apprentice,” had a week earlier traveled with an 11-person entourage to Trump’s palatial golf club in Bedminster, N.J., to show off what they’d worked for months to build: a web of conservative-aimed business ventures, including the Twitter clone Truth Social, that…

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Elon Musk’s spectacular incompetence

Elon Musk’s spectacular incompetence

https://t.co/lt6A7XqxoR pic.twitter.com/JOVY64QLT9 — ma.nu (@lmanul) November 7, 2022 Charlie Warzel writes: Elon Musk has spent the past 12 years tweeting whatever comes into his mind, often without major negative consequences. That was before he owned the place. Now, less than two weeks after his $44 billion purchase, the world’s richest man is finding that his actions—which recently included tweeting a baseless conspiracy theory to Hillary Clinton about the assault on Paul Pelosi—may actually have consequences. Advertisers are fleeing, the employees…

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Russia reactivates its trolls and bots ahead of Tuesday’s midterm elections

Russia reactivates its trolls and bots ahead of Tuesday’s midterm elections

The New York Times reports: The user on Gab who identifies as Nora Berka resurfaced in August after a yearlong silence on the social media platform, reposting a handful of messages with sharply conservative political themes before writing a stream of original vitriol. The posts mostly denigrated President Biden and other prominent Democrats, sometimes obscenely. They also lamented the use of taxpayer dollars to support Ukraine in its war against invading Russian forces, depicting Ukraine’s president as a caricature straight…

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Arizona election workers face threats of violence

Arizona election workers face threats of violence

Reuters reports: Election workers in Arizona’s most fiercely contested county faced more than 100 violent threats and intimidating communications in the run-up to Tuesday’s midterms, most of them based on election conspiracy theories promoted by former President Donald Trump and his allies. The harassment in Maricopa County included menacing emails and social media posts, threats to circulate personal information online and photographing employees arriving at work, according to nearly 1,600 pages of documents obtained by Reuters through a public records…

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Homeland Security admits it tried to manufacture fake terrorists for Trump

Homeland Security admits it tried to manufacture fake terrorists for Trump

Gizmodo reports: The Department of Homeland Security launched a failed operation that ensnared hundreds, if not thousands, of U.S. protesters in what new documents show was as a sweeping, power-hungry effort before the 2020 election to bolster President Donald Trump’s spurious claims about a “terrorist organization” he accused his Democratic rivals of supporting. An internal investigative report, made public this month by Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat of Oregon, details the findings of DHS lawyers concerning a previously undisclosed effort…

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ReAwaken America tour spreading the gospel of Trump

ReAwaken America tour spreading the gospel of Trump

Ed Pilkington reports: “There is a man by the name of Donald,” the voice on the recording says. “God said, ‘You have been determined through your prayers to influence this nation … I will open that door that you prayed about, and when it comes time for the election you will be elected.” Three thousand people are packed into an overflowing auditorium, many with arms raised and eyes closed in prayer. The recording to which they are listening is from…

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