Music: Hvalfugl — ‘Ensomme’
How climate change could upend the American dream
By Abrahm Lustgarten This story was originally published by ProPublica Houses in the Altadena and Pacific Palisades neighborhoods were still ablaze when talk turned to the cost of the Los Angeles firestorms and who would pay for it. Now it appears that the total damage and economic loss could be more than $250 billion. This, after a year in which hurricanes Milton and Helene and other extreme weather events had already exacted tens of billions of dollars in American disaster…
Trump’s talking about shutting down FEMA. Republicans oppose the idea
Politico reports: President Donald Trump’s suggestions that he might shut down the federal agency charged with responding to disasters are running into trouble with Republican lawmakers. Deeply red states are experiencing some of the costliest disasters, and lawmakers from those states fear that eliminating Federal Emergency Management Agency would leave them on the hook for increasingly expensive bills. So while they’re open to overhauling FEMA, congressional Republicans said they flatly reject the idea of abolishing the agency. “FEMA can’t go…
Trump ally Peter Marocco behind evisceration of USAID: ‘He’s a destroyer’
Ya'll remember Merritt Corrigan and Peter Marocco?#SeditionHunters #Acountability #Jan6thInsurrection pic.twitter.com/giIb4IebTp — Not Sandy 📛 (@K2theSky) November 4, 2024 In November, D Magazine reported: Pete Marocco, the executive director of Dallas HERO, and his wife, Merritt Corrigan Marocco, have been accused by citizen investigators of entering the U.S. Capitol during the January 6, 2021, insurrection. A group of semi-anonymous, volunteer sleuths that has become known as the Sedition Hunters identified the couple by scouring social media, video footage, and by using…
What every American should know about U.S. foreign aid
George Ingram wrote in 2019: Seventy-five years of U.S. foreign assistance has produced more fiction than fact when it comes to how American tax dollars are being spent around the world. In the interest of providing taxpayers with information about the value of their federal investment in this regard, it might be helpful to look at some of the top myths surrounding foreign aid, and how these myths compare with reality. Myth #1: America spends too much on foreign aid…
What it’s been like inside USAID, an agency that Trump and Musk decided to eliminate
A USAID employee, who has requested anonymity for fear of retribution, writes: Working for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) — the conduit for American soft power across the globe — demanded I prepare for frightening things that thankfully most Americans don’t need to worry about. Defensive driving techniques to escape from a terrorist attack. How to spot where landmines might be in the field. Emergency first aid in the event of a shooting or other attack, including in…
Elon Musk is staging a cyberattack and a coup
Cathy Gellis writes: People sometimes think that cybersecurity is just about defending computer systems from remote adversaries. But it’s broader than that; cybersecurity has always been about protecting computer systems more generally from any sort of misuse, no matter how the adversary might access them. So that Elon Musk and his minions have managed to walk right into government offices to take over computer systems where they had no legitimate authorization or entitlement needs to be understood as a…
Musk’s team of young DOGE disruptors have been unmasked
The Daily Beast reports: One is a 19-year-old college freshman and heir to a popcorn fortune. Another was hosting Model UN sessions in 2019 and a third was given money by his parents to invest in stocks while at his high school in Silicon Valley. The world’s richest man lashed out at an X account which suggested the six young men, who now have access the Treasury Department’s payment system, among other things, should be “paid a visit” by FBI…
Music: Hvalfugl — ‘Regnen Falder Som Sne’
Donald Trump is a product of American sadness — not its remedy
If Donald Trump truly cared about the fentanyl crisis, he would focus on where the drug is being consumed rather than where it originates. Where sadness is endemic, there is hunger for relief, but instead of addressing the root causes of societal pain, Trump is implementing policies that will produce even more pain. In Darling: A Spiritual Autobiography (2014), Richard Rodriguez wrote: If you would understand the tension between Mexico and the United States that is playing out along our…
Why Trump’s tariffs can’t solve America’s fentanyl crisis
By Rodney Coates, Miami University Americans consume more illicit drugs per capita than anyone else in the world; about 6% of the U.S. population uses them regularly. One such drug, fentanyl – a synthetic opioid that’s 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine – is the leading reason U.S. overdose deaths have surged in recent years. While the rate of fentanyl overdose deaths has dipped a bit recently, it’s still vastly higher than it was just five years ago….
Top FBI agent in New York vows to ‘dig in’ rather than capitulate during ongoing witch hunt
The New York Times reports: The top agent at the F.B.I.’s New York field office vowed in a defiant email to his staff to “dig in” after the Trump administration targeted officials involved in the investigations into the Jan. 6 attack — and praised the bureau’s interim leaders for defending its independence. “Today, we find ourselves in the middle of a battle of our own, as good people are being walked out of the F.B.I. and others are being targeted…
The young, inexperienced engineers helping Musk seize control of federal infrastructure
Wired Reports: Elon Musk’s takeover of federal government infrastructure is ongoing, and at the center of things is a coterie of engineers who are barely out of—and in at least one case, purportedly still in—college. Most have connections to Musk, and at least two have connections to Musk’s longtime associate Peter Thiel, a cofounder and chair of the analytics firm and government contractor Palantir who has long expressed opposition to democracy. WIRED has identified six young men—all apparently between the…
Trump is waging war against his own government
NBC News reports: Less than two weeks into his term, President Donald Trump is waging war against his own government, creating a deep sense of fear in the federal workforce — and recipients of federal aid — as he tests the limits of his power to alter the scope, function and nonpartisan nature of government without Congress. Primarily using two little-known agencies — the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management — Trump has tried to…
Ontario Premier Ford announces ban on American liquor in response to U.S. tariffs
CBC reports: Ontario Premier Doug Ford has ordered the Liquor Control Board of Ontario to strip its shelves of American products in response to the U.S. imposing 25 per cent tariffs on most Canadian imports starting Tuesday. “Every year, LCBO sells nearly $1 billion worth of American wine, beer, spirits and seltzers. Not anymore,” said Ford in a statement Sunday morning. Ford says American liquor will be removed from LCBO shelves “starting Tuesday.” The premier said the LCBO, as the…
The far-right is rising at a crucial time in Germany, boosted by Elon Musk
By Matt Fitzpatrick, Flinders University With only a few weeks until Germany’s election, Elon Musk has unambiguously thrown his support behind the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. In a video address to a party rally last week, he appeared to urge Germans to “move on” from any “past guilt” related to the Holocaust. It’s good to be proud of German culture, German values, and not to lose that in some sort of multiculturalism that dilutes everything. Troublingly, the AfD…