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Today, Judge Juan Merchan continued his valiant effort to properly conduct a state criminal trial and post-trial proceedings in the face of Donald Trump’s complete disregard for rule of law and a U.S. Supreme Court that has shown its inclination to wholly protect Trump from federal criminal prosecution. He has ruled that sentencing of Trump for his 34 felony convictions for his violation of New York criminal law will go forward and before Inauguration Day. Judge Merchan’s opinion in support of his ruling is both a fine piece of judicial craft and yet another piece of evidence that the combination of the Roberts Court and Donald Trump distorts judicial practice in every jurisdiction.

Education in America has a political problem. At this point, even the Chronicle of Higher Education admits that conservatives have been winnowed out of academia, leaving a brittle coterie of narrow-minded extremists to staff faculties across the country. But the problem does not end with leftist indoctrination. Conservatives are increasingly divided about how to address the issue.

One form of counter-revolution is taking shape in Ron DeSantis’s Florida. There, government officials have used state power not only to overhaul the administration at New College of Florida, but also to impose curricular reforms across the state’s educational system. This approach, though, has drawn criticism from anti-woke liberals and moderates like David French and Jordan Peterson.

DeSantis, Chris Rufo, and their allies intend to wield state power for good while their enemies wield it for evil. For critics, this only shifts the problem across the aisle: where once the University of Toronto tried to force Peterson to use neo-pronouns, perhaps New College will mandate a traditional view of American civics. Dissenters would then be purged as Peterson was.

Another day, another trans athlete ban. Soon it’s going to be more expedient to list which sports and places trans people can play sports in.

Ever since news of President-elect Trump’s more unorthodox appointments was leaked, debates have raged over whether his nominees are “qualified” for the roles for which they’ve been selected.

When President Trump chose Pete Hegseth to serve as Secretary of Defense, protests immediately began that he is nothing more than a “Fox News Host” who should be dismissed as unserious. Matt Gaetz had to forego his nomination for Attorney General not just because of his controversial past but because he lacks experience directly practicing law.

When it comes to Tulsi Gabbard, RFK Jr., Kash Patel, and the rest, our august senators will surely provide their judicious advice and consent—setting aside all personal grievances and factional concerns. (I know, I know…but c’mon, give them a chance.)

The whole debate, though, rests on faulty premises. Before asking whether Trump’s picks are “serious” or “qualified,” we should consider that our governing class may have a warped view of what counts as “qualified” and what “serious” means.

A 2015 paper investigates what it is that motivates trans people to stay alive and keep going.

This article is read by Eunice Wong, a Juilliard-trained actor, featured on Audible's list of Best Women Narrators. Her work is on the annual Best Audiobooks lists of the New York Times, Audible, AudioFile, & Library Journal. www.eunicewong.actor

Text originally published Dec. 30, 2024

This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.

The vast censorship and suppression campaign launched by American tech companies since October 7, 2023 has been both systemic and deliberate. Instagram, Facebook, X as well as other tech platforms and companies like Google, Microsoft and Apple have actively worked to stifle information regarding the genocide in Gaza. Dissent against policies or individuals who enable these decisions is often met with swift reprimand in the form of job loss.

Joining host Chris Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report are three courageous individuals who chose to put their careers on the line to fight against Big Tech suppression of voices fighting for Palestinian lives.

Resident evil Twitter hag JK Rowling has uninvented trans children.

Running for school board, a candidate is mysteriously endorsed by an anti-LGBTQ+ group.

As legislation targeting the trans community increases, it is important to ground ourselves in the details of the laws that impact us.

Following my annual practice, I have listed here my “novel” reading for 2024. This is a way of documenting what I get through in a year’s worth of reading on the commute to work, in the evenings after work, and while travelling outside of my “normal” academic reading. My use of the term “novel” reading is loosely adopted, as you will see from the list to include fiction and then really important non-fiction work I get excited to read in my spare time. As you will see, my novel reading shifted away from novels to much more academic reading in my “free time” and then back again. But that approach has been richly rewarding. This year, though, there has been less novel reading compared to previous years. Why is that? Not sure. I was commuting less – due to study leave – but also tackled some big books that left me exhausted. Charles M. Doughty’s Travels in Arabia Deserta (two volumes) was one of those experiences. It was a journey that took me in my reading from one desert setting to another in the form of the Florida Mountains in New Mexico (represented in the set image for this blog post by John Fowler from Placitas, NM) and the mesas of Arizona and Sonora with their porphyry rock fibre, mesquite, lomas, and grease-wood plains. As John C. Van Dyke says, ‘the deserts are not worthless wastes . . . they are the breathing spaces of the west’.