For over half a century, Trump has operated within a transnational organized crime network whose goal is to strip the US down and sell it for parts, much like the oligarch raids after the collapse of the Soviet Union. They have been aided in this endeavor by institutions, in particular the DOJ, which has long protected Trump, and by members of the Democratic Party serving as controlled opposition.
Many Americans did not want to believe this final twist. It is harder to reckon with betrayal than with a straight liar.
But the footage of a grinning Joe Biden with Donald Trump â the man who Biden claimed is a fascist who will destroy America and then handed the keys to the country, promising to accommodate him â seems to have finally woken folks up.
I warned you for nine years, because I wanted you to be prepared. Biden was a Placeholder President designed to fill the four years between two terms of Trump while plutocrats shifted American political culture sharply to the right. Media gutted, Twitter decimated, activism destroyed, books censored, minorities demonized, public health annihilated, victims blamed, empathy scorned.
That is the main thing they are after now: your empathy. They want you to hate each other so you donât hate them first.
They want you to buy into every cheap cliché and every manipulated poll. They want you to hate each other so much, you agree to their plan of tearing this country into warring fiefdoms for oligarchs to plunder. They want you to prey on the vulnerable, even though you are vulnerable too, so that the powerful can escape scrutiny.
They want you to cheer your own demise, mistaking it for someone elseâs.
Linkage
Things Katy is reading.
The End of Days Inn
I'm genetically male
for YouTubeWanted to share something very important and personal to raise awareness and hopefully help someone whoâs struggling with similar feelings I felt back when I was diagnosed as intersex.
Why Was Hitler Elected?
Nazism is a kind of âauthoritarian populism.â Populism is a political ideology that posits that politics is a conflict between two kinds of people: a real people whose concerns and beliefs are legitimate, moral, and true; a corrupt, out-of-touch, illegitimate elite who are parasitic on the real people. Populism is always anti-pluralist: there is only one real people, and they are in perfect agreement about everything. (Muller says populism is âa moralized form of antipluralismâ 20).
Populism become authoritarian when the narrative that the real people have become so oppressed by the âeliteâ that they are in danger of extermination. At that point, there are no constraints on the behavior of populists or their leaders. This rejection of what are called âliberal normsâ (not in the American sense of âliberalâ but the political theory one) such as fairness, change from within, deliberation, transparent and consistent legal processes is the moment that a populist movement becomes authoritarian (and Machiavellian).
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Authoritarian populism always has an intriguing mix of victimhood, heroism, strength, and whining. Somehow whining about how oppressed âwe areâ and what meany-meany-bo-beanies They are is seen as strength. And that is what much of Hitlerâs rhetoric wasâso very, very much whining.
And that is something else that authoritarian populism promises: a promise of never being held morally accountable, as long as you are a loyal (even fanatical) member of the in-group (the real people).
In authoritarian populism, the morality comes from group membership, and the values the group claims to haveâvalues which might have literally nothing to do with whatever policies they enact or ways they behave.
Your brain works fine when you're under 25 (no matter how 'inconvenient' this fact may be)
Basically, far too many people have seen descriptors like ânot fully developedâ and taken that to mean itâs like a partially assembled Ikea bookshelf; a work in progress, something that will be able to do itâs job when itâs done, but not until thenâ.
Thatâs not how brains work, though. At every stage of development, theyâre âfunctionalâ. Young brains allow us to walk, speak, perceive, connect, deduce, calculate, coordinate, decide, respond, focus, retain, and all the other stuff your standard human brain does all day every day to successfully navigate our increasingly complex world.
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Why do people insist otherwise? Unclear. But itâs not based on any particular scientific study or claim. At best, it seems to be a corruption/misunderstanding of a few older studies into brain development, ones which mentioned, or only used subjects under the age of, 25. But didnât make any grand claims about this being some developmental cut-off point, or the moment when your brain dings like a microwave, to let you know that itâs âdoneâ.
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Letâs be clear; more often than not, anyone invoking the âpeople under 25 years old donât have functional brainsâ argument, is doing so to support their position or beliefs, whatever they may be.
Thatâs why someone can be deemed too young to understand the decision to, say, get an abortion, and simultaneously be declared mature enough to have and raise a baby.
Or young men under 25 can be âtoo youngâ to be expected to stop themselves from committing crimes like sexual assault, but are definitely old enough to receive the full adult punishment for joining a terrorist organisation, or entering another country by non-legal means. And so on.
Mirroring Trump, Peter Dutton takes aim at diversity and inclusion workforce
Mr Dutton's incendiary speech â his first major statement of the year â sets up a direct clash and contrast to Anthony Albanese who is campaigning for re-election by celebrating Labor's efforts to expand the nation's "care economy" and boost services to the elderly, families with young children, and people with disabilities.
In addition the opposition leader's promise to dismantle the role of "culture, diversity and inclusion" advisers seeks to mirror Donald Trump's successful political campaign in last year's US presidential race when he took aim at what are known in the US as diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
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Describing the federal bureaucracy's growth under Labor as a "completely unsustainable economic situation", Mr Dutton said he would deploy newly appointed shadow for government efficiency Jacinta Price to help "scale back the Canberra public service in a responsible way".
Senator Price has also vowed to review funding for Welcome to Country ceremonies.
Australia spends $714 per person on roads every year â but just 90 cents goes to walking, wheeling and cycling
in The ConversationEven if you donât want to walk, wheel or ride, you should care because less driving helps everyone, including other drivers, who benefit from reduced traffic.
As a result of this over-investment in car road-building, Australia has the smallest number of walking trips of 15 comparable countries across Western Europe and North America.
Cycling rates are equally dismal.
Globally, the United Nations recommends nations spend 20% of their transport budgets on walking and cycling infrastructure.
Countries like France, Scotland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and the largest cities in China invest between 10% and 20%.
These places were not always known for walking and cycling â it took sustained redirecting of investment from roads to walking and cycling.
Meanwhile, many Australians are dependent on cars because they have no other choice in terms of transport options.
Globally representative evidence on the actual and perceived support for climate action
in NatureMitigating climate change necessitates global cooperation, yet global data on individualsâ willingness to act remain scarce. In this study, we conducted a representative survey across 125 countries, interviewing nearly 130,000 individuals. Our findings reveal widespread support for climate action. Notably, 69% of the global population expresses a willingness to contribute 1% of their personal income, 86% endorse pro-climate social norms and 89% demand intensified political action. Countries facing heightened vulnerability to climate change show a particularly high willingness to contribute. Despite these encouraging statistics, we document that the world is in a state of pluralistic ignorance, wherein individuals around the globe systematically underestimate the willingness of their fellow citizens to act. This perception gap, combined with individuals showing conditionally cooperative behaviour, poses challenges to further climate action. Therefore, raising awareness about the broad global support for climate action becomes critically important in promoting a unified response to climate change.
Whose hands on our education? Identifying and countering gender-restrictive backlash
in Advancing Learning and Innovation on Gender Norms (ALIGN)Around the world, gender-restrictive actors are organising to suppress gender-equality in schools. ALIGNâs review of the latest evidence reveals that anti-gender backlash in education is taking place from contexts as diverse as Afghanistan, Chile, Indonesia, Kenya, Pakistan, South Africa, Uganda, the US.
This ALIGN Report focuses on the activities of gender-restrictive actors and organisations who seek to promote a narrow vision of gender relations through the education system. The research shows that their influence is expanding efforts to entrench patriarchal social norms and a binary view of gender, and gaining ground across the globe.
Common aims and tactics include: to remove comprehensive sexuality education from schools, restrict girls access to learning, reinforce patriarchal gender stereotypes in textbooks and reject gender-inclusive policies in school environments. These groups are sustained by deep financial networks which drive effective strategies to amplify misinformation, provoke parental protests, and impose traditional family values.
Political reporters are actively covering up Trumpâs racism
Trump said at his Thursday news conference that his conclusion that diversity had something to do with the crash was âcommon senseâ.
But common sense tells us he was being racist.
â âItâs probably a black personâs fault this bad thing happenedâ as a reflexive explanation is just a racist statement, thereâs not a level of substantiation that makes it not racist,â Atlantic staff writer Adam Serwer posted on Bluesky.
âHe's not blaming DEI, he's blaming women and non white people,â wrote MSNBCâs Chris Hayes.
âThese people are segregationists and their position is that no one who isnât a white man is qualified to do skilled work of any kind,â New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie wrote on Bluesky. He then added: "i think it is important to say that the open and explicit racism of the president and the vice president isnât just uncouth or âcontroversialâ but a direct attack on tens of millions of americans and a dereliction of their duty to represent the entire country."
The Western Way of Genocide
The world is breaking down under the onslaught of the climate crisis, which is triggering mass migrations, failed states and catastrophic wildfires, hurricanes, storms, flooding and droughts. As global stability unravels, the terrifying machine of industrial violence, which is decimating the Palestinians, will become ubiquitous. These assaults will be committed, as they are in Gaza, in the name of progress, Western civilization and our supposed âvirtuesâ to crush the aspirations of those, mostly poor people of color, who have been dehumanized and dismissed as human animals.
Israelâs annihilation of Gaza marks the death of a global order guided by internationally agreed upon laws and rules, one often violated by the U.S. in its imperial wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, but one that was at least acknowledged as a utopian vision. The U.S. and its Western allies not only supply the weaponry to sustain the genocide, but obstruct the demand by most nations for an adherence to humanitarian law.
The message this sends is clear: You, and the rules that you thought might protect you, do not matter. We have everything. If you try and take it away from us we will kill you.
The militarized drones, helicopter gunships, walls and barriers, checkpoints, coils of concertina wire, watch towers, detention centers, deportations, brutality and torture, denial of entry visas, apartheid existence that comes with being undocumented, loss of individual rights and electronic surveillance are as familiar to the desperate migrants along the Mexican border or attempting to enter Europe as they are to the Palestinians.