Author: nick
Photograph Source: Haribhagirath – CC BY-SA 4.0 “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you bunch of crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell,” the President of the United States wrote on Truth Social on Easter Sunday, in reference to Iran and the Strait of Hormuz. Unpresidential language? The word vulgar has two meanings; common and ordinary, or rude and obscene. Are Donald Trump’s language and behavior common and ordinary, or rude and obscene? The Trump White House has little in common with the world of John F. Kennedy, where the virtuoso cellist Pablo Casals once performed chamber music in the East…
Dear Friend, I want to tell you about one of the most important series in journalism my newsroom has produced, and why it’s a perfect example of what your support makes possible. You remember the Butler rally. July 13, 2024. A gunman opened fire on President Trump, grazed his ear, and killed Corey Comperatore, a former fire chief who was shielding his family. Two other rallygoers were critically wounded. It was the most serious assassination attempt on a president or presidential candidate in decades. After Butler, the big networks covered the shock, the politics, the fallout. And then, as they…
Ayaan Hirsi Ali: The SPLC, a group that called me an ‘extremist,’ has been accused of funding hate groups. And it’s provoked racial conflict for decades. Source link
With Republicans controlling both houses of Congress, President Donald Trump’s reversal from opponent to supporter of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) seemed certain to guarantee renewal of the law. That’s not what happened. Instead, Section 702 of the controversial spying legislation won only a temporary extension, to April 30, as civil libertarians and surveillance-state supporters from both major parties continue to battle. Hopefully, the outcome is the long-deserved demise of surveillance practices that threaten the privacy of Americans. You are reading The Rattler from J.D. Tuccille and Reason. Get more of J.D.’s commentary on government overreach…
Photograph Source: Tom in NYC – CC BY 2.0 Given that Donald Trump conceives of the presidency as a casino—why else would he be trying to makeover the White House to look like the Bellagio?—it makes sense that his administration has turned the war with Iran into an insider-trading scheme. It used to be that wars were fought to make “the world safe for democracy” or “to end all wars” (a World War I expression), but now wars are fought so that Trump insiders can get rich quick in prediction markets or to help the president’s family (and its remittance…
It’s rare for a novel to open with a protagonist as deliciously and immediately hateable as Natalie Heller Mills, the faux-homesteading tradwife influencer at the center of Caro Claire Burke’s Yesteryear. “I was perfect at being alive,” she informs readers early on. But Natalie turns out to be an unreliable narrator of her own life. Yesteryear weaves together the story of how Natalie came to be queen of the Instagram moms with a look at her current surreal predicament: waking up one day in what appears to be a real 1800s homestead. There’s an outhouse. Endless laundry to be hand-washed. A…
In one of the scariest moments in modern history, we’re doing our best at ScheerPost to pierce the fog of lies that conceal it but we need some help to pay our writers and staff. Please consider a tax-deductible donation. Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright for Black Agenda Report The Eve of an International Fossil Fuels Conference. Afro-descendant organizers are being erased from a fossil fuels conference before the event even begins. This week the Colombian and Dutch governments will host the First International Conference to Phase Out Fossil Fuels in Santa Marta, Colombia. The official goal of the conference, in part,…
Crassus was one of the richest and most powerful men in Rome. He rose to the top alongside Julius Caesar and Pompey as part of the First Triumvirate, an informal three-man alliance that dominated Roman politics even though it was not an official office. Crassus wanted military glory to match his wealth and political influence, so in 53 BC he led a Roman invasion of the Parthian Empire, which then ruled much of what is now modern-day Iran. The campaign was a disaster, one of Rome’s worst military defeats. Crassus ignored better advice and pushed deep into hostile territory. Roman infantry…
In the 10th season of Queer Eye, the Fab Five come to Washington, D.C., where they provide their “make-better” personal style revamps to two sisters, a charter school teacher, a firefighting single mom, a boat repairman, and a stepfather with a large blended family. The season includes many of the gimmicks Queer Eye viewers have come to expect (or loathe). Since its launch in 2003 on Bravo and reboot by Netflix in 2018, the show has undermined cultural stereotypes about the LGBTQ community. It didn’t do this by yelling at people, nor did it demand that the state punish bigots. It just highlighted…
In one of the scariest moments in modern history, we’re doing our best at ScheerPost to pierce the fog of lies that conceal it but we need some help to pay our writers and staff. Please consider a tax-deductible donation. Stephen Prager for Common Dreams One Palestinian American researcher warned that Israel is seeking “annexation without legal burden.” Israel’s gradual advancement of its “yellow line” to occupy more territory in the Gaza Strip is fueling concerns that it is seeking to effectively annex and colonize the majority of the territory without any formal agreement. The Guardian reported on Wednesday that Israel has been…