Kathleen Culliton, Assistant Managing Editor - Raw Story
Stephan:
The MAGAt side, the Trumper side, of the Great Schism Trend, is given to civil violence as this article describes. I am very concerned that if Trump loses we are going to see events as bad or worse than 6 January. These people are heavily armed and filled with hate and resentments.
Christopher “Hammer” Pohlhaus (C) leads a rally with neo-Nazi groups Blood Tribe, and Goyim Defense League on September 2, 2023 in Orlando, Florida. An event touted as the “Red Shirts March” and a show of unity for neo-Nazis attracted about 100 people to participate. Credit: Stephanie Keith / Getty
Donald Trump’s dog whistle rhetoric has fueled a “staggering” increase in hate crimes in the U.S. that one expert warns has reached the point of crisis.
Sharon Nazarian, political science professor and board member of the Anti-Defamation League, told Salon Friday that Trump’s rhetoric, such as when he described some of the white supremacists who marched at an infamous 2017 rally in Charlottesville as “very fine people,” to a stark increase in anti-Semitic attacks.
” Trump continues to tell anti-Semites that it is fine to operate out in the open and radicalize people through their use of disinformation and misinformation on the internet,” Nazarian told senior writer Chauncey DeVega. “We are in a moment of crisis.”
Next week, for the third time in eight years, Donald Trump will be nominated as the Republican Party’s candidate for president of the United States. A once great political party now serves the interests of one man, a man as demonstrably unsuited for the office of president as any to run in the long history of the Republic, a man whose values, temperament, ideas and language are directly opposed to so much of what has made this country great.
It is a chilling choice against this national moment. For more than two decades, large majorities of Americans have said they are dissatisfied with the direction of the country, and the post-Covid era of stubborn inflation, high interest rates, social division and political stagnation has left many voters even more frustrated and despondent.
The Republican Party once pursued electoral power in service to solutions for such problems, to building “the shining city on a hill,” as Ronald Reagan liked to say. Its vision of the United States — embodied in principled public servants like George H.W. Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney — was […]
JENNIFER JACOBS and ALBERTO NARDELLI, Staff Writer - Time Magazine
Stephan:
Two christofascist criminals, Donald Trump and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban hung out together at Mar-a-Lago, just after Orban met with Putin. Do you think for a moment that Orban didn’t bring a message from Putin to Trump, and that Trump didn’t respond? I am sure Orban will now pass something back to Putin, and no one but the three of them will know what they discussed. These men are brutal authoritarian criminals, and Trump’s welcoming Orban to a private meeting should tell every American where he stands, and which world leaders he identifies with.
Two christofascists criminals, Donald Trump and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Credit: Andrew Harrer/ Bloomberg / Getty
Former President Donald Trump will meet with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in Florida on Thursday, according to people familiar with the matter, less than a week after he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
The visit is likely to fan concerns that the Hungarian leader is working as an intermediary between Putin and Trump.
Trump and Putin professed a fondness for one another during the U.S. president’s first term—often garnering bipartisan criticism. More recently, the Republican leader has said he believed he could convince Putin to end his war in Ukraine and release Americans detained in Russia if he were elected to a second term.
Orbán will travel to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort after the conclusion of the NATO summit in Washington. His visit to Moscow became a central point of discussion at the gathering, where other allies pledged additional air defenses for Ukraine in its continuing campaign […]
When I tell you that the United States has one of the most corrupt governmental structures amongst the developed democracies of the world this is exactly what I mean. This is a report on a MAGAt Representative, but the trial of Senator Menendez is a Democrat example. Citizens United legalized the bribery of politicians,and the Supreme Court decision of just a few days ago making a phony distinction between giving a public figure money before or after they make some policy choice that benefits the giver just augments the corruption and shows how corrupt the Supreme Court has become. As a country, we have a real problem with the lack of ethics and corruption that has become so common among government officials.
The rail system. Credit: Oliver Berg / picture alliance/ Getty / Grist
Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-VA) pushed for millions of dollars in earmarks that would benefit a pair of companies that donated thousands of dollars to her election campaign, reported Politico on Thursday.
Kiggans, a former Virginia state senator, was one of the Republicans who was first elected in 2022, unseating Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria.
According to the report, satellite company Rocket Lab’s political PAC contributed a total of $3,500 to Kiggans over the last two years, and Tyson Foods, the agribusiness giant, gave her $1,000 last year. According to the report, both stand to benefit from a Kiggans-backed proposal for $7.4 million in appropriations to extend a natural gas pipeline in Maryland to Eastern Virginia; Rocket Lab considered the pipeline last year for fuel, while Tyson Foods was a “potential anchor customer” for the extension.
Asked for comment, Rocket Lab said that the pipeline extension was not one of the things they lobbied for from the House […]
Climate change, and the rise of temperature it is producing is having all kinds or negative effects, but have you ever heard anyone talking about buckling railroad rails? I think this is just one of hundreds of climate change problems few have thought about, predicted, or for which preparations have been made.
One of the sensory experiences of riding a train is the sound of ingenuity. As steel railroad tracks heat up, they grow: 1,800 feet of rail expands by more than an inch for every 10 degrees Fahrenheit of temperature increase. So rails used to be laid down in sections — each between 30 and 60 feet long — with small gaps.
“The very specific railway noise that you hear — chuchat … chuchat … chuchat … chuchat … chuchat — is because there is a gap between the rails, and this gap is meant for such expansion,” said Dev Niyogi, who studies urban climate extremes at the University of Texas at Austin.
But in a severe heat wave, the rail can swell until the underlying ties can no longer contain it. Then the rail gets visibly wavy, morphing into what’s known as a sun kink. That’s a serious hazard for trains, which can derail on misaligned tracks. In extreme […]
