Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“During her Senate confirmation hearing for UN ambassador, Trump nominee Elise Stefanik was asked by Senator Chris Van Hollen if she agreed with Israeli Nazis Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotritch that Israel has a ‘Biblical right’ to the West Bank. Stefanik said yes. It’s so wild how bat shit insane religious delusions are almost a prerequisite for acceptance in the highest echelons of Official Washington. These confirmation hearings are like, ‘Are you mentally ill enough to do US foreign policy?’ ‘Yes, I have the requisite mental illnesses to do US foreign policy.’ ‘Your brain is a festering stew of psychosis and you have trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality?’ ‘Yes, I promise that is the case.’ The world is ruled by religious fanatics with nukes. If a normal person says they’re the second coming of Jesus Christ they get medicated and institutionalized.” (01/22/25)
“Last week, aerial photos from Los Angeles with blocks of homes reduced to ash hit social media timelines, leading people to understandably draw comparisons to Gaza. … Joe Biden’s term as president ended on Monday, and the world doesn’t have to guess what his legacy will be. The crimes he is responsible for are written into history with the blood of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, each one coming from a neighborhood his administration helped turn to ash. The drone images from Gaza and Los Angeles share the same hues of grey and heartache, and originate from the same flavors of greed and contempt for human dignity.” (01/22/25)
“Mexico raised sprawling tents on the U.S. border Wednesday as it braced for President Donald Trump to fulfill his pledge to reverse mass migration. In an empty lot tight against the border with El Paso, Texas, cranes lifted metal frames for tent shelters in Ciudad Juarez. Nogales, Mexico — across from Nogales, Arizona — announced that it would build shelters on soccer fields and in a gymnasium. The border cities of Matamoros and Piedras Negras have launched similar efforts. At a border crossing in Tijuana, Mexico, on Tuesday night, one man shouted to journalists that he was being deported in a group that was arrested that morning in farm fields near Denver. Another man said he was in a group that had been brought from Oregon. Everyone carried their belongings in a small orange bag. Neither man’s account could be independently confirmed.” (01/22/25)
“One of the least successful efforts of the left and many in the media this election was to paint Republican voters as ‘Nazis’ hellbent on destroying democracy. While once verboten as a political comparison, liberal politicians and pundits have developed something of a Nazi fetish, where every statement and gesture is declared a return of the Third Reich. That mania reached absurd, even comedic levels with the attack on Elon Musk over an awkward gesture during the inauguration celebration. An exuberant Musk told the crowd, ‘My heart goes out to you. It is thanks to you that the future of civilization is assured.’ As he gave those words, he placed his right hand on his chest and stretched his arm outward, his palm facing the floor.” [editor’s note: Yes, this might be the most ridiculous thing the ‘leftist’ MSM has done, but let’s expect stupid will continue – SAT] (01/22/25)
“It’s hard to say who is the worst attorney general in American history. The candidates are many and comprise a veritable rogue’s gallery of sadists, reactionaries, and incompetents. They range from A. Mitchell Palmer, mastermind of the original Red Scare that decimated the left in the wake of the First World War, to Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III and William Pelham Barr, who sacrificed the rule of law in service to Donald Trump. Merrick Garland may not share the malignancies of his fellow train wrecks, but he deserves to be in the discussion. Decades from now, historians will memorialize Garland not as a dedicated public servant and fair-minded federal judge whose nomination to the Supreme Court was torpedoed by Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans, but as the head of the Justice Department who brought a butter knife to an existential gunfight with Trump, quickening our collective descent into neo-fascism.” (01/22/25)
“Less than 48 hours into the new Trump administration, one of Tennessee politics’s most recent controversies has reached the national stage thanks to the nomination of former Tennessee Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn as Deputy Secretary of Education. From the COVID era to her 2023 resignation, Schwinn racked up an avalanche of negative press from local conservative and liberal outlets while serving as a lightning rod for Tennessee’s grassroots conservative movement. During the pandemic, Schwinn faced a lawsuit from Moms for Liberty after she granted a waiver for an English Language Arts curriculum called ‘Wit & Wisdom’ that had failed a state review twice for backdooring CRT concepts into lesson plans for elementary school students. Her support for CRT led to numerous clashes with the state legislature, including its 2020 decision to remove the Commissioner of Education as a voting member of the Tennessee Textbook and Instructional Materials Quality Commission.” (01/22/25)
“A judge declared a mistrial Wednesday after jurors said they were deadlocked in the case of a former worker at New Hampshire’s youth detention center charged with raping a 14-year-old boy in 1998. Jurors were unable to reach a verdict in the trial of Stephen Murphy, 55, of Danvers, Massachusetts, marking the second mistrial connected to abuse allegations at state-run youth facilities. Jurors first indicated they were at an impasse Wednesday morning, their second day of deliberations. … Murphy, who was charged with aggravated felonious sexual assault, was accused of helping to carry a 14-year-old boy to a stairwell at the Youth Development Center in Manchester and then raping him while coworkers restrained the teen.” (01/22/25)
“A bid to free five elephants from a Colorado zoo has been rejected after a court ruled elephants are not people. An animal rights group argued Missy, Kimba, Lucky, LouLou and Jambo were effectively imprisoned at the zoo, and had filed to have them moved to an elephant sanctuary. It tried to bring a habeas corpus claim on behalf of the animals – a legal process which allows a person to challenge their detention in court. The Colorado Supreme Court said the matter boiled down to ‘whether an elephant is a person’ and therefore had the same liberty rights as a human — ultimately deciding that they did not.” (01/22/25)
“All week, we are focused on the new executive actions President Trump is putting forward rapid-fire. But I’m also interested in the actions Trump is obligated to complete, as part of the natural course of the government. One of the most important will be what he does with the ongoing effort to reduce prescription drug prices for tens of millions of Americans. As president, Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, and one of its bigger inflation-reducing elements was enabling Medicare to negotiate prices with drug companies. This law has survived every effort to overturn it in court, and while it’s only gotten started, it expands as time goes on. Ten drugs were selected for the first round, producing lower prices by up to 79 percent and an estimated government savings of $6 billion in year one when the prices become effective, as well as $1.5 billion in out-of-pocket savings for seniors.” (01/22/25)
“Sen. Chris Murphy [D-CT] disrupted Senate Republicans’ plans to quickly confirm President Donald Trump’s national security nominees on Tuesday night when he objected to bypassing lengthy procedural votes that are routinely skipped. ‘Unfortunately, we were at the point of almost having a consent agreement to have a vote on the confirmation of John Ratcliffe to be the CIA director tomorrow. Not today, not yesterday, when it should have happened, but tomorrow,’ Senate Republican Conference Chairman Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said on the chamber floor. ‘But the senator from Connecticut has decided to object at the last minute.’ ‘I don’t really understand the objection to Mr. Ratcliffe. He was confirmed by the Senate to be the director of National intelligence. He was fully vetted through the bipartisan process in the Senate Intelligence Committee. We voted him out yesterday on a 14 to 3 vote,’ Cotton, also the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, continued.” (01/22/25)
