“A top Democratic senator has asked the Justice Department’s inspector general to investigate after he says he received information that President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the FBI, Kash Patel, had been ‘personally directing the ongoing purge’ of agents at the bureau. The letter Tuesday from Sen. Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, asserts that Patel may have misled the panel at his confirmation hearing last month when he said in response to a question that he was not aware of any plans inside the FBI to punish or fire any agents. The hearing took place just hours before news broke that a group of senior FBI executives had been told either to resign or be fired …” (02/11/25)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“The Gaza ceasefire (if you can even call it that) is already in grave peril. Hamas has announced that it will be postponing the release of any more Israeli hostages in response to repeated ceasefire violations from Israel and consistent failure to meet its terms of the agreement. The IDF has been routinely killing Palestinians in Gaza ever since the so-called ‘ceasefire’ went into effect, with 110 killed in less than three weeks according to the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor. The first obstacle to the ceasefire holding was always that it depends on good behavior from individual IDF troops, many of whom (A) quite like murdering Palestinians and (B) hope the ceasefire ends so they can murder more. These troops could also be reasonably confident that they would incur no consequences from their superiors for those killings.” (02/11/25)
“The world is in danger, mind-numbingly so, from a combination of crises: disease, hunger, mass displacement, racial and economic inequality, war and the threat of more war, a rampaging climate crisis, and an accelerating nuclear arms race (and that’s just for starters) — all occurring in a climate of massive mis- and disinformation that makes it ever harder to build a consensus toward solutions to the multiple problems we face. Words can’t fully express our current predicament. We need other tools and other ways of making sense of the situation we now find ourselves in. This should be a time for action and activism on behalf of our species and our planet.” (02/11/25)
“As the Trump-Musk administration takes an axe to the federal government’s budget and personnel, the Democrats have an opening to raise an issue that Musk will hate but Trump can’t ignore” private sector mass layoffs. Right now, as Acting President Musk goes after agency after agency in the name of cost cutting, the Democrats are focused on public sector job cuts. As they should, tens of thousands of jobs are at risk. But those numbers pale in comparison to the 1.8 million private sector workers who lost their jobs in December of 2024 due to involuntary layoffs. For the past several decades, more than 20 million jobs per year have been taken away from workers who did nothing wrong. It won’t be easy to convince private sector workers that cutting federal government costs is a mistake.” (02/11/25)
“A classic coup d’etat has guns. Uniformed men run wild seizing government agencies and claiming control over what government does and who government serves. But in our new cyber age, the Yale historian Timothy Snyder reflected this past week, a coup can unfold without any armed overthrow. We can have ‘a couple dozen young men go from government office to government office, dressed in civilian clothes and armed only with zip drives.’ These young men, operating upon ‘vague references to orders from on high,’ can gain access to basic computer systems and ‘proceed to grant their Supreme Leader’ effective power over just about everything that government does. The historian Snyder is, of course, describing America’s current reality.” [editor’s note: So a peaceful attempt to discover and document government fraud, money laundering and kickbacks is a “coup” … but physically trying to storm into buildings is not, as long as your t shirt is the right color. Got it! – SAT] [additional editor’s note: Don’t assume a “peaceful attempt” disguise reflects reality – TLK] (02/11/25)
“Everyone knows someone broken by the elections of President Donald Trump, be it an old friend, co-worker or family member. These people were probably not all that bright in the first place, you just never bothered to look beyond the surface because going deeper didn’t really matter. After the 2016 election, politics became everything to the left as their leaders realized how easily these followers could be manipulated. They raised a ton of money off the ‘threat’ Trump presented while claiming credit for holding off the ‘destruction’ he was going to bring. Always over the horizon, just out of sight, is the ‘end of democracy’ they kept at bay. That liberal leaders use this tactic is not surprising, despots have always used this tool …” (02/11/25)
“The biggest question in America right now is whether Donald Trump and Elon Musk will abide by restrictions on their power from the coequal branches of government. Thus far, Congress has pleaded nolo contendere to presidential challenge to its authority, standing by idly as agencies authorized by Congress (that can only be unauthorized by Congress) are simply deleted, as spending appropriated by Congress is rescinded. Even half-decent ideas like no longer losing money by making pennies are being commandeered by the president, even as Article I of the Constitution literally gives Congress the exclusive authority ‘To coin Money.’ The primary refuge at the moment for those who want to stop the slide into authoritarian rule by diktat is the courts. Given the rightward tilt of the ultimate arbiter of such disputes, the Supreme Court, that is not encouraging.” (02/11/25)
“More than three-quarters of Africans live in a country where security and democracy have deteriorated over the past decade, stated a recent report by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation. Nothing reflects that slide more than a violent offensive by Rwanda-backed rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Some 3,000 people have been killed and 500,000 displaced since mid-January. Yet responses to the crisis offer a measure of the way Africans are building foundations for durable stability on the continent. ‘We must resist the temptation of thinking that we can somehow shoot or bombard our way into a solution in the face of the complexity involved,’ Kenyan President William Ruto said during an emergency summit of leaders from southern and East Africa in Tanzania on Saturday. Peace, he argued, depends on respecting the demands of African citizens for freedom, justice, and economic opportunity.” (02/10/25)
“Last April, in a move generating scant media attention, the Air Force announced that it had chosen two little-known drone manufacturers — Anduril Industries of Costa Mesa, California, and General Atomics of San Diego — to build prototype versions of its proposed Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), a future unmanned plane intended to accompany piloted aircraft on high-risk combat missions. The lack of coverage was surprising, given that the Air Force expects to acquire at least 1,000 CCAs over the coming decade at around $30 million each, making this one of the Pentagon’s costliest new projects. But consider that the least of what the media failed to note. In winning the CCA contract, Anduril and General Atomics beat out three of the country’s largest and most powerful defense contractors — Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman — posing a severe threat to the continued dominance of the existing military-industrial complex, or MIC.” (02/09/25)
“Most economically literate people generally understand that price controls are a bad idea, leading to outcomes such as shortages and rationing of goods and services. But when it comes to credit cards, that understanding of price controls goes out the window. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., announced that he has teamed up with the consummate supporter of every bad economic idea, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., to introduce an arbitrary 10% cap on credit card interest rates, something that President Donald Trump did float during the election. However, while Trump is doing a fantastic job of keeping promises, this is not one that should be kept.” (02/10/25)
