Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“It’s so infantile and embarrassing to love a state like Israel or the US and spend your time defending its actions. It’s a sign of a feeble mind to feel emotional attachment to any power structure, but especially the ones that are doing the most evil things in the world right now. Every day I am accused of ‘loving’ this or that empire-targeted nation or group, depending on what’s in the news and who westerners are being told to hate by their pundits and politicians. Some days it’s Russia, other days it’s China, Iran or Hamas. Really I have no special emotional attachment to any of those entities — those who hurl this accusation are merely projecting their own internal values onto me: I hate what they love so they assume I must love what they hate.” (02/10/25)
“The inner core of Earth may have changed shape in the past 20 years, according to a group of scientists. The inner core is usually thought to be shaped like a ball, but its edges may actually have deformed by 100m or more in height in places, according to Prof John Vidale who led the research. Earth’s core is the beating heart of our planet as it produces a magnetic field that protects life from burning up in the Sun’s radiation. The inner core spins independently from the liquid outer core and from the rest of the planet. Without this motion, Earth would die and become more like barren Mars which lost its magnetic field billions of years ago. … The research is published in the scientific journal Nature Geoscience.” (02/10/25)
“Like a canoe heading for a waterfall, the U.S. government simply can’t sustain itself on its current course. We’re $36 trillion (that’s $36,000,000,000,000.00) in debt, a number that increases by about $100,000 every two seconds. That’s $323,000 for every taxpayer. I’ve checked behind the couch cushions and – I don’t know about you − but I don’t have the spare change to cover my share. Over the past 20 years, we’ve settled into a fairly predictable cycle. Each party laments the national debt in campaign ads and news conferences. Some members of Congress suggest cutting programs or making agencies more efficient. Then the people affected by those suggestions scream bloody murder. The matter is conveniently dropped, but only after more spending is approved as a salve for the wound caused. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is popular with voters because the bloat is staggering. Something needs to be done.” (02/10/25)
“US Vice-President JD Vance has suggested the power of US judges is beginning to reach its limit, as the White House responds to a flurry of lawsuits that aim to stall its agenda. ‘Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,’ he wrote on X. Vance’s remarks on Sunday came less than 24 hours after a judge blocked members of Trump’s newly created advisory body, the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), from accessing sensitive treasury department systems. The Trump administration, seeking to swiftly and dramatically reshape the federal government, is being challenged by legal hurdles — including more than two dozen lawsuits. During his three weeks in office, Trump has signed dozens of executive orders, many of which are alleged by his Democratic opponents to have exceeded his constitutional authority.” (02/10/25)
“More than 100 congressional lawmakers have lined up behind the [supposed] goal of cutting government waste, as Republicans and Democrats wage an aggressive ideological battle over the merits of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The Congressional DOGE Caucus was founded shortly after President Donald Trump tapped Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead an advisory panel on where the federal bureaucracy could be trimmed. That effort is now being led by Musk alone, and it’s attracted fierce criticism from Democratic lawmakers who call him an unelected bureaucrat with too much control over the federal government despite no prior experience inside of it. But in the House, enthusiasm for the mission is still strong.” (02/10/25)
“Veterans For Peace strongly objects to the Trump administration’s racist campaign of mass deportation of undocumented workers, who are our friends, neighbors, and even our fellow veterans. We condemn the violent raids that are sowing fear and terror in communities across the United States. As veterans, we are particularly opposed to the misuse and abuse of U.S. military personnel, including their illegal deployment to the U.S. border with Mexico. Since U.S. President Donald Trump’s inauguration, about 1,000 U.S. Army personnel and 500 Marines have been sent to the border, in addition to 2,500 National Guard members already there. Helicopter units are being sent along with U.S. Air Force C-17 and C- 130 aircraft; and Stars and Stripes reports that 20-ton Stryker armored combat vehicles may also be shipped. The number of U.S. military personnel on the U.S.-Mexico border may rise to as many as 10,000, according to the Defense One newsletter.” (02/10/25)
“Europe’s Euclid space telescope has detected a rare halo of bright light around a nearby galaxy, astronomers reported Monday. The halo, known as an Einstein ring, encircles a galaxy 590 million light-years away, considered close by cosmic standards. A light-year is 5.8 trillion miles. Astronomers have known about this galaxy for more than a century and so were surprised when Euclid revealed the bright glowing ring, reported in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. An Einstein ring is light from a much more distant galaxy that bends in such a way as to perfectly encircle a closer object, in this case a well-known galaxy in the constellation Draco. The faraway galaxy creating the ring is more than 4 billion light-years away. Gravity distorted the light from this more distant galaxy, thus the name honoring Albert Einstein. The process is known as gravitational lensing.” (02/10/25)
“‘They [Congress] seemed, some little while ago, to be at a loss for objects whereon to throw away the supposed fathomless funds of the treasury.’ — Thomas Jefferson … Your tax dollars at work: * $43 million on a gas station in Afghanistan that had no customers; * $1.5 million to promote LGBT Jamaicans. That’s more money than some Americans earn in their entire working careers; * $4 million for trans Serbians; * $5.5 million for gay rights in Uganda; * $17 million for Vietnam ‘inclusion;’ * $25 million to promote ‘green transportation’ in Georgia; * $1 million for Arab and Jewish photographers; * $8 million to teach Sri Lankan journalists how to avoid ‘binary-gendered language.’ That’s just a small sampling of some of where USAID, or better, where U.S. taxpayers’ money went through USAID. And that’s just USAID.” (02/10/25)
“A Dolly Parton-themed musical had to be suspended mid-show when homophobic abuse was hurled at the stage, an actor in the production has claimed. Stevie Webb said an incident at the Opera House in Manchester during Here You Come Again saw the whole cast ‘leave the stage, because a woman [in the audience] was so disgusted there was a gay character on the stage.’ Mr Webb, posting on social media platform TikTok, said the incident last Wednesday was followed by similar trouble on Saturday, when a man had to be removed from the audience. ATG Entertainment, which runs the venue, said it took a ‘zero tolerance’ approach to such incidents. Mr Webb, who plays a superfan of the country music superstar in the show, said there had also been problems during the London run of the production.” (02/10/25)
“Hims & Hers, which has its headquarters in the Marina District, ran a 60-second advertisement during the third quarter on Sunday, calling out the American healthcare system for the country’s obesity epidemic to set up an ad for its weight-loss products. But the commercial playing at all was noteworthy after both a pharmaceutical trade group and government officials raised major concerns to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) about the ad, trying to get it removed from airwaves. On Thursday, Partnership for Safe Medicines executive director Shabbir Imber Safdar sent the FDA a letter asking the government to ‘take action’ to stop the commercial from running. Then on Friday, a bipartisan duo of U.S. senators, Dick Durbin (a Democrat from Illinois) and Roger Marshall (a Republican from Kansas), also sent a letter to the FDA, expressing concerns that the Hims & Hers ad could be ‘misleading’.” [editor’s note: The only thing I did not see in the ad was at least a brief picture of RFKJ – SAT] (02/10/25)
