“Democrats are in freefall. As of Monday, Donald J. Trump is officially the 47th president of the United States. He starts his second term in the Oval Office with a bang – rolling out dozens of executive orders fulfilling promises made to American voters — and more popular than he has ever been. Democrats have no idea how to respond. Their party is currently earning its lowest approval ratings ever, for good reason. It is guilty of perpetrating the greatest political scandal of our lifetimes — pretending President Joe Biden was OK to run for another four years. Their efforts to brand Donald Trump a threat to Democracy were a bust and their leadership is in disarray. They deserve every minute they serve in political purgatory. A former communications director for Kamala Harris says Democrats ‘got to burn down our image’. He’s right. The party’s trials will not end soon.” (01/21/25)
“A fire raged through a 12-story hotel at a popular ski resort in northwestern Turkey early Tuesday during a school holiday, killing at least 66 people — at least two of them when they jumped from the building to escape the flames, officials said. At least 51 people also were injured in the fire at the Grand Kartal hotel in Kartalkaya, in Bolu province’s Koroglu mountains, some 300 kilometers (185 miles) east of Istanbul, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya. The fire occurred near the start of a two-week winter break for schools, when hotels in the region are packed. ‘We are in deep pain. We have unfortunately lost 66 lives in the fire that broke out at this hotel,’ Yerlikaya told reporters after inspecting the site.” (01/21/25)
“Augustus liquidated the Roman Republic a generation before Christ by appealing to religion, presenting himself as Apollo’s favorite, placing the senate under his authority, and becoming the first Roman emperor. He promoted upper-class birthrates, traditionalist moralism, and patriotic literature, such as Virgil’s commissioned Aeneid, a classic of political propaganda based on nonexistent facts about Rome’s past greatness. Augustus capitalized on the social instability of the moment with a charismatic, demagogic, and strategic speech about making Rome great again under the symbol of the Golden Eagle. Half a millennium later, Augustulus was the last emperor of the Western Empire, defeated by the Germanic barbarians. The American Empire, the most powerful in human history, is probably also the shortest. It has held that title for one-tenth as long as the Roman Empire in Europe and one-hundredth as long as the Eastern Empire.” (01/21/25)
“The mysterious balls that forced the closure of several beaches in Sydney last week were found to contain saturated fatty acids, E. coli and faecal bacteria, authorities say. Sydney’s Northern Beaches council said it has sent the debris to the New South Wales Environment Protection Authority (EPA) for further analysis. Nine beaches, including popular spots Manly and Dee Why, were closed on 14 January after the marble-sized balls started washing up. It came months after thousands of black blobs started appearing on the city’s coasts in October, prompting authorities to close some of its most famous beaches for several days and order a massive clean-up.” (01/21/25)
“On January 20, 2025, the ‘shock and awe’ campaign of the Justice Department came to an end as President Donald Trump pardoned 1,500 January 6th defendants. Four years ago, the Justice Department set out to send a chilling message to the nation. In an interview with CBS News a year later, Justice Department official Michael Sherwin indicated that they wanted to send a message with the harsh treatment of defendants. Sherwin explained that ‘our office wanted to ensure that there was shock and awe … it worked because we saw through media posts that people were afraid to come back to D.C. because they’re, like, ‘If we go there, we’re gonna get charged.’ … We wanted to take out those individuals that essentially were thumbing their noses at the public for what they did.’ The awe is gone but the shock remains at the Justice Department.” (01/21/25)
“President Donald Trump started purging more than 1,000 appointees from former President Joe Biden’s administration overnight – starting with celebrity chef Jose Andres and embattled retired General Mark Milley. The new commander-in-chief fired off the ‘official notice of dismissal’ to four Biden appointees in a midnight social media post, bluntly warning that his team were hunting down even more to throw out of office. ‘Our first day in the White House is not over yet! My Presidential Personnel Office is actively in the process of identifying and removing over a thousand Presidential Appointees from the previous Administration, who are not aligned with our vision to Make America Great Again,’ Trump posted on Truth Social.” (01/21/25)
“A couple is facing a steep fine after damaging the habitat of a rare flower native to only a few locations along California’s Central Coast. San Luis Obispo County District Attorney Dan Dow announced on Wednesday that his office had settled an environmental enforcement action against the couple, who agreed to pay $165,000 in civil penalties for conducting grading operations without the necessary permits on a rural property between Arroyo Grande and Pismo Beach. The couple’s grading activities damaged one of the few habitats of the ultrarare Pismo clarkia flower, which is listed as endangered and is found only in about 24 locations throughout San Luis Obispo County, according to the announcement from Dow’s office. Spotting a Pismo clarkia flower is extremely uncommon, as it primarily grows in small patches on private properties, according to the California Native Plant Society.” (01/21/25)
“At 12:01 p.m. Eastern time Monday, Donald Trump pledged to preserve, protect, and violate the Constitution of the United States. So help us, God. The most immediate violation, of course, is the executive order he is issuing today that suspends birthright citizenship, so that the immigration cops (abetted by the Army and local police, thanks to a Trump order resurrecting the Alien Enemies Act of 1798) can deport the American-born children of undocumented immigrants. Amendment 14, Section 1 of the Constitution reads, ‘All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.'” (01/20/25)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“You are not powerless to change things. You are MOSTLY powerless, but you are not powerless. This might sound like a distinction without a difference, and if you were the only person who wanted things to change, it would be. If you were standing on your own against the evil empire and the psychopathic dystopia it has created, there would be no meaningful difference between your having zero power to change things and just having a tiny bit above zero power. Nothing would change regardless. But you are not standing on your own. More and more people are waking up to the reality that the current order of things is unsustainable and urgently needs to be replaced with something drastically different.” (01/18/25)
“Uh oh, nukes coming in. Should we retaliate? This strikes me as the stupidest question a human being could ask — and, just possibly, also the last. Our enemy of the moment is loosing hell on us (if warning signals are accurate), so let’s do the same back at them. If we kill more of them than they kill of us, we win! Yes, human life — all life — will likely be destroyed in a nuclear war, but that’s just the way things work. That’s not our concern. Among the global superpowers, this scenario remains etched into the meaning of self-defense: the ability to retaliate, no matter the consequences of doing so. The marketing slogan, of course, is ‘deterrence.'” (01/18/25)
