“On February 4, former FOX News host Tucker Carlson delivered what, in other times, would be a shocking assessment: that the future of the Republican Party is a 31-year-old, long-shot candidate in Florida’s gubernatorial race with a string of financial and sexual misconduct allegations but a marked talent for attention-getting provocations. Over the course of James Fishback’s still-young candidacy, he has ostentatiously courted the followers of extreme far-right commentator Nick Fuentes and referred to his Black primary opponent, frontrunner Rep. Byron Donalds, as a ’slave’ (to his donors) who would make Florida ‘a Section 8 ghetto.’ He called for raising tuition for foreign university students to $1 million per year, pledged to expel ‘“every illegal immigrant child’ from the state’s K-12 schools and told a white supremacist social media influencer that ’the great replacement and white genocide’ were the most important political issues other Republicans ignore.” (02/10/25)
“Mayor Zohran Mamdani told state lawmakers on Wednesday that the only way out of the city’s $12 billion budget gap is to raise taxes on the wealthy. Hizzoner, during his first Tin Cup Day in Albany, formally called on the state Legislature to raise income taxes on people making more than $1 million by 2%. ‘I’m asking for a 2% raise in personal income taxes on the most affluent New Yorkers, someone earning $1 million a year. The top 1% of New York City can afford to contribute $20,000 more in taxes,’ the young mayor said. ‘That 2% tax alone would resolve nearly half of our budget deficit. I will continue to advocate for these policies not only because they offer the most direct route out of this budget crisis, but because they will also transform what is possible in our state.'” (02/11/25)
“In a post on Bluesky, [Jamelle] Bouie mocked the addiction of the mother of Vice President JD Vance, saying that she should have sold her son for drugs. Bouie used Bluesky — a digital safe zone for viewpoint intolerance on the left — to post one of the most reprehensible attacks on Vance, [writing] that ‘this is a wicked man who knows he is being wicked and does it anyway.’ That is hardly notable on today’s rage scale. However, he then decided to use the painful addiction history of Vance’s mother, Beverly Aikins, against her son: ‘No wonder his mom tried to sell him for Percocets. I can’t imagine a parent who wouldn’t sell little JD for Percocet if they knew he would turn out like this.'” [editor’s note: Not a very nice thing to say about Vance’s mom, but he certainly described Vance accurately – TLK] (02/11/25)
“A Paris appeals court set a verdict date of July 7 for Marine Le Pen in her European Union misuse of funds case, a crucial decision that could derail the far-right leader’s presidential bid. The trial ended Wednesday with one question looming above all others — whether Le Pen will be able to run for president next year. Le Pen, 57, is challenging a March 2025 verdict that found her and other members of her National Rally party guilty of misusing European Parliament funds in the hiring of aides from 2004 to 2016. She denies accusations that she was at the center of a fraudulent system meant to siphon off EU funds. Asked by the court whether she’d like to say anything in conclusion, Le Pen declined to speak. She quickly left the courthouse without stopping in front of a crowd of reporters.” (02/11/25)
“Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons refused to resign under pressure from Rep. Eric Swalwell [D-CA] who offered him the ultimatum to do so, or ‘side with the killers.’ The heated exchange during Tuesday’s House Homeland Security Committee hearing isn’t the first time Swalwell has confronted ICE over its mass deportation operations. … Swalwell told Lyons that continuing to lead ICE is a ‘choice’ and highlighted his preceding decorated military and law enforcement career. ‘You are what I would call ‘otherwise employable.’ I think most people would agree this is not the only job that you can get. But since you’ve been on this job, women have been dragged by their hair through streets. A 6-year-old child battling stage-four cancer has been deported. And it turns out he was a U.S. citizen,’ Swalwell claimed.” (02/11/25)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Our leaders are not going to fix the worst problems in our world. They couldn’t if they wanted to. And they don’t want to. [They] are not wise or insightful. They’re not even particularly intelligent. Our society is led by plutocrats who only know how to make more money, by unelected empire managers who only know how to dominate and control, and by elected politicians who only know how to say the right words and make the right bargains in order to get themselves elected. … Even if they weren’t a bunch of evil sociopaths who are only in the positions they’re in because of their willingness to collaborate with the agendas of oligarchy, war, militarism, imperialism, ecocide, exploitation, oppression and planetary domination, they don’t even have the personal characteristics necessary to do things like end poverty, rescue our biosphere, bring about world peace or give rise to human thriving.” (02/11/25)
“Canada’s strict gun laws include a ban on assault-style firearms and a national freeze on the sale, purchase and transfer of handguns. The Canadian government has banned more than 2,500 makes and models of assault-style firearms in recent years. Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced an immediate ban of more than 1,500 models on May 1, 2020, two weeks after a gunman killed 22 people in Nova Scotia. The ban included two weapons used by that gunman as well as the AR-15 and other weapons that have been used in a number of mass shootings in the United States. ‘Canadians need more than thoughts and prayers,’ he said at the time. More than 12,000 guns were collected and destroyed as part of a compensation program for businesses that ran between November 2024 and April 2025. A similar program for individuals opened last month …. Those who do not participate must dispose of or permanently deactivate their prohibited guns before an amnesty period ends Oct. 30.” (02/11/25)
“President Trump is on the brink of ordering a massive policy shakeup — ‘the largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States,’ says Environmental Protection Agency chief Lee Zeldin. When Trump’s EPA orders the end of a 2009 finding that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide are a threat to public health, it will halt 16 years of federal efforts to mandate vast changes in American life without legal justification. The so-called Endangerment Finding led to a host of regulations whose estimated costs exceeded a trillion dollars. President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, Feb. 2, 2026, in Washington. Early in his administration, President Barack Obama tried to get Congress to pass an expansive climate change law. When the bill stalled, Obama charged ahead with executive action. The EPA’s December 2009 Endangerment Finding said greenhouse gases should be regulated under the Clean Air Act.” (02/10/25)
“Ten people including the shooter are dead after an assailant opened fire at a high school in western Canada on Tuesday in one of the country’s deadliest mass casualty events in recent history. The attack brought to Canada the type of mass shooting more common in the neighboring United States, and was carried out by a shooter described as female, police said. Six people were found dead inside a high school in the town of Tumbler Ridge, in British Columbia, two more people were found dead at a residence believed to be connected to the incident, and another person died on the way to hospital, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said.” (02/11/25)
“The San Francisco cryptocurrency startup Archblock just filed for bankruptcy, throwing millions of dollars into question and continuing a slog of legal woes. Archblock has been plagued with legal trouble over the past few years, facing fraud allegations from the Securities and Exchange Commission and in a civil lawsuit from another crypto company. On Friday, Archblock and its subsidiaries filed a petition for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, which lets a company reorganize its debts. The company’s filing makes its financials look dire: It estimates that its assets are worth between $1 million to $10 million, against liabilities between $100 million to $500 million. But one subsidiary, TrustToken, claims in its own filing to have $100 million to $500 million in assets against just $10 million to $50 million in debt. The other subsidiaries tack on millions more for each column — it’s as yet unclear how the overall company will aim to reorganize in this bankruptcy process.” (02/11/25)
