“One of the highest priorities for the incoming Trump administration should be to end the Democrats’ weaponization of powerful government agencies against taxpayers and businesses they don’t like. Nowhere has this mission been more pernicious than the party-line vote to fund the IRS with nearly $80 billion and hire tens of thousands of new tax snoops. By the way, according to the IRS press office, the additional audits have so far raised less than $2 billion, far less than the additional expenditures. So how is this program ‘paying for itself?’ This was never about seeking tax fairness as liberals claimed. It was about unleashing an aggressive, permanent and unchecked enforcement assault on U.S. taxpayers to rake in more tax dollars to pay for liberals’ political agenda.” (12/17/24)
“Scientists have spotted what appear to be two stars whipping around each other near the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. Nearly every large galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its heart. The one in the middle of the Milky Way, called Sagittarius A (with an asterisk denoting star), is about 4 million times more massive than our sun and is relatively quiet, occasionally swallowing gas or dust that comes its way. Scientists know stars can form near and even orbit these black hole behemoths, but they’ve never seen a pair of stars survive so close by. The research was published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications. The celestial sighting is interesting and unusual, and more research is needed to be certain of what the objects are, said astrophysicist Anna Ciurlo with the University of California, Los Angeles.” (12/17/24)
“A New Jersey mayor warned Tuesday that the troubling drone sightings over the state may be linked to missing radioactive material, although federal officials say the amount poses no serious threat either way. Belleville Mayor Michael Melham said the drones flying in a grid-like pattern over his Essex County township appear to be ‘looking for something.’ ‘What might they be looking for? Maybe that’s radioactive material,’ Melham told Fox TV’s ‘Good Day New York.’ ‘It was a shipment. It arrived at its destination. The container was damaged, and it was empty,’ Melham said. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued an alert earlier this week regarding a piece of medical equipment used for cancer scans that was ‘lost in transit’ Dec. 2 while being shipped from the Nazha Cancer Center in Newfield in Gloucester County in southern New Jersey.” (12/17/24)
“The YIMBY movement is being touted as a major solution to the shortage of affordable housing. YIMBY stands for ‘Yes In My Backyard’, the opposite of NIMBY. YIMBY would alter zoning codes that favor or require single-family housing, to make it easier to free land to build apartments, especially affordable ones, and remove other obstacles. The Prospect recently ran a smart piece by Robert Cruickshank on YIMBY strategies, and our former colleague Matt Yglesias is obsessed by the idea. I don’t want to throw too much cold water on YIMBY, which can help. But we should be clear that it is only a small part of the solution. The housing shortage is massive, and curing it will take a lot more than YIMBY.” (12/17/24)
“Indonesian authorities have returned a Filipina woman to the Philippines who had been on death row and nearly executed by firing squad in Indonesia in 2015, after a longstanding request from her home country. Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso had spent almost 15 years in prison for drug trafficking but won a last-minute reprieve that will lead to her testimony exposing how a criminal syndicate duped her into being an unwitting accomplice and drug courier. Veloso was moved late Sunday from a female prison in Yogyakarta to Indonesia’s capital of Jakarta, then escorted Tuesday night for a flight to Manila. Her repatriation was made possible by ‘a practical arrangement’ for the transfer of prisoners signed between the two countries on Dec. 6. Her transfer removes the possibility of execution. The Philippines, Asia’s largest Roman Catholic nation, has long abolished the death penalty.” (12/17/24)
“There are growing indications that President Biden is about to fundamentally change the use of presidential pardons by granting ‘prospective’ or ‘pre-emptive’ pardons to political allies. Despite repeated denials by President-elect Donald Trump that he is seeking retaliation against opponents and wants ‘success [to be] my revenge,’ Democratic politicians and pundits have called for up to thousands of such pardons. While there is little threat of any viable prosecution of figures like the members of the House’s Jan. 6 committee, the use of ‘white knight pardons’ offers obvious political benefits.” [editor’s note: It wouldn’t be establishing a precedent, “dangerous” or otherwise. Ford pardoned Nixon prior to him being charged with any crime – TLK] (12/16/24)
“A stowaway who allegedly flew from New York to Paris without a ticket last month has been arrested again for trying to escape by bus from the US to Canada. Svetlana Dali made the attempt after cutting off an ankle monitor that she had been given to wear after the earlier offence, US media reported. A New York court mandated that she wear the monitor after allegedly flying on a Delta Airlines flight from New York’s JFK International Airport to Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport without a boarding pass. During a court hearing, she was ordered not leave Philadelphia unless she was going to New York for meetings regarding her trial. She was arrested in Buffalo, New York, on Monday, and is due to appear in court Tuesday afternoon.” (12/17/24)
“The State Department has carved out loopholes for Israel that give the close American ally a pass on U.S. law that restricts aid to foreign militaries over human rights abuses, a lawsuit from a group of Palestinians in Gaza and American relatives asserts Tuesday. Former State Department officials and crafters of the 1997 Leahy law were among those advising and backing the lawsuit. The lawsuit details the barriers it accuses the State Department of creating on behalf of Israel to skirt enforcement and asks courts to intervene. … ‘It’s really a modest set of goals here: There’s a U.S. law. We’d like the federal government to adhere to U.S. law,’ said Ahmed Moor, a Philadelphia-based Palestinian American who joined the lawsuit on behalf of cousins, uncles and aunts displaced and killed in the 14-month war.” (12/17/24)
“If the Richard Nixon Foundation transfers your call, a haunting song chimes through the receiver. It’s the disgraced president’s 1972 reelection song, ’More Than Ever,’ the upbeat, School of Rock-esque fanfare that was once pumped into millions of televisions 52 years ago. ‘More than ever we need Nixon now!’ sings a choir as sturdy horns, snares and piano chords crescendo. But transmitted through a landline, the tune curdles into something more like a funeral dirge. I was calling the guardians of Nixon’s endowment because I wanted to understand how a man once cast into the dustbin of history has come to experience a renaissance. In recent years, the foundation has become active online, framing Tricky Dick not as a craven megalomaniac but a champion of the people, and — in tandem with popular conservative pundits and leaders — has sought to rewrite the story of Watergate as a kind of putsch via bureaucratic cabal.” (12/17/24)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“This is a line by fantasy author PC Hodgell, though it’s often misattributed to Carl Sagan. I think about this quote a lot. I think about it when reflecting on the way Israel is exterminating Palestinian journalists in Gaza while keeping western journalists out of the enclave to prevent the world from learning the truth about what the IDF is doing there. I think about it when reflecting on the mountains of government secrecy with which the western empire protects its information interests, imprisoning whistleblowers and persecuting journalists who try to expose the truth about its criminal actions around the world. I think about it when reflecting on the nonstop deluge of empire propaganda that public consciousness is hammered with to manipulate the masses into accepting the global leadership the US-centralized power structure.” (12/16/24)
