Barb

Opinion | Stop Acting Like This Is Normal

Ezra Klein writes of Dem's ethical responsibility to not approve the US budget in 3 weeks, get attention and have a unified alternative message that's attractive.
Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/07/o...

Political Styles of the Rich and Clueless There are none so blind as those that will not see

Political Styles of the Rich and Clueless

So good a set of insights.
open.substack.com/pub/paulkrug...

China’s going to have a lot of new potential friends knocking on its door.

People: HE JUST DOESN’T CARE

‘What was their crime?’ Families tell of shock over IDF killing of Gaza paramedics Relatives who waited agonising week before bodies were found speak of passion that drove Red Crescent workers

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

ICE List Shows How Tattoos and Clothing Are Used to Label Immigrants as Gang Members The ACLU obtained a checklist that shows how easy it is for ICE to declare an immigrant as an "Alien Enemy."

www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...
Subjective criteria for a stint in El Salvador prisons!

The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat about upcoming military strikes in Yemen. I didn’t think it could be real. Then the bombs started falling.

Unbelievable, but then there's "un believable" now daily, and believer me these are amateurs.
www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

Sanders and AOC tell packed arena Trump is ‘screwing over’ working class Progressive political stars say president and billionaire Elon Musk are turning US into oligarchy at rally in Arizona

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Musk in search of a heart; Trump too, although they likely won't look too hard.

Trump Administration Ends Tracking of Kidnapped Ukrainian Children in Russia A Democratic lawmaker is drafting a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio asking whether a database on thousands of children has been deleted.

What does this remind you of? Careless regard for parental to child bond we had experience with at our own Southern border during T's last term, About 1000 have never been reunited. Careless and dangerous.
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/18/u...

Hundreds of Thousands Will Die The writer, surgeon, and former U.S.A.I.D. senior official Atul Gawande on the Trump Administration’s decimation of foreign aid and the consequences around the world.

www.newyorker.com/podcast/the-...

Former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte arrested in Manila after ICC warrant Duterte is wanted by the international criminal court over his so-called ‘war on drugs’, which rights groups say left 30,000 people dead

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...
Justice takes time but here's some!

US added to international watchlist for rapid decline in civic freedoms Civicus, an international non-profit, puts country alongside Democratic Republic of Congo, Italy, Pakistan and Serbia

Yesterday, the United States was added to the Civicus Monitor Watchlist, which identifies countries that the global civil rights watchdog believes are currently experiencing a rapid decline in civic freedoms.https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/09/watchlist-decline-civic-freedoms-civicus

There’s a Term for What Trump and Musk Are Doing How regime change happens in America

This is quite an article. Digital Services act of Europe is something we need to have actual Free Speech and not what the oligarchs & tech companies want us to be fed.

Three decades ago the social media companies were exempted from what news has to comply with.
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Federal Workers Who Were Fired and Rehired by the Trump Administration Hundreds of federal workers — many of them in critical health and national security jobs — have been brought back, sometimes within days of their initial firings.

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Social Security and Sex Robots: Musk Veers Off Script With Joe Rogan Elon Musk’s three-hour interview with “The Joe Rogan Experience” offered a window into his worldview that was by turns crude and contradictory.

Social Security and Sex Robots: Musk Veers Off Script With Joe Rogan www.nytimes.com/2025/03/03/u...

Speaker Johnson: Claims Trump is too Russia-friendly are 'a joke' Mike Johnson, the leader of the US House of Representatives and a loyal ally of Donald Trump, has rejected accusations the president is too friendly toward Russia. "It's pretty absurd for anyone in th...

Speaker Johnson, originally struck me as more sincere than the former ousted Speaker, but now despite his conservative, "George Will" sort of grooming, he's really a MAGA, and Trump advocate. Suggesting Zelensky resign sort of says it all. www.yahoo.com/news/speaker...

Horticulturists, Biologists, Engineers: Federal ‘Bloat’ or Valued Experts? President Trump’s effort to remake the government is a direct challenge to a decades-long effort to build a civil service stocked with experts. Critics say it will backfire.

Horticulturists, Biologists, Engineers: Federal ‘Bloat’ or Valued Experts? www.nytimes.com/2025/03/02/u...

Aleichem said, "Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor."

The People Carrying Out Musk’s Plans at DOGE (Gift Article) The Times identified 50 people within the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, a group formed by Elon Musk that in a short few weeks has radically upended federal agencies.

Musk posted 3 weeks back of throwing US Aid in the wood chipper with such glee, and now shredding some new agency. The many civil servants who have done meaningful work, were unceremoniously dismissed in a day's time to walk out of with nothing more than a box of office supplies.

Opinion | Trump’s First Full Month in Office Is Over. Here’s Which Actions Mattered Most. From DOGE to Ukraine to the Eric Adams case, these are the most consequential actions by the new administration so far.

Ukraine as most consequential but most all have a level of consequence and impact
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Trump Plans ‘Gold Card’ Alternative to Green Cards for ‘High Level People’ (Gift Article) President Trump said the cards would have “a higher level of sophistication” than green cards and cost applicants about $5 million.

Here we are again with this hierarchy of some persons being of greater worth than others. It's a frightening world when lead by such a prehistoric mind.

Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/25/u...

What is Russia's role in the Israel-Gaza crisis? Putin sees Israel as a key pillar of Russia's foreign policy in the Middle East, but the bilateral relationship has ruptured since October 7.

What is Russia’s role in the Israel-Gaza crisis? www.brookings.edu/articles/wha...

YouTube video by The Ezra Klein Show A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently | The Ezra Klein Show

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tnQ...
So good on positive solutions, and the brazen corruption thru Trump's crypto, to foreign influence. But also great thoughts on the attention economy and monetizing it towards social health instead of no duty of care shown by social media's business plan.

The Influence of Foreign Aid (Gift Article) America is losing a diplomatic tool the government has relied on for decades.

Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/21/b...

YouTube video by Associated Press LIVE: Hochul speaks after Trump administration orders halt to NYC’s congestion pricing tolls

Tough and seemingly honest! Gov. Hochul pushes back. www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQU9...

Opinion | Germany’s Far-Right Comeback Germany’s attempts to “remember away” its Nazi past has instead paved the way for an extremist resurgence.

The Far Right is Rising in the Land of ‘Never Again’ www.nytimes.com/2025/02/20/o...

Microsoft Says It Has Created a New State of Matter to Power Quantum Computers Microsoft’s new “topological qubit” is not based on a solid, liquid or gas. It is another phase of matter that many experts did not think was possible.

Microsoft Says It Has Created a New State of Matter to Power Quantum Computers www.nytimes.com/2025/02/19/t...

DOGE Claimed It Saved $8 Billion in One Contract. It Was Actually $8 Million. (Gift Article) The biggest single line item on the website of Elon Musk’s cost-cutting team included a big error.

Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription.

Ever careless, Musk and his imaginary agency that's never been officially created, aka "DOGE", and is illegal, has gotten ahead of its skis.
www.nytimes.com/2025/02/18/u...

Seems contradictory, but then there's no coherence to this Admin.; that seems the point. But as USA backs away from world leadership, does it seem to you that we're acting like colonizers with more demands than when we actually were an Empire?--on Ukraine, Gaza, Greenland and whatever's next?