CURRENT EVENTS May 22 - July 5
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dukeman92
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A judge sided with Trump. Behind the scenes, he was lobbying for a nomination
A Florida state judge was lobbying for a seat on the federal bench. After he sided with the president in a defamation case, Donald Trump gave him one.
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On the edge of a lush jungle here in West Africa, the heavy metal doors of a warehouse creak open. Inside are boxes piled high with millions of doses of medicines donated by Merck and other pharmaceutical companies for a United States aid program. Yet the medications are gathering dust, and some are approaching their expiration dates and may have to be destroyed, at immense expense.
It’s an excellent example of the waste that President Trump claims was rife in the United States Agency for International Development. (“Absolutely obscene,” as he put it in February.) But this waste of drugs exists only because his administration shut down U.S.A.I.D. and canceled plans to distribute these medicines, even though the pills cost America nothing and are ready to use.
Each tax dollar invested in mass administration of drugs like these leverages $26 in donated medicines, making the effort astoundingly cost-effective. One of the medications languishing in this warehouse is sufficient to protect 7.6 million children and adults from a parasitic disease called river blindness. Other donated medicines in the warehouse would rid more than two million children of worms, plus protect 1.4 million kids from a debilitating parasitic ailment called schistosomiasis that causes pain, weakness and bloody urine.
These medicines also have the side benefit of protecting against worms that cause elephantiasis, a disfiguring and humiliating ailment….”
BlooVooDoo
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This will have very little practical impact. The push towards fuel efficiency is baked into the market. What it can do is provide a little relief to domestic makers which have a much broader spread between the most and least efficient models in their lineups. If they don’t need to sell a dozen high mpg units to offset a single thirstier model they can stop worrying about volume and boost margins on the more frugal offerings.Senate Weighs Effectively Killing Rule That Drove Rise of Fuel-Efficient Cars
Automakers split over measure to eliminate fines for failing to meet mileage standards that helped launch fuel-efficient mainstays like Toyota’s Prius
—> https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/...b?st=4gMA5D&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
“… Republican senators are proposing a change to the Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or CAFE, rules as part of President Trump’s wide-ranging tax and spending bill. If enacted, the proposal would eliminate fines for violating CAFE, all but nullifying rules that for generations have pushed automakers to churn out ever cleaner and more fuel-efficient vehicles.
That technology has saved two trillion gallons of gasoline over the past 50 years, according to the journal Energy Policy.
… Trump came to office promising to cut regulations across the government, leading to the most significant unwinding of automotive clean-air and fuel-economy regulations in decades. Congress last month struck down the nation’s most aggressive emissions rules, and the Environmental Protection Agency has said it aims to loosen restrictions on automobile greenhouse-gas emissions.
Some carmakers have already signaled they are preparing to step up production of gas-powered cars. GM said last month it would invest $888 million to repurpose an electric vehicle plant to make V-8 engines. Stellantis also said it is bringing back the HEMI V-8 in the 2026 Ram 1500 pickup. …”
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WaynetheDrain
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This thread is making me angrier and angrier.
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And it won't break through in any significant scale. Dark skinned children withering away in a dusty, seemingly hypothetical place is exactly what this country has decided it cares nothing about.
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Making people like you angry is St. Donald of Mar-a-Lago's agenda. It's his only agenda. Making people like you angry is what drives his supporters to vote. The only emotion that those who support St. Donald can feel is anger. They don't feel happiness, joy, love, excitement, contentment, etc. They are only capable of feeling anger. And as that is the only thing they can feel, they crave it the way an addict craves his drug. And St. Donald is their dealer.
Mulberry Heel
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Even if the USA tries to stick with gas-powered cars, the rest of the world won't and will continue a slow but steady transition to electric-powered vehicles. All that Trump Republicans are doing here is likely ensuring that the future of automobiles and car production will likely be with China or Germany or Japan or some nation other than the USA. But at least Trumpers will get to continue driving their huge SUVs and pickup trucks without fear that they'll be forced to switch to wussy electric vehicles!
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it’s been there in some garden form since 1902. Edith Wilson made it a rose garden, then Jackie Kennedy had it renovated and expanded. Melania Trump had the Rose Garden vegetation mostly ripped out and turned into a grassy courtyard. Donald Trump is now replacing it with an outdoor patio based on his outdoor entertainment space at MAL.
Things change and some people who control changes over time have better taste than others. I wish this were the most outrageous thing we had to worry about from Trump, but alas it is just a historic footnote in the history of the White House.
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It looks like they are keeping a lot of what Melania did and paving over the grassy part.
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—> https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/21/...e_code=1.Qk8.hsBF.Ot7b_9rXzWLQ&smid=url-share“…
In his capstone paper for the class, Mr. Damsky argued that the framers had intended for the phrase “We the People,” in the Constitution’s preamble, to refer exclusively to white people. From there, he argued for the removal of voting rights protections for nonwhites, and for the issuance of shoot-to-kill orders against “criminal infiltrators at the border.”
Turning over the country to “a nonwhite majority,” Mr. Damsky wrote, would constitute a “terrible crime.” White people, he warned, “cannot be expected to meekly swallow this demographic assault on their sovereignty.”
… The granting of the award set off months of turmoil on the law school campus. Its interim dean, Merritt McAlister, defended the decision earlier this year, citing Mr. Damsky’s free speech rights and arguing that professors must not engage in “viewpoint discrimination.”
Ms. McAlister, in an email to the law school community, also invoked “institutional neutrality,” an increasingly popular policy among college administrators. It instructs schools not to take public positions on hot-button issues.
… Well beyond the classroom, bigoted and extremist views are on the rise and vying for mainstream acceptance, raising questions about whether principles of neutrality and free-speech rights are proper and adequate responses to the threats.
X, the social media platform owned by Elon Musk, recently allowed millions of people to view Kanye West’s new song saluting Hitler when other platforms removed it. Vice President JD Vance criticized European governments’ efforts to ostracize far-right political parties, on the grounds that doing so violates principles of free speech. …”
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“… At the University of Florida, the story of the book award took a dramatic turn … in February, that Mr. Damsky opened an account on X and began posting racist and antisemitic messages.
“…
In his capstone paper for the class, Mr. Damsky argued that the framers had intended for the phrase “We the People,” in the Constitution’s preamble, to refer exclusively to white people. From there, he argued for the removal of voting rights protections for nonwhites, and for the issuance of shoot-to-kill orders against “criminal infiltrators at the border.”
Turning over the country to “a nonwhite majority,” Mr. Damsky wrote, would constitute a “terrible crime.” White people, he warned, “cannot be expected to meekly swallow this demographic assault on their sovereignty.”
… The granting of the award set off months of turmoil on the law school campus. Its interim dean, Merritt McAlister, defended the decision earlier this year, citing Mr. Damsky’s free speech rights and arguing that professors must not engage in “viewpoint discrimination.”
Ms. McAlister, in an email to the law school community, also invoked “institutional neutrality,” an increasingly popular policy among college administrators. It instructs schools not to take public positions on hot-button issues.
… Well beyond the classroom, bigoted and extremist views are on the rise and vying for mainstream acceptance, raising questions about whether principles of neutrality and free-speech rights are proper and adequate responses to the threats.
X, the social media platform owned by Elon Musk, recently allowed millions of people to view Kanye West’s new song saluting Hitler when other platforms removed it. Vice President JD Vance criticized European governments’ efforts to ostracize far-right political parties, on the grounds that doing so violates principles of free speech. …”
After he wrote in late March that Jews must be “abolished by any means necessary,” the university suspended him, barred him from campus and stepped up police patrols around the law school. He is now challenging the punishment, which could result in his expulsion.
… In an interview, Mr. Damsky said that he belonged to no organization or group, and that he did not pose a physical threat to anyone. He said he was being unfairly targeted for sharing his ideas, and blithely shrugged off the criticism. The disciplinary measures he faces could result in expulsion. He said he planned to fight them vigorously.
“You know,” he said, “I’m not, like, a psychopathic ax murderer.”
Mr. Damsky said his ideas were well formed before he started law school, shaped by reading authors like Sam Francis, a white nationalist, and Richard Lynn, who argued for white racial superiority and eugenics.
He grew up around Los Angeles and studied history at the University of California, Santa Barbara; he wanted to become a prosecutor, he said, after watching progressive-minded California prosecutors adopt policies that he believed were soft on crime.
… a draft of a paper he wrote for a different class … also argued the Constitution was written exclusively for white people. It went on to suggest that nonwhites should be stripped of voting rights and given 10 years to move to another country.
… Carliss Chatman, an associate law professor at Southern Methodist University, began a stint as a visiting scholar at the school … She had proposed teaching a class during her time there called “Race, Entrepreneurship and Inequality.” But administrators at the law school changed the name to “Entrepreneurship,” she said, before listing it in the course catalog.
… “I just find it fascinating that this student can write an article, a series of articles that are essentially manifestoes, and that’s free speech,” Ms. Chatman said, referring to Mr. Damsky, “but my class can’t be called ‘Race, Entrepreneurship and Inequality.’”…”
StrangePackage
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We need to be punching a lot more Nazis“… At the University of Florida, the story of the book award took a dramatic turn … in February, that Mr. Damsky opened an account on X and began posting racist and antisemitic messages.
After he wrote in late March that Jews must be “abolished by any means necessary,” the university suspended him, barred him from campus and stepped up police patrols around the law school. He is now challenging the punishment, which could result in his expulsion.
… In an interview, Mr. Damsky said that he belonged to no organization or group, and that he did not pose a physical threat to anyone. He said he was being unfairly targeted for sharing his ideas, and blithely shrugged off the criticism. The disciplinary measures he faces could result in expulsion. He said he planned to fight them vigorously.
“You know,” he said, “I’m not, like, a psychopathic ax murderer.”
Mr. Damsky said his ideas were well formed before he started law school, shaped by reading authors like Sam Francis, a white nationalist, and Richard Lynn, who argued for white racial superiority and eugenics.
He grew up around Los Angeles and studied history at the University of California, Santa Barbara; he wanted to become a prosecutor, he said, after watching progressive-minded California prosecutors adopt policies that he believed were soft on crime.
… a draft of a paper he wrote for a different class … also argued the Constitution was written exclusively for white people. It went on to suggest that nonwhites should be stripped of voting rights and given 10 years to move to another country.
… Carliss Chatman, an associate law professor at Southern Methodist University, began a stint as a visiting scholar at the school … She had proposed teaching a class during her time there called “Race, Entrepreneurship and Inequality.” But administrators at the law school changed the name to “Entrepreneurship,” she said, before listing it in the course catalog.
… “I just find it fascinating that this student can write an article, a series of articles that are essentially manifestoes, and that’s free speech,” Ms. Chatman said, referring to Mr. Damsky, “but my class can’t be called ‘Race, Entrepreneurship and Inequality.’”…”
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