Most of the meat we consume comes from animals raised on [Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation] CAFOs.
In Pennsylvania, Governor Shapiro gets it right
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With a solid record on public safety and personal experience with political violence, Pennsylvania’s Gov. Josh Shapiro was ideally suited to the task. Last year, when sitting at the Passover Seder table with his family, a man threw two Molotov cocktails into Shapiro’s home, igniting a fire. (Trump conveniently ignores the incident when reciting recent acts of political violence). His state was also the location of the worst mass murder of Jews in America (by a White nationalist) and of the first attempted assassination of Trump. Shapiro knows violence does not come from one ideological group.
He delivered remarks this week at the Eradicate Hate Global Summit. “I will not be deterred in my work for you, and I will not be silenced,” he declared. He then explained why violence is antithetical to democracy: “It tears at the fabric of American society, and the fundamental principles this nation was founded upon… A nation where civil disagreement should be welcome, because that discourse can lead to progress.”
He also rejected selective outrage. “Unfortunately, some—from the dark corners of the internet all the way to the Oval Office—want to cherry pick which instances of political violence they want to condemn,” he said, pointing out that such crass opportunism makes healing impossible.
Shapiro then made the critical point: “Censorship—using the long arm of government to silence people, businesses, and nonprofits and restrict their right to free speech—will not solve this problem.” He declared, “Prosecuting constitutionally protected speech will only erode our freedoms and deepen mistrust. That is un-American.”
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…Russia is operating a potentially unprecedented system of large-scale re-education, military training, and dormitory facilities capable of holding tens of thousands of children from Ukraine for long periods of time. While this study does not answer the question of how many children from Ukraine are currently in Russia’s custody, it does reveal the logistical and operational capacity committed to Russifying children taken from their home communities in Ukraine. This is the first detailed effort to study the number, types, and roles of locations utilized by Russia’s federal government, particularly regarding re-education and militarization, in efforts to Russify Ukraine’s children.
Inside ABC, emergency meetings were convened after the FCC chair’s Jimmy Kimmel threat, with the late-night host ready to respond on-air—but Disney brass ultimately decided to bench the marquee talent instead.
(Oliver Darcy more…)
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Benny Johnson, the podcaster on whose show Carr threatened Kimmel, was one of the influencers Russian state media funded to spread propaganda before the 2024 election. After Kimmel’s suspension, Johnson posted on social media: “We did it for you, Charlie. And we’re just getting started.”
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TRUMP: We’ll probably go after people like you because you treat me so unfairly. You have a lot of hate in your heart. Maybe they’ll have to go after you.
A new defense strategy could squander America’s post-World War II advantage.
In words and actions, key foreign policy decision-makers within the Trump administration seem to be signaling a shift away from the United States’ global leadership role. If borne out, these changes are likely to usher in a new tripolar international system in which the United States, Communist China, and revanchist Russia divvy up spheres of influence. The result? A more dangerous world for Americans everywhere.
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We will woefully miss the day when the U.S., through maintenance and vigilance, enjoyed an order that upheld free trade and fostered the continued expansion of human liberty. If we wish to remain a superpower, we should choose to act like one.
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At 10:22 on the morning of Sunday, September 15, 1963, a bomb ripped through the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. It was Youth Day in the historic brick church, and five young girls dressed in their Sunday best were in the ladies’ lounge getting ready for their part in the Sunday service that was about to start. As Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Addie Mae Collins were chatting and adjusting their dresses, a charge of dynamite stashed under the steps that led to the church sanctuary blasted into the ladies’ lounge. It killed the four girls instantly. Standing at the sink in the back of the room, Addie’s sister Sarah survived with serious injuries.
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For white supremacists in Birmingham, the children and the 16th Street Baptist Church where they had organized were the symbols of the movement that had beaten them.
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US military action against a Venezuelan boat sparks condemnation and troop deployments
Venezuela has accused the United States of illegally boarding and occupying one of its fishing vessels in the country’s special economic zone, further escalating tensions between Caracas and Washington.
In a statement on Saturday, Venezuela’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the vessel, carrying nine “humble” and “harmless” fishermen, was intercepted by the US destroyer USS Jason Dunham (DDG-109) on Friday.
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Two superpowers, one behaving pathetically
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China first. Remarkable new details emerged yesterday of a trend we’ve been talking about for years in this newsletter: the rapid spread of clean energy and its associated appliances not only in China but in all the countries increasingly in their sphere. The folks at the Net Zero Industrial Policy Lab at Johns Hopkins published a huge new study detailing the “rapid scale- up of overseas Chinese clean-tech manufacturing investments.”
Investment volume: Chinese firms have pledged at least USD 227 billion across green manufacturing projects. A high-end estimate approaches USD 250 billion. This surge of overseas green manufacturing investment is unprecedented; it now surpasses the USD 200 billion (in current 2024 dollars) invested by the US over four years of the Marshall Plan, at a time of similar American dominance of manufacturing in key industries.
I want you to go back and reread the last sentence of that paragraph—bigger, in real dollar terms, than the Marshall Plan. The Marshall Plan, of course, was what America spent to rebuilt the world in the wake of World War II, and it was a key driver of what became the most prosperous economy the world has ever seen. The American century was built in no small part on making sure that our allies (and enemies) in the Second World War recovered and were fitted into our trading system. Now the Chinese are doing the same thing, except somewhat bigger and faster. …
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Holly allegedly murdered two teenagers because was radicalized by extremism. The details of which kind of extremism have not yet been identified, but when we combine any kind of extremism with easy access to guns, we get gun violence.
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It’s unfortunate that school shootings are so frequent in our country that they no longer get a lot of news coverage. They are not held up as shocking tragedies that we can and must speak up about, but rather as inevitable events that we must harden ourselves to, as if we have all agreed that the deaths of school children to guns are a price we are willing to pay.
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