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Anne Applebaum: Dislike and Disdain

Trump expresses his true feelings about America and Americans
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In truth, the administration’s unannounced destruction of the East Wing of the White House reflects a similar kind of disdain, and belongs to a similar kind of tradition. Ignoring the National Capital Planning Commission, eschewing the deference that presidents have usually shown to public opinion and precedent, Trump sent in the bulldozers before anyone was able to stop them.

The message is the same as in the AI video: Trump doesn’t care about public opinion, or that it belongs to the American nation rather than himself, or that it was the product of Thomas Jefferson’s belief in order, proportion, and discipline. He believes that only he can decide what it should look like, and he wants it to reflect his Mar-a-Lago taste: bigger, uglier, with the Rose Garden covered in concrete and fake gold ornaments pasted onto the walls of the Oval Office. He is discarding history, tradition and propriety, destroying a symbol that belongs to all of us, weakening one of the few remaining images that unite us.

He is also doing so at the cost of $300 million, thanks to donations from wealthy Americans under conditions that are unclear. Why have Apple, Amazon, Comcast, Google, Lockheed Martin, the Winkelvoss brothers, the family of Howard Lutnick and more than a dozen others given money to this project? What do they hope to receive in exchange? Secrecy is another hallmark of authoritarianism, and so are permanent conflicts of interest. Plenty of those surround this project too.
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Al Jazeera: Is Trump’s pardon of Binance boss Changpeng Zhao a conflict of interest?

Zhao is a convicted criminal who founded the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, found guilty of allowing site to be used for money laundering in connection to child sex abuse.
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Over the course of seven years, prosecutors said Binance had facilitated more than 1.5 million virtual currency trades – totalling roughly $900m – which violated US laws and sanctions, including ones involving al-Qaeda and Iran.

In addition, investigators said drug traffickers and networks linked to child sexual exploitation used Binance to move and convert illicit funds anonymously. The exchange’s weak customer verification system and tolerance for high-risk transactions made it a hub for illegal operations, they alleged.
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Adam Kinzinger: The GOP’s Long Dance With Racism

The leaked Young Republican chat shows a party culture decades in the making
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The bigotry and racism exposed when someone leaked transcripts from a chat group of Young Republicans has much of the country rightly outraged. But not Vice President J.D. Vance. …
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The Vice President makes no sense. First, these young Republicans are not kids. Eight of the eleven in the chat group are between 24 and 35 years old. Not one was under 18. (Vance himself is 41.)

Second, there’s no evidence the racist and anti-Semitic comments (and there are many more than I noted above) were jokes. “I was only kidding” is the refuge of a bigot who just doesn’t want to be held accountable.

Third, there’s something deeply wrong when the Vice President of the United States seems more concerned about racists being “ruined” than the racism itself. This is smoke that tells me there’s a big fire inside the GOP.

As someone who spent most of my life rising in the Republican Party, I always knew there were bigots among us. But I hoped they weren’t more common than in the rest of society. I didn’t hear much from them because they knew I wouldn’t tolerate it. And yes, people on the other side sometimes used racism against me. There are bad apples in every barrel. But as time passed, and I considered the trend inside the party, I recognized that both GOP culture and political strategy have a serious racism problem.
(Adam Kinzinger more…)
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Jennifer Rubin: Demolishing the Presidency

A White House teardown ordered by a reckless child is the perfect metaphor

Donald Trump has done far, far worse things. But images of the demolition of the White House’s East Wing, including water being sprayed throughout to douse the debris, were viscerally appalling. Maybe it was the resemblance to the damage wrought to the Pentagon on 9/11. Maybe it was an instinctive defense of a national symbol—last destroyed by a monarch in the 1812 war. …
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Trump promised this sort of desecration would not occur. But, as we know too well, the lifespan of his promises is a nanosecond. A leaked memo telling employees not to release damaging images is the sort of internal rebellion that a White House literally falling apart must dread.
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… it is of a piece with the recent string of moronic moves by a White House apparently in the grips of panic.

When you resort to a vulgar AI video (“not only juvenile but also betray[ing] striking contempt for tens of millions of Americans he ostensibly leads and for the concept of democratic free speech,” as CNN’s Stephen Collinson observed), or when you insist that the images of millions of No Kings protesters blanketing social and legacy media are fake, you give the impression you are not only crass and delusional, but panicked.

Don’t forget his jaw-droppingly irresponsible stunt, the Marines’ exercise of “firing high explosive rounds from M777 Howitzers” over a major California freeway that—no surprise!—ended in disaster. …
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Dean Blundell: The White House Was Never Meant To Be A Palace For A King—Until Now

The founders built a modest president’s residence for a republic. Bulldozing the East Wing to make room for a donor‑funded ballroom flips that choice

Yesterday, demolition crews began tearing into the East Wing of the White House. The stated aim: clear space for a new, privately financed ballroom—a project touted at $200–$250 million, roughly 90,000 square feet, with a capacity up to 999 guests. A new monument to America’s King, seeking a palace fit for a king. The images are jarring: water trucks suppressing dust as excavators bite into a wing that, for generations, handled the unglamorous work of the People’s House.

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Charlotte Clymer: The Six Day Peace

Yet another Trump failure.

It was only seven days ago that Donald Trump announced the first phase of a peace deal between the Israeli government and Hamas had officially gone into effect.

The remaining living Israeli hostages were released on Oct. 13th after nearly two years in captivity. Netanyahu had agreed to draw back Israeli troops to agreed upon lines. Humanitarian aid would soon flood into Gaza.

Trump took a highly publicized victory lap.
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I don’t mind saying that a small part of me hoped he was right. As relieved as I was that the hostages had finally been released and the killing of Palestinian civilians had temporarily been halted and humanitarian assistance would soon be on the way, a small part of me hoped this might be the first time Trump followed through.
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Let’s wait and see, I thought. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe he actually did it. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be wrong about Trump for once?
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And then, yesterday—predictably and tragically—the whole thing fell apart.

The “peace deal” lasted six days.

Six. Days.

Israel launched its heaviest bombardment on Gaza since the ceasefire took effect and suspended humanitarian aid following two of its soldiers being killed by Hamas, which followed the Israeli military allegedly murdering Palestinian civilians, which followed…, etc. etc. etc.
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Anne Applebaum: Will the Beacon Go Dark?

What happens when “democracy” isn’t part of our identity anymore?

Millions of Americans have just joined one of more than 2700 No Kings demonstrations across the country. I went to observe the DC march, and found a lot of homemade signs, a wide range of people, many different kinds of opinions and a gentle, cheerful vibe …

The next day, the president posted an AI video showing himself as a pilot, wearing a crown, literally dumping sh*t on protesters from the air: A clear statement of what he feels about Americans exercising their rights to free assembly and free speech.

Just in time, the Atlantic has published an issue entitled The Unfinished Revolution to mark in advance the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution, a much older No Kings Rally. …

My contribution is an essay asking what it would mean, and not only for Americans, if “democracy” is no longer a part of our national identity.
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David Brooks: America Needs a Mass Movement—Now

Other peoples have risen. Other peoples have risen up to defend their rights, their dignity, and their democracies. In the past 50 years, they’ve done it in Poland, South Africa, Lebanon, South Korea, Ukraine, East Timor, Serbia, Madagascar, Nepal, and elsewhere.

In the early 1970s, for instance, the democratically elected leader of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos, tried to centralize power in his own hands. Students rose up: A clash between them and police left six protesters dead. Transit workers went on strike, followed by joint student-worker demonstrations. Marcos countered by declaring martial law. Led by Cardinal Jaime Sin, the archbishop of Manila, Catholics arose to resist.

In 1983, Marcos’s key opponent, Benigno Aquino, was assassinated. Marcos banned TV coverage of Aquino’s funeral. But 2 million mourners showed up for what turned into an 11-hour rally against the regime. The middle and professional classes then joined the protesters. The Manila business community held weekly demonstrations. The following year, there was a general workers’ strike. After Marcos stole the next election, members of the armed forces began to mutiny. Millions of ordinary citizens marched to defend them. The Reagan administration threatened to cut off aid to the regime. By early 1986, Marcos and his family had no choice: They fled the country. It had taken more than a decade, but the people had defeated the autocrat.

Such uprisings are not rare. …
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Terrence Goggin: Trump’s terrible precedent: General Ulysses S. Grant blocks President Andrew Johnson’s attempt to reverse the results of The Civil War

In 1865 with the passage of the 13th Amendment outlawing slavery, the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln and the succession of Vice President Andrew Johnson, a border State Democrat, to the Presidency, an historic split occurred between the Republican abolitionist Congress and the sitting President. The Congress had just abolished slavery ( see above contemporary ink drawing) but the plantations owned by the southern aristocracy made so wealthy by slavery still existed. If the plantations were not also abolished, the freed slaves would become serfs, tied to the land, with nowhere else to go to sustain themselves. The Congressional policy to accomplish the break up of the Plantation System became known as “Reconstruction”. President Johnson had his version of lenient Reconstruction, the Congress had its own far different version.

This triggered a great proverbial “battle to the death” which ultimately resulted in Johnson’s impeachment. But we are jumping ahead. Before that occurred a titanic struggle between the Commander of the U.S. Army and the sitting President took place.
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Jennifer Rubin: A Nobel Prize for Trolling?

The distinguished awards further illustrated that Trump is wrong on just about everything

The Nobel Prize Committee announced its annual awards over the last week or so. Aside from the number of winners based at U.S. universities (which have been until now the crown jewel of our education and scientific communities), something else caught my attention: Are the Nobel Prize judges…trolling Donald Trump?

I have no doubt the awards—the culmination of a long and rigorous process—are apolitical and entirely well deserved. However, what the committee said about the prizes and how the winners’ work were described certainly highlight Trump’s ignorance and malevolence. If you are going to shine a light on brilliance and excellence, Trump is going to be left in the dark—and others will notice.

Nobel Committee chair Jørgen Watne Frydnes was explicitly asked about Trump’s clamoring for the Peace Prize. “In the long history of the Nobel Peace Prize, I think this committee has seen many types of campaign, media attention,” Frydnes said. In other words, they are used to getting nagged. He continued: “This committee sits in a room filled with the portraits of all laureates and that room is filled with both courage and integrity. So, we base only our decision on the work and the will of Alfred Nobel.” Hmm. Sounds like Trump fared poorly in comparison to all those men and women esteemed for courage and integrity.
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