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Steven Beschloss: Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation

On October 3, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation. He soberly acknowledged that he was doing so “in the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity.” And he reflected on “the lamentable civil strife in which we are engaged” leading to the many “who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers.”

But despite his honest depiction of our nation’s tragedy, America’s 16th president was also able to see beyond it. He described “the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies” and asked Americans to look ahead and “expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.” (He had signed the final Emancipation Proclamation nine months earlier.)

On that October day, Lincoln proclaimed that Americans should “set apart and observe the last Thursday of November…as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise.” In what reads like a prayer, he concluded with his hope for “the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it…to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.”

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Raven Nightshade: Deportation on the Rich Man’s Runway

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Their vans crept down the road: a death-march of the American Dream.

Why I Was There

Because silence is complicity.

Because witnessing is the smallest possible act of courage in a country addicted to looking away.

Because our relatives have stood here before, on this exact land, swallowed by the same machine of American cruelty.
…

We like to pretend these things happen in the shadows.

They don’t.

They happen right next to us at the airport where we pick up loved ones, at the hangar where the rich store their toys, at the same gates where the American Dream pretends it can be reached with enough hard work and TSA-approved liquids.

Yesterday, I watched that dream die again.

And the worst part?

Most people will never know.

Many people will never care.

But some of us will remember. Some of us will speak.

Because someone has to.
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James Eagle: The AI infrastructure boom is here, but will it last

What this chart shows is how imports of data centre equipment have jumped dramatically, while other equipment imports have risen more modestly.

This explosive growth represents just another way to understand the infrastructure demands of artificial intelligence. While the dotcom bubble saw steady increases in tech infrastructure, today’s AI revolution is driving imports at nearly twice the historical rate. The gap between data centre equipment and other imports has never been wider, reflecting the extraordinary computing power required to train and run large language models. Unlike previous tech cycles, this isn’t just about connectivity or storage. It’s about raw processing capability on a scale we’ve never seen before.

Is this infrastructure buildout sustainable, or are we witnessing the early stages of overcapacity?
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Aaron Parnas: Major MAGA Accounts on Twitter Exposed as Foreign Actors

… A new transparency feature on Twitter is revealing that many loud, “patriotic” voices in the MAGA ecosystem aren’t actually located in the United States at all. Instead, a surprising number are operating from places like Russia, Nigeria, India, Thailand, and other countries.
…

The tool, called “about this account,” became available to users on Friday. It shows key information about any profile, including where the account is based, when it was created, how often its username has changed, and how the X app was originally downloaded. Within hours of its launch, users began uncovering major right-wing accounts that appear to have misrepresented their origins.

I have reviewed dozens of accounts, and it confirmed long-held suspicions that some of the most aggressive MAGA voices were actually foreign-run. The tool has now exposed that many of the accounts pushing some of the most prominent MAGA propaganda are actually simply foreign actors. As a result, what you have is an ecosystem on Twitter where Republican politicians in the United States, including the President of the United States, are unknowingly sharing foreign propaganda.
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Bloomberg: Six takeaways from two weeks in the rainforest

• The fossil fuel gap is still too wide
• Adaptation has jumped up the agenda
• Trade and critical minerals are climate issues, too
• Political freedom makes a COP comeback
• Forests got money — but not make-or-break support
• The US makes its absence felt

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Jennifer Rubin: Another Undaunted City

Charlotte defends democracy and decency

North Carolina was Donald Trump’s past week’s site for a violent, chaotic, wasteful, and abusive invasion of Custom and Border Patrol agents. Beginning in Charlotte and quickly spreading to other cities, the operations have not focused on the “worst of the worst” as Donald Trump and his Homeland Security thugs falsely claim.

Once again, horrifying scenes have played out of immigrants and U.S. citizens alike being snared by masked agents in unmarked cars. “Eyewitness accounts and video circulated online show federal agents in tactical gear detaining people at locations across the city, including storefronts and public spaces,” Newsweek reported. “In one incident, members of a church congregation in east Charlotte said masked agents entered a yard where congregants were working and detained a man.”

The video is of an arrest of a Honduran-born U.S. citizen, Willy Aceituno, during which his car window was smashed and he was shoved to the ground, went viral. Aceituno said he voted for Trump but now concedes, “It was the worst decision of my life.” He was later released.

In response to the mayhem, state and city officials—as did those in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Portland—have risen to the occasion. In concert with magnificent displays of peaceful protest and community solidarity, state and local officials have been sending a powerful message that they are prepared to defend their neighbors against the predation of an unhinged, racist autocrat and his underlings.
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Bulwark: What If the Most Dangerous Man in the Administration Isn’t Donald Trump?

Yesterday the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—the nonpartisan agency whose work has long been the global gold-standard for health science—made a change to the section of its website on the nonexistent link between autism and vaccines. The CDC went from stating that “vaccines do not cause autism” to saying that:

• The claim “vaccines do not cause autism” is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism.
• Studies supporting a link have been ignored by health authorities.

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But the even bigger story is that the U.S. government is no longer a reliable source of information. The consequences of this corruption will ripple through American society for years.
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James Eagle: What Americans die from and what the media talks about

Americans are far more likely to die from heart disease and cancer than anything else. You would not know it from watching the news. Together these two causes account for more than half of all US deaths, yet they barely register in media coverage. The headlines are dominated instead by rare events such as homicide and terrorism.
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Joyce Vance: What Happens When The Government Loses Its Credibility: The Comey Prosecution

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The burden a defendant in a criminal case has to meet for a judge to make an order like this one is very high, because protecting grand jury secrecy is essential to protecting the integrity of the process. The Judge notes that a defendant has to show that “‘particularized and factually based grounds exist to support the proposition that irregularities in the grand jury proceedings may create a basis for dismissal of the indictment,’” and that the “‘burden [cannot] be satisfied with conclusory or speculative allegations of misconduct.’” That suggests that Comey’s lawyers came forward with information of compelling significance.
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Bulwark: Trump Tells Voters: Don’t Believe Your Lying Wallets

From elections to the economy, he keeps denying reality.

MILLIONS OF PEOPLE who voted for Donald Trump in 2024 are learning a hard lesson: A man who refuses to face facts in his own life is also unlikely to face facts about the lives of others. These voters are discovering that Trump’s denial of the election results in 2020 wasn’t a one-off. It was a forewarning of what we’re seeing now: his refusal to acknowledge the affordability crisis.

Five years ago, Trump didn’t just deny that he had lost the presidential election. He proved the severity of his delusion by trying everything, including violence, to block the transfer of power. When he ran for re-election in 2024, he made it clear that he still believed he had won in 2020.

Many people who voted for Trump in 2024 bought this absurd story. But they weren’t enough to elect him. He won because a pivotal segment of the public knew his story was bogus but voted for him anyway.
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