A Brave New World. Tabs, Tues., Jan. 21, 2025
Morning news roundup and things to read.
Joe Biden has commuted the sentence of Leonard Peltier to home confinement. (White House, already 404ed by the new administration) (but preserved here, thank Crom for the National Archives — Dok Zoom) He has also pardoned Anthony Fauci and the House January 6 Select Committee, as well as the officers who testified about the tourists who attacked them. I burst into angry tears when I read he pardoned Fauci; what was that old man’s crime supposed to have been exactly, the man who spent his whole life working to keep us safe from infectious diseases? Creating the pandemic, which was really a bad cold, and killing us, with a bad cold, to keep us inside? Was that it? I wasn’t very good at explaining it to Donna Rose. (AP / The pardons) And a posthumous pardon for Black nationalist Marcus Garvey. (HuffPost)
G’bye Joe. You were Good, Actually.
Raise a morning glass for Cecile Richards, Daughter of Ann, fierce resister of our bodies and our rights. (19th News) “Everything” seems like the least we could do. (Abortion, Every Day) Cecile’s last stand. (Her last interview, which was to run this month, with the Texas Observer)
And now we begin. Here’s some anger garbage to jumpstart your motor.
This is illegal. This is illegal. This is illegal. (Gift link Washington Post)
Trump’s executive order attacks on our trans brothers and sisters. (Erin in the Morning)
Trump and his wife launch crypto coins, instantly worth billions. I wonder if any foreign governments pumped any money into his pockets, probably not right. CNN suggests this might raise ethic concerns — serious ones even??? (CNN)
Public Citizen and a government employees union sues the fake “Department” “of Government Efficiency.” (Suit)
Looks like they already bigfooted Vivek Ramaswamy out of the fake dumb “department,” wonder if that’s because he would be uncitizened under the new Uncitizening Children Who Are Born Here executive orders. Anyway, he’s running for Ohio gov or something. Best of luck, Vivek. (CBS News)
Elon Musk is giving the fire victims in Los Angeles a “free month of Internet” that will only cost them $395, and then $120 a month. (Judd Legum’s Musk Watch)
Tech CEOs are in love with the dystopia. (Blood in the Machine)
The AP explains fairly straightforwardly that it was Trump who wanted to ban TikTok and then TikTok credited him with “saving the day.” Kinda too long story though. Anyway, pffft whatever shruggy emoticon. (AP)
Did Musk steal Pennsylvania for Trump? Maybe. Sounds like Trump thinks so. (PennLive)
Timothy Snyder reintroduces you to some nominees for the Cabinet who were so wrong bad Congress actually rejected them, if you can even believe such a thing. (Snyder)
I’m officially on AOC 2028. And you?
Sherrilyn Ifill says do not despair. Work instead. (Ifill)
But also dance. Here’s my No-Naug playlist: Young, Gifted and Black (and the Bee Gees). I think it was pretty pretty pretty good! (Youtube)
Here is where you give Wonkette all your extra money with Paypal.
This is the button for giving us all your extra money with Venmo. It’s ventabulous!
Wonkette IMPEACH and HELL. NO. sale continues at Wonkette Bazaar!
Love you dears. See you soon, because we’re back at it!
It’s an Ezo! More hed gif info here: https://open.substack.com/pub/martiniambassador/p/ezo-in-a-tree-zo
And your meme chat: https://open.substack.com/chat/posts/bb754ff5-3501-4862-ab4e-175fc7f7f3fd?utm_source=share
Note for nerds: If you have a URL for a Biden white house press release that's been 404'd by the change in presidency, the Biden white house site is reproduced at the National Archives https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/ and you can just substitute that prefix for whitehouse.gov