Senator Jeff Merkley

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Jeff Merkley: Is President Trump a Russian asset?

Christopher Landau: Absolutely not, Senator. He's the president of the United States, duly elected by the American people

M: Well the reason I ask is many people back home have been asking me this question. And they say, "If he was an asset, we would see exactly what he's doing now."

For example, he proceeded to express from the Oval Office, propaganda that has been Russian propaganda. That Ukraine started the war, that Zelenskyy is a dictator.

Second of all, he gave away key things on the negotiating table before the negotiations even started ensuring US would absolutely oppose any possibility of of NATO membership for Ukraine.

Third, he's cut off the armed shipments to Ukraine, completely undermining their ability against a massive neighbor next door.

Fourth, he's undermined the partnership with Europe, which has been essential to security over the last 80 years, a major goal of Putin's.

And then, he's done everything to discredit Zelenskyy on the international stage, with the just shameful press conference, in which he teamed up with the vice president to attack Zelenskyy.

I can't imagine that if he was a Russian asset he could do anything more favorable than these Five Points.

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Reporter: Do you believe Israel has a right to exist?

Two satirical bronze statues of Donald Trump popped up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Portland, Oregon, commemorating the former president’s ‘lifetime of sexual assault.’ Each statue included a plaque quoting Trump’s infamous remarks from the 2005 'Access Hollywood' interview.

The statue in Portland was beheaded shortly after appearing and removed by the city shortly thereafter. The Philadelphia statue was also taken down not long after being installed.

Both Trump statues were positioned next to city-sanctioned statues of nude women, creating the illusion of Trump gazing at them.

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mayor-wren

Transcript:

vlogbrothers, Hank Green

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Transcript (emphasis mine):

Good morning, John. I've had a half a cup of coffee, and I'm going to do something I almost never do I'm going to make an unscripted video about a thing that I care very passionately about

You watching this video need to not want a gas stove

Why? Because they suck!

Here's the thing that you are right about. The curlicue heating element stoves, they are the worst. They're hard to clean, they're extremely hard to control, like you cannot turn them on and off quickly. They take forever to heat up, they take forever to cool down

Now what happened is the stove top and natural gas industry made it so that what takes the place of that in your brain is a natural gas stove that has like the little blue flames – they're so beautiful – that like Gordon Ramsay used. But what you're doing when you have a natural gas stove is burning stuff in your home! Which results in, get this, decreased indoor air quality. How you can get around this by like having your fume hood like going full blast and certainly never have a natural gas stove that doesn't have a hood. Or get this?! You can have an induction stovetop that has more power and is easier to control than natural gas!

Chances are, there are three pipes connected to your house. There's the one that brings you water, that one's important. The one that takes the water away, we also want that. And the one that brings you methane. What century is this?!

It would be like having the gas station bring the gasoline directly to your car. Like this is a bad idea!

Now I know what you're thinking, “Hank. There is no way that cooking my hellofresh is significantly adding to climate change.” And you're right

But here's the thing, household natural gas use is a big contributor to climate change, it's just not mostly the stove top. However when natural gas companies ask people how they feel about switching their furnace from gas to electric or their water heater from gas to electric, they're like, “I don't care, whichever is better, I don't know.” Because you currently have a really efficient way to get power into your home that isn't a pipe full of methane! It's a power line! And there are great electric water heaters, and there are great electric furnaces and heat pumps, but people say, “I want my natural gas stove.” But that's a tiny percentage of the methane that is actually being sold by the gas company. Almost all of it is used in furnaces and water heaters. But as long as people are like, “I want to keep my gas stove, it's harder to clean, it makes the air inside my house dirty, but House Hunters says that it's a top tier product,” people will keep having the natural gas companies build and replace this extremely expensive infrastructure to pipe gas into our homes!

And gas companies are freaking out about this. They're doing all these campaigns about how great gas ranges are, even though they are objectively worse. Because if they can keep that toehold, they can make it make sense to keep giving you gas for those other things that electric could easily replace. But look electric could also easily replace your stove, because induction stove tops are better than gas!

And so one of the most important things that you can do as a person who's concerned about climate change is take the little thing out of your brain that says, “gas stoves are the best kind of stove,” and look at it and be like, “you're a freaking idiot.” Then you throw it onto your induction stove top and nothing happens, because that's not how it works. It induces the heat in the pan. The stove top itself doesn't get hot cuz they're amazing. So you have to put it into a pan, put that on the stove top, fry it up, and have it with butter … This is why I script. That right there, is why I script, so that doesn't happen!

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So has anyone else watched Heartsteel's Paranoia and had the same thought??

Image descriptions under the cut:

Are lone gunmen as entitled as the elite they claim to defend against?

Rachel Donald, Planet: Critical

Excerpts:

When the CEO of UnitedHealthcare was gunned down by a masked man on the busy streets of New York, the internet erupted with visions of what this could mean. Was it a vigilante? A victim of the American healthcare system? A former employee? A revolutionary? Was this the event that would trigger a mass movement against extractive capitalism?

In contrast, extractive capitalism barely blinked. In fact, UnitedHealthcare executives carried on with their 9am meeting barely two hours after Thompson was killed. It is a shocking and revealing fact, one that makes perfect sense when you stop to think about it. Brian Thompson was as unimportant to UnitedHealthcare as its customers because the customers who die from denied insurance policies can be replaced, just as CEOs who are killed can be replaced.

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The tone [of the manifesto] speaks volumes. It certainly would not surprise me if this was the manifesto of a 26-year-old who thought they were the very first person ever to face the reality of corruption and greed “with such brutal honesty”. It would also not surprise me if that 26-year-old, self-isolating from any community with whom to discuss their beliefs, came to the conclusion that murdering a CEO would in any way help.

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You might think, given everyone lives within the same economic system and falls on the same spectrum of suffering, that assassination attempts are carried about by a range of people which reflects the diversity of our societies. That is not the case. If we look at Presidential assassinations in the United States, the alleged perpetrators are always white, and almost always in their mid-twenties:

John Wilkes Booth was 26 when he assassinated Abaraham Lincoln

Charles J. Guiteau was 39 when he assassinated James Garfield

Leon Czolgosz was 28 when he assassinated William McKinley

Lee Harvey Oswald was 24 when he assassinated JFK

John Hinckley Jr. was 26 when he attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan

Thomas Crooks was 20 when he attempted to assassinate Donald Trump

Murder is one of the most vivid acts of entitlement in the world.

Frankly, it’s unsurprising that those on the top of the social pyramid created by extractive capitalism would typically be the the only group to think themselves as bearing the right to take another’s life for the wider sake of society.

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I believe acting in self-defence is imperative in a crisis. I would like to see the climate movement engage in more acts of self-defence. I support the right to sabotage the private property of polluting industries in protest, and I don’t believe we have to forgive our abusers if ever we reach a moment of collective justice. I think the fight to save the earth’s systems and our own societies from collapse is a fight to save ourselves. It is a collective act of self-defence, and it is utterly justified. Its very collective nature sets it apart from lone gunmen who believe they are the arbiters of honest assessment and have the last word in what the world should look like.

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Systemic change is complex. It cannot be achieved by a single act, or a single person.

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The reality of human violence is the result of thousands of years of extractivism and exploitation. It promotes violence because it feeds off of violence. Those who engage in violence at its service are in no way excused, but

rather than argue their evil nature we should reflect upon their lack of imagination and cowardice.

These people don’t want the world to change because it suits them very well. This is actually a perfectly normal conclusion. That they don’t want it to change at the expense of others is a conclusion that can only be supported by an economic, political and cultural system which promotes separation and individualism. Everything is geared to support that narrative.

Those who are thriving in it are perhaps not all evil—they’re just very good at doing what they’re told and see no reason to question the world they maintain.

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Brian Thompson’s murder won’t stop for-profit maximisation of healthcare in the USA. It has provoked more conversations about it, certainly, and galvanised, if not radicalised, a cross-section of the internet who are intrigued by the daring and physique of the alleged killer. Some will say his actions were worth that alone. Yet, simply talking won’t help American society progress towards a more equitable future. To get there, they will have to organise systemic attacks on the infrastructure—both ideological and physical—which makes extractivism and exploitation possible. To arrive at a future of non-violence, we must coordinate and defend against violence. To do so alone is fundamentally inefficient.

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The radical flank is a critical wave in any social movement, making the peaceful protesters look amenable and worthy of an invitation to the table: MLK’s ideals were buttressed by the radicalism of Malcolm X.

I have seen arguments to suggest that Thompson’s killer represents the radical flank. I worry these arguments are misleading because they suggest that any single person acting alone has the same right to change the world as a collective of people who have hammered out their ethos and strategy by listening to one another and sharing their lived experiences. I worry that a movement will be reduced to a single person, painted as heroic or evil, who will distract from the relentless on-the-ground organising taking place all across the world, and especially in the USA in the lead up to Trump’s inauguration. I worry we will fall prey to utilitarian arguments where the ends justify the means and murder takes precedence over justice. I worry young men in their twenties will think they have found an easy way to achieve the greatness they believe themselves entitled to. I worry we will conflate killing in cold blood with self-defence.

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