Extra, Extra
Merrick Rolled: “We will not be intimidated. We will do our jobs free from outside interference. And we will not back down from defending our democracy.” So said Merrick Garland during a grilling by GOP House members pretending that he’s weaponizing the Justice Dept. Here’s the latest from the made for TV hearing.
+ Breaking: Anne Frank Had Genitals: “A Texas middle school teacher has been fired after assigning an unapproved illustrated version of Anne Frank’s Diary to her eighth grade reading class. Per a report from KFDM, a spokesperson for Hamshire-Fannett ISD, located south of Beaumont, released a statement confirming the teacher was sent home on Wednesday after reading a passage from Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation in which Frank wrote about male and female genitalia.” This is not a culture war. It’s a cult’s war.
+ Modi Operandi: “Since Modi came to power in 2014, violence against India’s minorities has dramatically increased, and New Delhi has moved to strip many non-Hindus of protections. The country revoked the partial autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir—India’s only Muslim-majority state—and split the entity in half. It passed a law that could deprive millions of Muslims of their citizenship, and it has done conspicuously little to stop the killing of members of tribal minorities in India’s northeast.” Interesting look at the backstory of the Canada’s fight with India. The Killing in Canada Shows What India Has Become.
+ Assad State of Affairs: “Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will travel to China this week for a bilateral summit with his Chinese counterpart, the presidency in Damascus said in a statement on Tuesday … Presidents Assad and Xi would hold a Syrian-Chinese summit.” Assad has been welcomed back into (one side of) the global family of nations. Depressing.
+ X Marks its Spot: This is becoming a very familiar story. So are the names of the trolls stoking them. A reporter made sure a retired police chief’s death didn’t go uncovered. Then social media attacked her. “The Las Vegas Review-Journal is facing a harassment campaign stoked by Elon Musk, one year after a reporter was killed for his coverage.”
+ Heat Seeking Employment: “The White House on Wednesday unveiled a new climate jobs training program that it says could put 20,000 people to work in its first year on projects like restoring land, improving communities’ resilience to natural disasters and deploying clean energy.”
+ Skirting Justice: “Describing meeting with Giuliani backstage at Donald Trump’s speech near the White House before his supporters marched on Congress in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election, Hutchinson says the former New York mayor turned Trump lawyer put his hand ‘under my blazer, then my skirt.'” Ex-Trump aide Cassidy Hutchinson claims Rudy Giuliani groped her on January 6. Could this guy be any more of a creep?
