Imperialism
Russia
Ukraine
Wagner mutiny
Fig. 1. Yevgeny Prigozhin. Screen capture from video by УлПравда ТВ, June 13, 2023, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0.
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Joe Barnes, “Putin ally ‘behind bomb’ that killed Wagner boss,” Telegraph, December 22, 2023, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/12/22/putin-ordered-death-of-wagner-boss-prighozin/
Israel
Palestine
Fig. 1. The ruins of a terminal at the Gaza airport. Image by Said Khatib (Agence France-Presse) on September 9, 2018, via the Times of Israel,[1] fair use.
Summer Said, Margherita Stancati and William Mauldin, “Hamas Rejection Sours Israeli Bid to Revive Hostage Talks,” Wall Street Journal, December 20, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israel-offers-one-week-cease-fire-in-exchange-for-more-hostages-336ae59a
Ishaan Tharoor, “Israel is struggling to destroy Hamas, but it’s destroying Gaza,” Washington Post, December 20, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/12/20/israel-battlefield-gaza-defeat-hamas/
Julian Borger, “US says it is ready to support amended UN resolution aimed at boosting aid to Gaza,” Guardian, December 21, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/22/un-security-council-resolution-boosting-aid-gaza-usa-america-support
Louisa Loveluck et al., “The case of al-Shifa: Investigating the assault on Gaza’s largest hospital,” Washington Post, December 21, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/12/21/al-shifa-hospital-gaza-hamas-israel/
Paul Rogers, “Israel is losing the war against Hamas – but Netanyahu and his government will never admit it,” Guardian, December 21, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/21/israel-losing-war-against-hamas-netanyahu-idf
Emma Graham-Harrison and Julian Borger, “UN security council backs resolution on large-scale aid to Gaza but not ceasefire,” Guardian, December 22, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/22/un-security-council-backs-resolution-on-large-scale-aid-to-gaza-but-not-ceasefire
James Politi and Felicia Schwartz, “Biden’s troubled Gaza strategy: ‘the US looks feckless,’” Financial Times, December 22, 2023, https://www.ft.com/content/edebf6ef-155e-4aad-a41b-7e31016cad96
Robin Stein et al., “A Times Investigation Tracked Israel’s Use of One of Its Most Destructive Bombs in South Gaza,” New York Times, December 22, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/21/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-bomb-investigation.html
Adam Taylor, “More than 20,000 dead in Gaza, a historic human toll,” Washington Post, December 22, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/12/22/gaza-israel-war-20000-dead/
Deborah Danon, “‘The safest place to be Jewish’: 2,600 people have moved to Israel since Hamas invaded,” Times of Israel, December 23, 2023, https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-safest-place-to-be-jewish-2600-people-have-moved-to-israel-since-hamas-invaded/
Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh
Infrastructure
Fig. 2. Post-collapse scene at the Fern Hollow Bridge, photograph by National Transportation Safety Board, January 29, 2022, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
This is a city that flatly does not take care of business:
The city of Pittsburgh knew at least 11 bridges required high-priority repairs in late 2017, about four years before the Fern Hollow Bridge collapsed, according to documents released by PennDOT relating to spans owned by the city.
Specifically, PennDOT chided the city for dragging its feet on making priority repairs to Fern Hollow Bridge in 2014 and was critical of the city’s response to necessary repairs on 10 other bridges in 2018.[2]
Money was a problem[3] but this cannot be accepted as an excuse: If you can’t fix shit, you need to shut it down and close off any hazardous areas. That’s simply not optional.
Paula Reed Ward, “Fern Hollow Bridge documents reveal PennDOT’s concern over city’s lack of action,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, December 22, 2023, https://triblive.com/local/fern-hollow-bridge-documents-reveal-penndots-concern-over-citys-lack-of-action/
Illiberalism
Gilead
Donald Trump
Coup attempt
Fig. 3. Donald Trump booking photograph by Fulton County (Georgia) Sheriff’s Office, August 24, 2023, via New York, August 25, 2023,[4] public domain.
It’s worse, by far, than Ryan Cooper says:
No other American defendant would get this kind of kid-glove treatment. Ordinary schlubs get railroaded into plea bargains with outrageous charge-stacking, routine pretrial detention, and the most brutal sentences in the rich world. In the rare case that they can appeal a conviction, the Supreme Court almost never hears their case, and even when they do, the appeal is almost always a failure. Donald Trump, by contrast, gets to threaten the lives of actual judges, prosecutors, and their staff, with the only punishment being that some, but not all, of his unsubtle incitements to violence are a no-no. Or rather, maybe they are, pending appeal.[5]
Well, actually, yes, wealthy perpetrators do almost invariably get kid-glove treatment, with white gloves no less, at an earlier stage such that they aren’t even criminal defendants but rather—sometimes—civil respondents.[6] Attorney General Merrick Garland agonized even over getting a search warrant even to recover highly classified material[7] before finally appointing Jack Smith as special counsel.[8] It was so bad that in their response to Smith’s gambit to accelerate a Supreme Court hearing on Donald Trump’s immunity claim, Trump’s attorneys pointed to the three years (actually more like two and a half[9]) it had taken for the Department of Justice to file charges over the January 6 coup attempt.[10]
Adam Liptak, “Colorado Ruling Knocks Trump Off Ballot: What It Means, What Happens Next,” New York Times, December 19, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/19/us/colorado-trump-legal-questions-supreme-court.html
Patrick Marley, “Donald Trump is barred from Colorado’s 2024 primary ballot, the state Supreme Court rules,” Washington Post, December 19, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/12/19/trump-off-colorado-ballot/
Nick Coltrain, “Colorado’s Trump ruling sets off political firestorm, raising legal stakes and putting state at center of debate,” Denver Post, December 20, 2023, https://www.denverpost.com/2023/12/20/donald-trump-colorado-supreme-court-ballot-ruling-political-fallout/
George T. Conway, III, “The Colorado Ruling Changed My Mind,” Atlantic, December 20, 2023, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/12/dont-read-the-colorado-ruling-read-the-dissents/676920/
Ryan Cooper, “The American Judiciary Is Failing Its Trump Test,” American Prospect, December 20, 2023,
Chris Geidner, “Colorado high court rules Trump is disqualified from being president, cannot be on ballot,” Law Dork, December 20, 2023, https://www.lawdork.com/p/colorado-high-court-rules-trump-is
Ruth Marcus, “The Supreme Court should toss the Colorado case,” Washington Post, December 20, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/12/20/colorado-trump-ballott-supreme-court/
Eric Tucker and Alanna Durkin Richer, “Trump’s lawyers tell Supreme Court to stay out of immunity dispute in 2020 election case for now,” Associated Press, December 20, 2023, https://apnews.com/article/trump-justice-department-jan-6-special-counsel-feb63a4ce7a807c11b523ded62a42881
Rachel Weiner, “Judge says Rudy Giuliani must pay $148 million judgment immediately,” Washington Post, December 20, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/12/20/giuliani-judgment-pay-immediately/
Craig Mauger, “Trump recorded pressuring Wayne County canvassers not to certify 2020 vote,” Detroit News, December 21, 2023, https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2023/12/21/donald-trump-recorded-pressuring-wayne-canvassers-not-to-certify-2020-vote-michigan/72004514007/
Robert Barnes and Perry Stein, “Supreme Court won’t expedite ruling on Trump’s immunity claim,” Washington Post, December 22, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/12/22/supreme-court-trump-immunity-expedition-denied/
- [1]Agence France-Presse and Times of Israel, “20 years after its opening, destroyed Gaza airport embodies grounded peace hopes,” Times of Israel, September 12, 2018, https://www.timesofisrael.com/20-years-after-its-opening-destroyed-gaza-airport-embodies-grounded-peace-hopes/↩
- [2]Paula Reed Ward, “Fern Hollow Bridge documents reveal PennDOT’s concern over city’s lack of action,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, December 22, 2023, https://triblive.com/local/fern-hollow-bridge-documents-reveal-penndots-concern-over-citys-lack-of-action/↩
- [3]Paula Reed Ward, “Fern Hollow Bridge documents reveal PennDOT’s concern over city’s lack of action,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, December 22, 2023, https://triblive.com/local/fern-hollow-bridge-documents-reveal-penndots-concern-over-citys-lack-of-action/↩
- [4]Margaret Hartmann and Nia Prater, “All the Mug Shots of Donald Trump and His Alleged Co-Conspirators,” New York, August 25, 2023, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-mug-shot-gallery.html↩
- [5]Ryan Cooper, “The American Judiciary Is Failing Its Trump Test,” American Prospect, December 20, 2023,
- [6]Steven E. Barkan, Criminology: A Sociological Understanding, 3rd ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006).; Jeffrey Reiman, The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison, 7th ed. (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2004).↩
- [7]Sadie Gurman and Aruna Viswanatha, “Merrick Garland Weighed Search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago for Weeks,” Wall Street Journal, August 15, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/merrick-garland-weighed-search-of-trumps-mar-a-lago-for-weeks-11660601292↩
- [8]Aruna Viswanatha and Sadie Gurman, “Jack Smith Named Special Counsel to Lead DOJ Probes of Donald Trump,” Wall Street Journal, November 18, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/garland-to-name-special-counsel-to-determine-whether-trump-should-face-charges-11668796152↩
- [9]Devlin Barrett et al., “Trump charged in probe of Jan. 6, efforts to overturn 2020 election,” Washington Post, August 1, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/08/01/trump-indictment-jan-6-2020-election/↩
- [10]Robert Barnes and Perry Stein, “Supreme Court won’t expedite ruling on Trump’s immunity claim,” Washington Post, December 22, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/12/22/supreme-court-trump-immunity-expedition-denied/↩