Illiberalism
Gilead
Donald Trump
Coup attempt
The cute part is that Donald Trump’s lawyer walked into a trap he had set for himself.[1] Yes, you want to read George Conway’s article.
Chris Geidner, “D.C. Circuit judges extremely skeptical of Trump’s post-presidential immunity claim,” Law Dork, January 9, 2024, https://www.lawdork.com/p/dc-circuit-trump-immunity-arguments
George T. Conway, III, “Trump’s Lawyer Walked Into a Trap,” Atlantic, January 10, 2024, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/01/trump-immunity-hearing-2020-election/677072/
Imperialism
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,[2] fair use.
The [Anti-Defamation League] report was widely covered by mainstream outlets like CNN, NBC, and Axios, which simply took the organization’s word for the gigantic increase [a stunning 3,283 such incidents in 2023] without actually checking the data behind the claim.
Not all media outlets fumbled the ball, however. As The Forward first noted, there’s one big problem with the numbers: The ADL admits in its own press release that it includes pro-Palestine rallies in its list of antisemitic incidents, even if these featured no overt hostility toward Jewish people. Any anti-Israel or anti-Zionist chants are enough for the ADL’s new definition of antisemitism. . . .
Antisemitism is a real, and growing, problem—especially in the United States. But the ADL isn’t helping anyone when it defines a bomb threat at a synagogue and a Students for Justice in Palestine rally as equally antisemitic.[3]
David Cohen, “Israel’s president says expelling Palestinians not the plan,” Politico, January 7, 2024, https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/07/israel-palestinians-expel-gaza-00134187
Wafaa Shurafa, Jack Jeffery, Bassem Mroue, “Israeli strike kills an elite Hezbollah commander in the latest escalation linked to the war in Gaza,” Associated Press, January 8, 2024, https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-news-01-08-2024-18fbc9af50000c94fed59017fe82481e
Julia Ioffe, “‘Blood Libel?’: On the Question of Genocide in Gaza,” Puck, January 9, 2024, https://puck.news/blood-libel-on-the-question-of-genocide-in-gaza/
Adrienne Mahsa Varkiani, “ADL Officially Admits It Counts Pro-Palestine Activism as Antisemitic,” New Republic, January 10, 2024, https://newrepublic.com/post/177993/adl-abandons-pretense-tracking-antisemitism-honestly-palestine-rallies
Electric vehicles
Fig. 2. “A Toyota bZ4X electric sport utility vehicle: EVs currently on the market are fitted with batteries that use liquid lithium-ion electrolytes.” Photograph by Kiyoshi Ota, n.d., via Financial Times, fair use.
Andrew J. Hawkins, “Kia gets its first customer for the PV5 modular electric vehicle: Uber,” Verge, January 10, 2024, https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/10/24033010/kia-uber-mou-pv5-modular-ev-ridehail-deal
So-called ‘ridesharing’
Drivers
Electric cars
Fig. 3. Unattributed and undated image via Spencer Thomason in a disgraceful puff piece[4] for Uber’s electrification effort,[5] fair use.
Andrew J. Hawkins, “Kia gets its first customer for the PV5 modular electric vehicle: Uber,” Verge, January 10, 2024, https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/10/24033010/kia-uber-mou-pv5-modular-ev-ridehail-deal
- [1]George T. Conway, III, “Trump’s Lawyer Walked Into a Trap,” Atlantic, January 10, 2024, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/01/trump-immunity-hearing-2020-election/677072/↩
- [2]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/↩
- [3]Adrienne Mahsa Varkiani, “ADL Officially Admits It Counts Pro-Palestine Activism as Antisemitic,” New Republic, January 10, 2024, https://newrepublic.com/post/177993/adl-abandons-pretense-tracking-antisemitism-honestly-palestine-rallies↩
- [4]Spencer Thomason, “Uber Drivers are Liking The Teslas,” Medium, July 28, 2022, https://medium.com/@sthomason/uber-drivers-are-liking-the-teslas-c211d15caf42↩
- [5]Andrew J. Hawkins, “Uber pledges to shift to ‘100 percent’ electric vehicles by 2030,” Verge, September 8, 2020, https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/8/21427196/uber-promise-100-percent-electric-vehicle-ev-2030↩