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Smirking Chimp News and Commentary from the Vast, Left-Wing Conspiracy. updated daily since Dec 2001

Thom Hartmann in Thursday's Chimp: "Let’s stop pretending. Let’s stop dancing around the language, around the morality, ...
03/07/2025

Thom Hartmann in Thursday's Chimp: "Let’s stop pretending. Let’s stop dancing around the language, around the morality, and around the history. What’s being built in the Florida Everglades, for example — what they’re calling 'Alligator Alcatraz' — is not just another immigration facility. It’s a political prison engineered not merely to detain, but to humiliate, dehumanize, and broadcast terror. It’s America’s first open-air symbol that our democracy is not just dying: it is being dissected publicly, cruelly, and with calculation."

When Louise and I lived in Germany in 1986/87, we visited Dachau with our family. The crematoriums shocked our children, but even more so because this was simply a “detention facility” and not one of Hitler’s death camps. The ovens were for those who had been worked to death or killed by chole...

Jaime O'Neill in Thursday's Chimp: "In other words, the fear and loathing that is now a big part of most every non-billi...
03/07/2025

Jaime O'Neill in Thursday's Chimp: "In other words, the fear and loathing that is now a big part of most every non-billionaire American’s life these days is inextricable from just tending to the business of personal decline and fall (both literally and figuratively). If that sounds whiny, so be it. There’s a point when whining about how bad things can get is just about the last thing people can do. For those who think people should just suck it up, I’ve got a few choice words for you."

A couple days ago, my wife Karen (a non-Karen sort of Karen) had an appointment with our primary care doctor. Even people much younger and more able-bodied than we are now must struggle to live their daily lives in our new America, a place becoming less user-friendly by the day. I suspect it can be....

Heather Digby Parton in Thursday's Chimp: "The most powerful man in the world and the richest man in the world squared o...
03/07/2025

Heather Digby Parton in Thursday's Chimp: "The most powerful man in the world and the richest man in the world squared off again this week as the One Big Boondoggle finally made its way through the Senate, where Vice President J.D. Vance cast the tie-breaking vote. After Elon Musk wrote a number of provocative posts about it on X, Donald Trump finally weighed in on Truth Social, threatening to destroy Musk’s businesses and later telling the press that his former bestie 'shouldn’t be playing that game' with him. And then he went even further."

The most powerful man in the world and the richest man in the world squared off again this week as the One Big Boondoggle finally made its way through the Senate, where Vice President J.D. Vance cast the tie-breaking vote. After Elon Musk wrote a number of provocative posts about it on X, Donald Tru...

Ailia Zehra in Thursday's Chimp: "NOTUS reported that Trump appeared unclear about the bill’s actual impact during a Whi...
03/07/2025

Ailia Zehra in Thursday's Chimp: "NOTUS reported that Trump appeared unclear about the bill’s actual impact during a White House meeting on Wednesday with moderate Republicans and members of the Main Street Caucus. According to three individuals present, he asserted that Republicans should avoid changing three programs ahead of upcoming elections: 'Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.' 'But we’re touching Medicaid in this bill,' one member pushed back directly, per the report."

President Donald Trump appeared to misjudge the effects of his “Big, Beautiful Bill” on Medicaid on Wednesday, even as the legislation advances.

Robert Reich in Thursday's Chimp: "Let’s be clear: DEI, antisemitism, and transgender athletics are not the real reasons...
03/07/2025

Robert Reich in Thursday's Chimp: "Let’s be clear: DEI, antisemitism, and transgender athletics are not the real reasons for these attacks on higher education. They’re excuses to give the Trump regime power over America’s colleges and universities. Why do Trump and his lackeys want this power? They’re following Hungarian President Viktor Orban’s playbook for creating an 'illiberal democracy' — an authoritarian state masquerading as a democracy."

Under pressure from the Trump administration, the University of Virginia’s president of nearly seven years, James Ryan, stepped down Friday, declaring that while he was committed to the university and inclined to fight, he could not in good conscience push back just to save his job.

Sonali Kolhatkar in Thursday's Chimp: "Critics might be soothed by the idea that AI can be put to good use — such as in ...
03/07/2025

Sonali Kolhatkar in Thursday's Chimp: "Critics might be soothed by the idea that AI can be put to good use — such as in data modeling to better predict our changing climate, an idea that’s generated a lot of enthusiasm. But using AI to tackle climate change is like bombing a country in the name of peace. AI is a driver of climate change, not a solution. According to the United Nations Environment Program, rapidly proliferating AI data centers 'use massive amounts of electricity, spurring the emission of planet-warming greenhouse gases,' as well as consuming enormous quantities of water and minerals."

AI companies like ChatGPT and Open AI are expanding rapidly, and many Americans rely on AI assistants such as Alexa and Siri in their day-to-day lives. For some college students, not relying on AI can feel like a disadvantage.

The Daily Chimp for Thursday, 3 July 2025: links to all of today's front page posts.
03/07/2025

The Daily Chimp for Thursday, 3 July 2025: links to all of today's front page posts.

Thom Hartmann | Alligator Alcatraz Isn’t Just a Prison. It’s a Mirror. And It’s Asking Us: Who Are We, Really? When Louise and I lived in Germany in 1986/87, we visited Dachau with our family. The crematoriums shocked our children, but even more so because this was simply a “detention facili...

Ailia Zehra in Wednesday's Chimp: "As Republican lawmakers near final approval of President Donald Trump’s 'Big, Beautif...
02/07/2025

Ailia Zehra in Wednesday's Chimp: "As Republican lawmakers near final approval of President Donald Trump’s 'Big, Beautiful Bill,' experts warn that his core supporters will feel its impact most acutely. An analysis published in The New York Times on Tuesday highlighted concerns that the sweeping fiscal package disproportionately benefits the wealthy while imposing sharp social safety net cuts on working-class and rural Republicans — the very demographic that forms Trump’s foundation."

As Republican lawmakers near final approval of President Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill,” experts warn that his core supporters will feel its impact most acutely.

02/07/2025

Thom Hartmann in Wednesday's Chimp: "But, while it’s true that Republicans have been naked toadies for rich people and big corporations for a century, there’s a larger reason why Trump and the GOP are working so hard to immiserate and impoverish working class Americans. That reason has to do with something called 'modernization theory.' Back in 1959, one of the inventors of modernization theory, Seymour Martin Lipset, famously wrote: 'The more well-to-do a nation, the greater the chances that it will sustain democracy.'"

A Pew poll published last week finds that 59% of Americans say the GOP’s “Big Beautiful Bill” that cuts taxes for billionaires and raises them for working-class people “would hurt lower-income people and 51% think it would hurt middle-income people.”

Heather Digby Parton in Wednesday's Chimp: "These tenets started out as anti-communist, free market ideology, but that’s...
02/07/2025

Heather Digby Parton in Wednesday's Chimp: "These tenets started out as anti-communist, free market ideology, but that’s obviously no longer operative on the American right. Today it’s pretty clear, as Atlantic writer Adam Serwer memorably wrote, 'the cruelty is the point.' Whether the GOP thinks the cruelty of their agenda will build our character or simply make us bow to their will, they do it because it hurts. And they expect us to 'get over it.'"

People think that Donald Trump is responsible for blowing up the democratic system of checks and balances, but he was actually a late comer to that game. It was establishment Republicans like former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., also known as the “gravedigger of democracy,” who ...

Walden Bello in Wednesday's Chimp: "The recent unilateral strikes by the United States on Iran’s nuclear development sit...
02/07/2025

Walden Bello in Wednesday's Chimp: "The recent unilateral strikes by the United States on Iran’s nuclear development sites underline the fact that multilateralism is dead, and has been so for some time. It is not only when it comes to the question of the deployment of military power that multilateralism is shown to be dead or dying. The key institutions of Western-led globalization are no longer functioning or are in sleep mode. This was underlined by the U.S. government’s decision to boycott both the Finance and Development Summit in Seville, Spain, this week, and the Bonn Climate Summit two weeks earlier."

The recent unilateral strikes by the United States on Iran’s nuclear development sites underline the fact that multilateralism is dead, and has been so for some time.

The Daily Chimp for Wednesday, 2 July 2025: links to all of today's front page posts.
02/07/2025

The Daily Chimp for Wednesday, 2 July 2025: links to all of today's front page posts.

Ailia Zehra | ‘Massive Blow’: Analyst Reveals How Trump’s Budget Bill Would Hurt His Base the Most As Republican lawmakers near final approval of President Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill,” experts warn that his core supporters will feel its impact most acutely. An analysis published...

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