02/05/24
Good morning! It’s Wednesday, February 5th.
Disaster Day.
This is supposed to be a day to learn about natural disasters and make sure you’re prepared for a disaster.
But like… we could skip it this year, if we wanted. We could just… not… do that, this year. Feels like we’re good on disasters. Not sure we need a whole day dedicated to thinking about them.
What makes this day different than any other day, ya know?
And now, the news.
Shooting in Sweden
-via BBC
We start with news out of Sweden, where at least ten people were killed at a school in central Sweden. The shooter is believed to be among those six.
This is the worst mass shooting in Sweden’s history.
Officials were called at around 12:30 PM local time after reports of a shooting on campus.
The school offers classes at a primary and supper secondary level, as well as for students over 20 years old, which includes classes for immigrants and vocational training. None of the injured are children.
Unlike in America, although they are struggling with en endemic gang problem in the country, shootings like this are extremely rare in Sweden.
In 2024, there were 363 shootings, with 53 fatalities.
Now granted, there are only 10.54 million people in the country. Here in America, there are 334.9 million people. That’s 3.14% of our population.
Now, there’s literally no measurement I could find on the number of shootings we had in American in 2024, but, excluding suicides, there were 16,576 deaths. 3.4% of that, to get a per capita number, would give us 563.59.
More than 10 times the deaths that Sweden had in that same year.
And look it’s not a competition! I’m just saying, this is a very sad situation and a very rare occurrence in the country.
A motive is not yet known.
Tariff-Off
-via AP News
As expected, after a 30-day pause on Canadian and Mexican tariffs was announced on Monday, the tariffs against Chinese imports did, in fact, begin on Tuesday. As also expected, China announce retaliatory tariffs on select American.
The retaliatory tariffs include a 15% tariff on coal and liquified gas products and a 10% tariff on crude oil, agricultural machinery, and large-engine cars. They will take effect next Monday.
In a statement, the State Council Tariff Commission said: “The U.S.’s unilateral tariff increase seriously violates the rules of the World Trade Organization. It is not only unhelpful in solving its own problems, but also damages normal economic and trade cooperation between China and the U.S.”
The country also announced an investigation into whether Google violated antitrust laws, but did not say it was connected to the tariffs. The timing, however…
It’s unclear how this was affect Google’s day-to-day, but Chinese smartphone makes have been complaining about Google’s business practices in relation to the Android operating system for a while.
Earthquakes in Greece
-via CNN
More than 6,000 of the 20,000 residents have fled the Greek island of Santorini in the last few days, as the island continues to experience hundreds of tremors with a magnitude of at least 3.0. As of this recording, the strongest has been 4.9. Greece’s Earthquake Planning and Protection Organization estimated there will be more earthquakes in the coming days, if not weeks.
And uh… that’s all I’ve got.
The island is basically shut down while people head to the mainland and I guess just… wait this out?
First Flights Head to Guantanamo
-via CNN
On Tuesday, the first military flight carrying migrants to Guantanamo Bay took off, headed to the military prison where tents have been put up to house the expected eventual 30,000 migrants.
At Guantanamo Bay.
30,000.
The most populus prison in the entire country is Angola prison in the Louisiana State Penitentiary. In January of this year, it had about 6,300 prisoners.
It is expected it will take 30 days to finish construction that will including a medical team. 30 days – but they’re still already sending migrants over there.
So the prison isn’t even built, and questions about the legality of this move haven’t yet been answered. For example… how long can people legally be there? And, chillingly, what are their rights while being detained?
All questions I’m sure that the Trump administration is right on top of working to get answered as soon as possible.
FBI v DOJ
-via Politico, Just Security (suit 1), Court Listener (suit 2), and NBC News
On Tuesday two separate suits were brought against the Department of Justice for the retaliatory purge of agents who worked on cases against January 6th felons and/or other Donald Trump crimes cases. Because there is crossover.
And the crossover is… Trump. Trump is the crossover. Others too. But none of those other ones are the president! But Trump is… he is the president who is a felon who did January 6th insurrection as well as other crimes. Neat!
Anyway, the first suit is class action complaint with nine plaintiffs, currently employed in the FBI claiming violations of the first amendment, die process, and right to privacy.
The second is by the FBI Agents Associations and alleges violations of privacy rights, the Administrative Procedure Act, First Amendment, and due process.
Both stem from the Department of Justice’s leadership move to assemble lists of who worked on the J6 and Trump cases for, presumably, retaliation. There is also a concern that the lists will be turned over to the public. A public that includes violent insurrectionists that were let out into the streets through a pardon by the president to whom some of them may now feel a blind and dangerous loyalty.
Could never be me, that’s for sure.
Neither the FBI nor Department of Justice had a comment.
However, the FBI did ultimately turn over the details of the thousands of employees who worked on the January 6th investigations. They considered not doing so, but felt the demand was legal and compliance was not optional. Details include employee ID numbers, job titles, and their role in the investigations, but not their names.
Officials dispatched by Elon’s fake government department have been spoked at the FBI headquarters.
Trump Makes Comments on Gaza
-via NY Times
When I do these episodes, I try and put the most important ones first but that’s literally impossible right now. Every single one of these stories is the big story.
On Tuesday President Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to talk about the next stage of the Biden administration negotiated cease-fire. But before that, he decided to tell the world that Palestinians should not return to Gaza and that, in fact, “we” should find the right piece of land and build them a nice area instead. At first I wasn’t sure if he meant the United States or the royal we, but later he indicated that he did, in fact, want the United States to take over. Literally: The United States “will take over the Gaza Strip” and “we’ll own it.”
It's unclear if this is just… an idea that popped into his noggin or what. Are we committing troops to the area? Are we invading?
Here’s the thing, and I know we’re way past this but low on the list of reasons that Trump was always a terrible choice for president (below being an insurrectionists, being a sexual assaulter, being a money crimers, and having bad where there should be good) is that he just says whatever pops into his head. And people like that. But he doesn’t understand that you can’t just say the United States “will take over the Gaza Strip.” Because it opens you up to a million follow-ups that clearly haven’t been thought about, not to mention the danger of a group like Hamas possibly trying to get in front of what they may view as an incoming military invasion.
It's dangerous! Not to mention a wildly insulting set of comments about a region that has endured generations of abuse and forced migration.
Of course, the Geneva Convention bars mass forced transfers of populations. So neither this idea, nor his idea of forcing Palestinians in Gaza to live in Egypt or Jordan, are legal. Nor feasible.
But I do have to wonder how this story sits with everyone who either couldn’t vote for Kamala because they felt like she wasn’t strong enough in her support of Gaza. We tried to warn you, Trump himself was pretty clear in where his allegiance would fall, but here we are… with Donald Trump casually suggesting millions of people should simply just leave Gaza because, in his eyes, there is nothing there for them.
There was. There can be again.
But not as long as Donald Trump is President.
And while we’re talking about international relations… I should also mention that Trump signed some sort of executive order, the details of which have not yet been announced, that restores what he called his “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran to force them into a series of concessions that include giving up its nuclear program. He did say that he was hesitant to sign the order, but he did so anyway.
Wow. So brave.
Trump also complained that: “They will never give me a Nobel Peace Prize. It’s too bad. I deserve it, but they will never give it to me.”
My dude you are quite literally driving the bus of democracy right off the bridge. You’ll be lucky if you can somehow get through your term without an International Criminal Court warrant. But yeah man, I’d say it’s time to give up your dreams of getting a Peace Prize. Especially when we get to this next story.
Marco Rubio + El Salvador
Late Monday night, we learned that Secretary of State Marco Rubio made a deal with the president of El Salvador to house violent US criminals as well as deportees of any nationality in their prisons.
“In an act of extraordinary friendship to our country … (El Salvador) has agreed to the most unprecedented and extraordinary migratory agreement anywhere in the world.”
That is the quote from Marco Rubio.
It is unclear whether this will go through, as UC Berkley law professor Leti Volpp noted, “The US is absolutely prohibited from deporting US citizens, whether they are incarcerated or not.”
Don’t worry, Rubio did acknowledge “we have a Constitution,” but then added “obviously the administration will have to make a decision.”
Yes, the decision will be… to break the Constitution or not. (No spoilers but wait until you get a load of the next story!)
El Salvadorian prisons are notoriously overcrowded and extremely violent. In their most… famous? Is that a word for this? Their most disreputable prison is the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, where each cell holds 65 to 70 prisoners, with no visits, programs to return people to society, or even allowances for prisoners to go outside and get fresh air. Human rights groups have cited cases of abuse and torture, and in a two and a half period, at least 261 people died in El Salvadorian prisons.
None of this is a secret.
Marco Rubio knew this when he had his meeting. He knew this when he made this deal. He knew this when he announced it to the world, acknowledging sure, we have a Constitution but like… also… we could break it and do torture.
Things are going great!!
Trump Threatens the Department of Education and UN
While the USAID offices stay shuttered and more officials have been put on administrative leave, Trump has moved on to his next target – the Department of Education. According to two sources that CNN spoke with, the Trump administration had begun drafting an executive order to eliminate the Department of Education.
The order would come in two parts to direct the secretary of Education to create a plan that diminishes the department through executive action, as well as push Congress to end the department.
Because this requires Congress.
All of this requires Congress!
Remember that old commercial where the older woman’s putting pictures on her wall and calling it facebook and the guy’s like “that’s not how this works! That’s not how any of this works!”
That’s how it feels to know about government right now.
This is not how this works!
The DoE is also being targeted by the Department of Government Efficiency… which is not a real department!
It is not a real department and it’s being run by an unconfirmed best buddy/most special government employee and he’s out here doing things that are close enough to a nazi salute to elicite conversations about whether it was a nazi salute and trying to close federal departments including aid to other countries and the department of education and isn’t that also close enough to a nazi salute to call it a nazi salute?
Not only is this a continuation of the Constitutional crisis we absolutely find ourselves in, but in mean… Trump’s list of places around the world that he wants to seize now extends to Gaza, Greenland, Canada, the Panama Canal. Of all the things we need, education is pretty high up there!
He also called for a review of US funding in the United Nations and withdrew us from the UN’s Human Rights Council, and stopped funding UNRWA, which provides humanitarian aid to people in Gaza.
What are we doing???
This is a constitutional crisis. It’s here. This is the moment.
And I get that it’s scary and exhausting and also feels like… but is this really happening?
The answer to all of that is… yes. Yes, it’s scary. Yes it’s exhausting. Yes, it’s happening.
But yet, you are here. We are here. And that’s not nothing.
(202) 224-3121
Call your representative. Start getting very comfortable with who represents you. We have a voice in this… now is the time to use it.
And that’s it. That’s the news.
I think.
No no, of course it’s not! And isn’t that… something.
Today is a national day of protest. What are we protesting? Everything! You made it this far in the episode… we’re protesting all of it. It’s an anti-Trump protest.
Hey, you know what? We talk about this all the time, it’s my favorite subject, but here’s the truth… I’m proud of you.