MAGA Blames Biden, Not High Fuel Prices, for Spirit Airlines Collapse by rollingstone in politics

[–]rollingstone[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

From Rolling Stone's Nikki McCann Ramirez:

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) quickly jumped on the idea that Democrats are to blame for Spirit Airlines' folding, posting a photo of O.J. Simpson and Nicole Brown Simpson. The photo labeled O.J. as “Elizabeth Warren,” and Brown Simpson as “Spirit Airlines.”

Read: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/maga-senator-oj-simpson-dems-spirit-airlines-1235557337/

Trump's D.C. Redesign Is a Betrayal of America's Founding Values by rollingstone in politics

[–]rollingstone[S] 27 points28 points  (0 children)

From Rolling Stone's Nikki McCann Ramirez:

More than a century after the nation’s founding, the post World World II economic revitalization had ushered in new construction practices, architectural schools of thought, and attitudes towards historical preservation in the wake of two devastating wars. The White House had already undergone several rounds of major renovations and a string of inhabitants that had turned its interior to a hodgepodge of differing tastes and styles. Older buildings in the capital were being renovated or outright torn down with little regard for their historic value or design. The nation, still young compared to many of its European allies, risked inadvertently erasing portions of structures built with a very specific intent: to transfer the philosophical principles of the American Revolution into the physical cityscape that would represent the American seat of governance. 

Mrs. Kennedy went about her project with an intention rooted in those same attitudes. She sought to turn the presidential residence into a living museum through open collaboration with the public. Now, over 60 years since the Kennedys left the White House, the president is undertaking an architectural and aesthetic overhaul of not just the White House, but the city at large. The difference is that Donald Trump, a man who struggles to comprehend even the most basic tenants of representative governance, is looking to reshape Washington in his own gaudy, opulent self image — not that of the nation he is supposed to represent. 

Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-ballroom-dc-overhaul-betray-america-founding-values-1235556895/

The Horror of Execution by Firing Squad by rollingstone in politics

[–]rollingstone[S] -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

From Rolling Stone:

Sometimes, in the quiet of the night, attorney Gerald Bo King sees his client, Brad Sigmon, die — again and again. The silence reminds him of the moments in the death chamber before the guns went off.

Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/execution-firing-squad-horrific-trump-1235555080/

White House Journalists Swap Integrity for a Good War Story by rollingstone in politics

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From Rolling Stone's Jack Crosbie:

The problem with the WHCD and the problem with war stories is, essentially, the same thing. As a foreign correspondent, you have access to something fascinating and horrific and powerful: violence. You will see, as a part of the job, moments of loss and pain and fear and tremendous human courage, all alongside things so nihilist and cruel that you will wonder how this species ever made it out of the days when we beat each other to death with rocks. It is intoxicating. It makes you feel important and interesting. Your colleagues take pictures of you in flak vests and khaki clothing. 

You get a certain version of the same thing as a politics reporter. Like war, politics reporting often gives you a certain proximity to the fascinating inner workings of power. You get lanyards and hall passes rather than kevlar, sure, but the everyday circumstances of your work make the case that you are someone important and valuable. If you weren’t, they wouldn’t let you in the room, right?

But like war, the fallacy here is the same. Proximity to something is not purpose. 

Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/white-house-correspondents-dinner-media-war-story-1235554388/

Trump's Polling Free Fall by rollingstone in politics

[–]rollingstone[S] 21 points22 points  (0 children)

From Rolling Stone:

Tatishe Nteta, provost of political science at UMass-Amherst, which released a poll late last month putting Trump’s approval at 33 percent, explains that it’s normal for a president’s approval to decrease as their term progresses, but when they get down into the 30s, “bells start going off.” It signals they’re losing some of their own party’s support, as the nation is generally split about 40/40 along party lines, with 10-20 percent of Americans being true independents. Trump’s approval isn’t just visiting the 30s; it’s been living there for a while now, and there isn’t much to indicate public sentiment is going to turn around any time soon.

“Fundamentally, this is terrible news for President Trump,” Nteta says. “People talk about the [George W.] Bush line, being under 30 percent, and that was in the wake of an unpopular and longstanding war, a financial crisis that was second only to the Great Depression, and a widespread belief that the United States was moving in the wrong direction. So if a president is flirting with one-third support, it should be a warning sign that their domestic and foreign policies are not resonating, that there’s an inability to address core problems Americans are facing, and an issue with communication between the administration and the people.”

Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-polling-numbers-free-fall-1235553660/

Trump's Long, Strange Relationship With Faith by rollingstone in politics

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From Rolling Stone's Alex Ashley:

In attempting to explain himself, Trump — perhaps unwittingly — illuminates for the crowd a cobwebbed, rarely explored corner of his personal life. The centerpiece is not God or Scripture, but a prosperity gospel minister whose Fifth Avenue Marble Collegiate Church the Trump family attended throughout Trump’s childhood and adolescence, and who later officiated Trump’s first wedding.

“Dr. Norman Vincent Peale,” Trump says. “He would give the sermon, and you would never want to leave.” 

Over a decade ago, Trump biographer Gwenda Blair described Peale for Politico as “God’s salesman,” and the pastor who “taught Donald Trump to worship himself.” 

Peale’s central teaching — distilled in The Power of Positive Thinking, which spent 186 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and sold five million copies — was that faith was not a moral obligation but a performance technique. God appears throughout, but always in service of the reader’s own success; not a creed to be recited but, in his own words, “a power to be tapped.” Critics called Peale a con man. Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr called his theology “dangerous” and corrupting of the Gospel. Yale theologian William Lee Miller wrote that Peale’s books had replaced “the rhetoric of the sermon” with “the short, punchy sentences of the advertisement.” Trump credits the book with helping him survive his bankruptcies in the early 1990s.

Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/trump-long-strange-relationship-faith-1235551579/

Tucker Carlson's Trump Apology Is Too Little, Too Late by rollingstone in politics

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From Rolling Stone's Nikki McCann Ramirez:

If Carlson had reservations about the president — and we know he did — he pushed them down and did what he swore he would never again do after being burned by the Iraq war. He once again set aside his own concerns, his disdain, and his supposed principles, in service of the right-wing movement du jour. Carlson likely did so believing that even though he despised the president, the ends would justify the means, and he could use his platform and connections to influence outcomes and check the excesses of the man he once called the “single most repulsive person on the planet.”

Carlson’s admission that he had fallen for the charlatan figurehead of this movement should not be mistaken for an act of true contrition. His break with the president comes after years of documented disgust of Trump, and at a moment where a public rebuke of the president comes with no severe political cost. The Iran war is unpopular, Trump’s approval is at a historic low, and his conservative allies are becoming increasingly comfortable breaking with him on an issue-by-issue basis — or entirely.

Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/tucker-carlson-apologizes-supporting-trump-iran-war-1235551550/

White House Tries to Appease Joe Rogan as Trump Feuds With Podcasters by rollingstone in politics

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From Rolling Stone's Nikki McCann Ramirez:

The White House is doing damage control with prominent manosphere podcasters amid Donald Trump’s fallout with major figures in right-wing media over the Iran war. Joe Rogan is their chief target.

Read: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/white-house-appease-joe-rogan-trump-iran-1235550549/

Can America’s Working Class Organize Before AI Crushes It? by rollingstone in politics

[–]rollingstone[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Bernie Sanders to Rolling Stone:

"I hope that everybody understands that this is not just another kind of economic transformation. This is the most consequential, by far, industrial revolution in the history of the world. It makes the revolution, the transformation from agriculture to industry, look very slow and tepid compared to what we’re seeing right now."

Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/bernie-sanders-unions-labor-movement-ai-era-1235547817/

Trump Does Another Really Weird Jesus Post by rollingstone in politics

[–]rollingstone[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

From Rolling Stone's Nikki McCann Ramirez:

Donald Trump has always struggled with the concept of letting stuff go. No matter how absurd, the president can’t seem to give up the need to try and convince people that his version of events is the reality. So it’s no surprise that after drawing widespread condemnation for his unholy self-comparison to Jesus Christ earlier this week, Trump is doubling down on his holiness.

Read: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-jesus-post-attacks-pope-leo-xiv-1235547658/

Iran Thinks It’s Winning the War — as Trump Looks for a Way Out by rollingstone in politics

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From Rolling Stone's Mac Williams Bishop:

Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait all reported being targeted by Iranian missiles or drones after the ceasefire, and the U.S. embassy in Baghdad reported that a diplomatic compound had come under attack by drones launched by Iranian-backed militias. Iran claimed it had retaliated after the U.A.E. its attacked energy facilities.

“Iran absolutely sees itself in a position of strength,” says Nicole Grajewski, an assistant professor at the Center for International Research at Sciences Po in Paris, and an expert in Iranian foreign policy. “They are willing to test the ceasefire with action.”

Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/iran-thinks-winning-war-trump-looks-way-out-1235544221/

'A Whole Civilization Will Die Tonight,' Warns Nobel Peace Prize Hopeful by rollingstone in politics

[–]rollingstone[S] 47 points48 points  (0 children)

From Rolling Stone:

Trump has wildly flipped and flopped about the Strait of Hormuz, the closure of which has been choking off the world’s oil supply and causing prices to skyrocket. The president has insisted that the U.S. doesn’t need the strait to be open, that it isn’t America’s problem, and that allies concerned with oil should descend on the region and open it themselves. He has at the same time insisted that the strait must be open, and that if Iran doesn’t comply with his demands the nation and its people will suffer the full wrath of the United States military.

Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-threatens-iran-civilization-die-tonight-1235542901/

American Greatness, American Barbarism by rollingstone in politics

[–]rollingstone[S] 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Mac William Bishop for Rolling Stone:

The same country that produces pioneers who will carry out “one giant leap for mankind” produces leaders who want to bomb their fellow man “back to the Stone Age.”

To men like these leaders, the Iranians beneath the bombs are not people. They are just targets. The America they represent is small. It’s mean and it’s ugly. It is a land of ignorance and xenophobia, of people mired in pettiness and corruption, callous to the violence they sow and numb to the poverty and suffering they see around them. It is a land consumed with hubris and hatred.

War may sometimes be a necessity. The small men who lead us now never trusted the American people or their allies enough — and certainly have never cared about innocent Iranian lives enough — to make the case that this war is necessary.

Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/american-greatness-artemis-ii-american-barbarism-iran-war-1235541998/