News Day, written by Mary Turck, analyzes, summarizes, links to, and comments on reports from news media around the world, with particular attention to immigration, education, and journalism. Fragments, also written by Mary Turck, has fiction, poetry and some creative non-fiction.
Mary Turck edited TC Daily Planet, www.tcdailyplanet.net, from 2007-2014, and edited the award-winning Connection to the Americas and AMERICAS.ORG, in its pre-2008 version. She is also a recovering attorney and the author of many books for young people (and a few for adults), mostly focusing on historical and social issues.
Crime rates have been falling in the United States since the 1990s. Violent crime rates went back up in 2020, but fell again after 2021. Violent crime is NOT increasing. It is near a 50-year low.
Every reputable source—FBI, law enforcement across the country, serious researchers—reports falling rates of violent crime, including homicide. The only reports of increasing crime rates come from politicians. But people listen to politicians more than they listen to researchers, and most U.S. adults think that crime is constantly increasing.
Voter fraud? The real fraud is in intimidating, harassing, and denying citizens the right to vote. And Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton is leading the pack.
Today, the U.S. stock market is at an all-time high, job growth is solid, unemployment remains at consistently low levels, inflation has been battled back down to a normal level, and wages are increasing at a rate higher than inflation. The U.S. economy is leading the world, and stabilizing the global economy. In short: the economy under Bidenomics is healthy and growing.
In 2020, Trump said that a Biden victory would crash the economy and “finish” America. He lied. Trump continues to predict doom and disaster and to predict a great depression if Vice President Kamala Harris is elected president. He’s still lying.
One of my sisters told me she doesn’t want to hear any more about the election. She says it’s too hard to figure out who is telling the truth. She thinks this year’s election and these politicians are no different than in any other year.
A lot of people feel that way. They are wrong. This election really is different.
Please listen. This is important. Our cousins include people who are Black, people who are immigrants, people who are Asian. I have friends who are gay and trans. My husband and children are Jewish. All of them are targets of the right-wing haters led by Donald Trump. If he wins, all of them are in danger. If he wins, our entire country is in danger.
Indiana and Florida now insist on the government’s right to tell professors in state universities what they can and cannot say. New laws restrict academic freedom in both states. Indiana’s attorney general, Republican Todd Rokita, argues that “The curriculum used in state universities and instruction offered by state employees” is “state speech,” and professors “have no right to control how the State speaks.” A right-wing attorney hired by Florida to defend its 2022 Stop Woke Act in court took the argument to its logical conclusion: professors can be forbidden from criticizing the government. Inside Higher Ed reported:
I love libraries. As a child, I looked forward to summer trips to the library, bringing home as many books as I was allowed, reading them all, and then waiting impatiently for the next week’s trip to town for more. Reading opened the world to me.
Now Idaho is making libraries off-limits to kids. A new censorship law threatens to fine individual librarians if minors are “exposed” to books that are deemed objectionable. That’s just about the opposite of common sense. Still, it’s hard to argue with individual librarians who fear being charged and fined if someone under 18 manages to get their hands on a book that the self-styled guardians of public morals condemn.
On Fox News today, House Speaker Mike Johnson once again shared his marvelous “intuition.” You may remember that he insisted a few weeks ago that people are voting illegally, based not on any evidence, but on his intuition. Today he told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo that, “we believe we have terrorist cells set up around the country.” When Bartiromo asked him to estimate the number of cells, he once again cited intuition over evidence: “I don’t know how it’d be conjecture on my part but intuitively we know that this is a serious problem.”
Sometimes the news seems too awful to read, which might mean missing a couple of positives in the past week’s news. Among those positives? The IRS going after millionaire tax cheats, slowing inflation, continuing job growth and increasing wages.
NOTE: I will update this post from time to time, with new information usually added at the end of the post.
The right-wing crazy tree has many branches: apostles, prophets, warriors, bullies, criminals, and more. Some claim they are following directives from God, while others profess overtly racist ideas, sport Nazi symbols, or promote a second civil war. Some make public statements and claims, while others operate undercover and hide their (often criminal) activities.
(White) Christian Nationalism
Christian nationalists make up many branches of the right-wing crazy tree. They generally reject separation of church and state. They insist that the United States was founded as a Christian nation (it was not), and that Christianity should determine U.S. laws and direct the U.S. government. That’s only the beginning: one popular variant insists that their version of Christianity must also dominate all of the “Seven Mountains” of religion, family, government, education, business, media, and arts & entertainment.
They make common cause with book banning groups such as Moms for Liberty, as well as with politicians who brandish Bibles and insist on controlling what kind of history and science are taught in public schools.
Last week, the Supreme Court made bribery legal. They reclassified a $13,000 bribe as a “gratuity.” Because the payment to a corrupt mayor was made two weeks after he awarded a $1.1 million city garbage truck contract, SCOTUS said it was a legal “gratuity.” If the payment had been made before the contract was awarded, it would clearly have been a bribe.
Five years after the violent attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters, the attacks on democracy and on elected officials continue. Yesterday, two politicians currently under attack by the Trump administration spoke out with anger and eloquence.
The New York Times today has plenty of coverage of who, how, when, and where the United States illegally attacked Venezuela and abducted its president and first lady. But that’s far from the whole story. A few easily overlooked but essential facts: For informed insights on the consequences of Trump’s attack on Venezuela, see:
50 USC Ch. 33: WAR POWERS RESOLUTION §1541. Purpose and policy (a) Congressional declaration It is the purpose of this chapter to fulfill the intent of the framers of the Constitution of the United States and insure that the collective judgment of both the Congress and the President will apply to the introduction of United […]
Over at Law Dork, Chris Geidner has a great column on the four key lessons we can and must take from 2025. The first: pushing back is essential — and it works. I won’t try to summarize his column, but encourage you to go and read it and, if you can, support the good work […]
Jamal Khashoggi was a U.S. permanent legal resident and a columnist for the Washington Post in 2018 when Saudi operatives lured him to the Saudi consulate in Turkey, and then abducted, tortured, and murdered him. Then they cut up his body with a bone saw. U.S. intelligence agencies investigated and determined that his assassination was ordered by […]
Mary Turck is a writer, editor, and blogger. She is also the former editor of theTC Daily Planet and of the award-winning Connection to the Americas and AMERICAS.ORG and a recovering attorney.
Mary Turck