Reading archive 2025-02-11

What the Democrats’ Musk Whisperer Thinks Now: “We need to make sure that Elon Musk has an allegiance to the Constitution,” Representative Ro Khanna says.

California’s smart and vocal farmers are silent about Trump as he wasted their water | Opinion

‘We’ll all have to go vegan’: Wisconsin dairy farmers fret over immigration crackdown: Business groups warn agriculture sector will collapse without foreign labour

Trumper Who Could Lose Farm Says He Had No 'Time To Research' Before Voting

‘Devastating to my state’: Why Trump’s newest tariff threats promise catastrophe for Kentucky bourbon: Canada is the No. 2 export market for U.S. distillers, after the European Union.

Trump Enrages Christian MAGA By Naming ‘Heretic’ Pastor to White House

Proposal To Stop Minting Pennies Hits Home In Greene County - "Americans for Common Cents, a pro-penny group with Artazn among its backers, stated in a January news release that eliminating the penny will not save the government money. 

"'In fact, such a move would have a significant negative impact on the U.S. Mint’s cost structure. Many overhead expenses at the Mint would remain and would need to be absorbed by other coins, increasing their per-unit costs. Additionally, without the penny, the demand for nickels would rise to fill the gap in small-value transactions,' the news release notes. 

"'Since each nickel costs nearly 14 cents to produce, this shift would drive up overall production expenses for the government. Rather than saving money, eliminating the penny would increase and redistribute financial burdens,' the news release states."

U.S. Travel Association Warns of Economic Tourism Disaster After Thousands of Canadian Tourists Cancel Trips in Protest

Trump’s Gaza proposal frustrates his new Arab American supporters: Whether Trump can keep these new supporters could have implications for key statewide races, but also on the fragile coalition the GOP assembled to gain ground.

Trump administration plans for federal contracts stir worries across Kentucky - "Payments for indirect costs cover items that make basic research possible, Capilouto said, such as building and outfitting labs; research equipment; ventilation, heat and lighting; technology, and graduate students who work in labs."

The Rise of the Selfish Plutocrats: Instead of pursuing philanthropy, many now seek to evade social responsibility. - "In 2021, The Wall Street Journal broke the news that [da Vinci's Salvator Mundi] priceless painting had been kept on private display aboard bin Salman's superyacht, Serene, a 439-foot-long, half-billion-dollar boat that had recently run aground in a navigational accident. A fragile, irreplaceable object of significance to the shared cultural history of all humanity was being kept in a hot, humid environment for the private enjoyment of one royal billionaire and his ultrarich guests. (In another room, Serene was also equipped with state-of-the-art snow machines that could produce four-inch-deep flurries on demand.)"

The Government’s Computing Experts Say They Are Terrified: Four IT professionals lay out just how destructive Elon Musk’s incursion into the U.S. government could be. - "DOGE is many things a dismantling of the federal government, a political project to flex power and punish perceived enemies but it is also the logical end point of a strain of thought that's become popular in Silicon Valley during the boom times of Big Tech and easy money: that building software and writing code aren't just dominant skills for the 21st century, but proof of competence in any realm. In a post on X this week, John Shedletsky, a developer and an early employee at the popular gaming platform Roblox, summed up the philosophy nicely: 'Silicon Valley built the modern world. Why shouldn't we run it?'"

‘A Very Christian Concept’: The faith’s mandate is more arduous than J. D. Vance’s account seems to allow.

Tech layoffs reveal the unintended consequences of mass job cuts: After mass layoffs, tech workers lost trust in their employers. Federal employees may soon face the same fate.

D.C. managed to avoid return-to-office chaos over Navy Yard parking shortage: Local and military officials had been sounding the alarm about a potential parking shortage.

An ICE raid gutted a town in Trump’s first term. Now, fear of a repeat.: Tiny O’Neill, Nebraska, is still recovering from the 2018 raid. It forced some businesses to close and left many residents, especially immigrants, reeling.

In the Trump era, renewable energy isn’t green — it’s ‘dominant’: Clean-energy executives are tailoring their pitches for the president and his political allies. - "One trend the groups are planning to emphasize is that congressional districts that favored Trump in the 2020 election have seen three times as much investment as a result of clean-energy tax credits, according to a Washington Post analysis. In addition, over half of all new clean-energy jobs are in Republican-led districts, according to a separate analysis by Climate Power, an environmental advocacy group.

...

"Spokespeople for [Rep. Marjorie Taylor] Greene and 10 other Republican lawmakers with the most new clean-energy jobs in their districts did not respond to requests for comment."

19-year-old Musk surrogate takes on roles at State Department and DHS: The move illustrates that Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service aides are being asked to fulfill multiple posts at once.

The Chilling Consequences of Going Along With Trump

Trump’s NIH challenges the model that underlies U.S. scientific dominance: The 80-year-old partnership between the federal government and research institutions has made the U.S. the leader in scientific innovation. But now a proposed funding cut threatens the arrangement. - "'At a time of rapid strides in quantum computing, artificial intelligence, brain science, biological imaging, and regenerative biology, and when other nations are expanding their investment in science, America should not drop knowingly and willingly from her lead position on the endless frontier,' Harvard President Alan M. Garber said in a letter to the university community."

The Islamic State has regrouped in Somalia — and has global ambitions: The Post ventured to the front lines of an offensive against the Islamic State in northern Somalia, where foreign fighters are flowing in and cash is flowing out.