Are Most Americans Even Paying Attention?

It was another week of unfettered moral decay in the United States. Donald Trump held a Klan rally thinly disguised as a cabinet meeting where he railed against Somali immigrants. Pete Hegseth defended the violent and illegal boat strikes that left at least 83 civilians dead. Marco Rubio has put forward a “peace plan” for Ukraine that means giving Vladimir Putin everything he has ever wanted. And what's the saddest thing? Most people probably don't even know that any of this happened.

One of the most alarming stories I've seen this disgusting week was a new Pew study showing that news consumption on the decline among all political parties and age groups. The report, aimed at adults under 30, found that only 15 percent of people in that age group follow the news “all or most of the time.” When they do this, it should come as no surprise: they consider what they see on social media to be “news.”

I can hardly blame them. The news is depressing. Given the entrenched cult of Trump, it doesn't seem like there's anything that can be done immediately to stop it. The mainstream media is more interested in appeasing those in power than in holding them accountable. And the “opposition party” is helpless (more on that later). I got sick on Thanksgiving Day, and during those continuous days I spent lying in bed praying for death, did I watch “the news”? No, I didn't do that. I watched movies about space(Apollo 13 best film ever made that inaccurately portrays black people) and allowed himself to become immersed in Coaching drama with Lane Kiffin. I was not healthy enough, either physically or mentally, to receive information about America for a week.

This country is a horror series and many people don't like to watch horror movies. I can't blame them for looking away. Unfortunately, the dirt will not clear itself.

Hakeem Jeffries is currently the worst argument for why Hakeem Jeffries should be Speaker of the House. His performance this week was terrible, bordering on complicity.

First, this person gave Trump credit for “border security” He then praised Trump for pardon of corrupt Democratic Representative Henry Cuellarwho was charged with accepting a bribe of US$600,000. He concluded the matter by telling the press that they should don't wait for the democrats initiate impeachment proceedings against War Crimes Minister Pete Hegseth.

The country demands leadership in the fight against the cruel, racist and corrupt Trump administration. The country desperately needs leaders who will fight Trump on all grounds: political, economic, legal and political. moral. And Jeffries spent the week making hits for the press. For that person. Literal silence would have been better than what Jeffries did this week.

The problem with Jeffries is that he wants to be the leader of the Democratic Party, which is not the same as being the leader of the Democratic Party. opposition party. It's the difference between waiting your turn behind the wheel and trying to break a tire. Jeffries is neither a revolutionary nor a reformer. He is not an activist or a crusader. He's just a careerist. He carefully and competently positions himself as so close gets promoted and he's desperate not to screw it up.

Jeffries exposes the problem with the “leadership” of the entire Democratic Party: their position in the face of fascism is not one of insurgency or resistance, but of parliamentary games and political stunts. Sometimes they speak as if they know Trump and MAGA are a totalitarian threat to democratic self-government, but they don't. act like. Instead, they act as if Trump is an ordinary American president and can be defeated by ordinary political means. Democrats want people to take to the streets and shout “No to kings,” but Jeffries wouldn't dare throw Trump's tea in the water and would support prosecution of anyone who did.

Throughout history, people who have led anti-authoritarian movements have been people willing to be jailed for doing so. These are people who are ready to be killed by the very regime they oppose. Hakeem Jeffries is not one of those people. He's just a moderate guy in the Politburo trying to distinguish himself from the hardliners and hoping he'll have a chance when the old man dies.

This might work. Jeffries may well get the promotion he seeks. I will spend much of the next year arguing that Democrats should take back the House of Representatives and, therefore, that Jeffries there must be as the next Speaker of the House of Representatives to rein in the fascist President a little. But Democrats like Jeffries will never defeat Trump because Democrats like Jeffries are unwilling to challenge the system that produced him. They are simply waiting for their turn to lead this system.

What did I write

Pete Hegseth is a killer. I wrote about all the laws that make it so. He should be impeached no matter what Hakeem Jeffries thinks.

In news unrelated to the current chaos

So Lane Kiffin was the head football coach of the Ole Miss Rebels (I can't believe they are allowed to keep that name). He left the school last week to become the head coach of Ole Miss' rival LSU Tigers, even though Ole Miss is scheduled to compete in the College Football Playoff and LSU is not. Understandably, this has angered Ole Miss fans, and many in the college football community are decrying Kiffin's betrayal of the university, even though from a purely football standpoint, the LSU job is clearly better.

Kiffin received a seven-year, $91 million contract from LSU, a public university that brings in about $13 million a year, making him the second-highest paid coach in the country. This immediately makes him the highest paid government official in the state of Louisiana (although it is not uncommon for a state university football coach to be the highest paid government official in the state).

It's interesting that this is happening in Louisiana because the only reason the LSU job was open is because the school recently fired its last highly paid coach, Brian Kelly. The state of Louisiana still owes him $54 million.

After Kelly's firing, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry threw a tantrum. He vowed that LSU's athletic director would not be allowed to offer such an expensive contract again and that future contracts would not be guaranteed so as not to put Louisiana taxpayers on the hook for a football coach they had already fired. Landry is a Republican, and while you know I don't like to say nice things about Republicans, Landry was absolutely right on this issue. The salaries of college football coaches (and basketball coaches) are completely out of step with the salaries of the public universities where they work. It would be one thing if all the billions of dollars generated by college sports were returned to the states, but that is not the case. LSU does not fund levees in New Orleans.

After Kiffin's hiring, it was revealed that Landry's directive was completely ignored by LSU. The company not only hired a $91 million trainer; this gave him a fully guaranteed contract and that contract was awarded that same agent who represented the former coach.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower once warned that even the president is relatively powerless in the face of the military-industrial complex. I think Jeff Landry might now be talking about the football-industrial complex. Even the state governor can't seem to stop the madness when the football team needs a new celebrity head coach.

I have said several times: the presidential candidate who will fight to eliminate corruption and bribery in college sports, ensure fair competition, and distribute sports money more fairly will win a landslide victory. Unfortunately, I am still waiting for a presidential candidate who will strive to get rid of corruption and graft in the White House.

***

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Elie Mistal



Elie Mistal Nationjustice correspondent and columnist. He is also the Alfred Knobler Fellow at the Type Media Center. He is the author of two books: New York Times best-seller Let Me Argue: A Black Boy's Guide to the Constitution And Bad Law: Ten Popular Laws That Are Destroying Americaboth published by The New Press. You can subscribe to him Nation Eli v. United States fact sheet here.

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