Category Archives: Viva!

Amazon deforestation prompts Germany to suspend Brazil forest projects

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Germany plans to stop supporting forest and biodiversity projects in Brazil, the German environment minister told Tagesspiegel. Deforestation in Brazil has surged since Jair Bolsonaro became president, she said.

Brexit enforcer Cummings’ farm took €235,000 in EU handouts

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Boris Johnson aide, a strident critic of Brussels, is accused of hypocrisy over payments

Boris Johnson’s controversial enforcer, Dominic Cummings, an architect of Brexit and a fierce critic of Brussels, is co-owner of a farm that has received €250,000 (£235,000) in EU farming subsidies, the Observer can reveal.

The revelation is a potential embarrassment for the mastermind behind Johnson’s push to leave the EU by 31 October. Since being appointed as Johnson’s chief adviser, Cummings has presented the battle to leave the EU as one between the people and the politicians. He positions himself as an outsider who wants to demolish elites, end the “absurd subsidies” paid out by the EU and liberate the UK from its arcane rules and regulations.

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Campus PC is truly out of control

Today in the principled conservative commitment to free speech, Trump has gotten a movie he (apparently erroneously) perceived as anti-gun pulled from release:

If the reverse had occured there would not be enough pixels or ink on planet earth to finish producing all the warnings of imminent totalitarianism from aging newspaper columnists and cable news hosts

— Adam Serwer🍝 (@AdamSerwer) August 10, 2019

Projection is a hell of a etc.

Meanwhile, the Sarah Palin First Amendment reaction to Joaquin Castro observing that maxed-out Trump donors were maxed-out Trump donors based on publicly available data continues to get more ridiculous:

Seven Republican members of the House Freedom Caucus are calling on the House Ethics Committee to investigate Texas Democrat Joaquin Castro for publicly posting on Twitter the names and workplaces of constituents who donated to President Donald Trump.

“Posting a target list of private citizens simply for supporting his political opponent is antithetical to our principles and serves to suppress the free speech and free association rights of Americans,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter sent to the Ethics panel Friday.

This idea that rich people should not only have the unfettered right to influence political outcomes but should be able to do so in serene anonymity is deeply stupid, and the fact that it’s getting a respectful hearing from some prominent journalists is even more so.

“Free speech requires giving rich people massive, obviously corrupting influence over the political system” has always been a wild take but enhancing it with “and nobody should name or criticize them over it” has truly blown my mind.

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) August 10, 2019

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