Hope is not a bird

"Hope Is Not a Bird, Emily, It's a Sewer Rat" by Caitlin Seida

Hope is not the thing with feathers That comes home to roost When you need it most.

Hope is an ugly thing With teeth and claws and Patchy fur that’s seen some shit.

It’s what thrives in the discards And survives in the ugliest parts of our world, Able to find a way to go on When nothing else can even find a way in.

It’s the gritty, nasty little carrier of such diseases as optimism, persistence, Perseverance and joy, Transmissible as it drags its tail across your path and bites you in the ass.

Hope is not some delicate, beautiful bird, Emily. It’s a lowly little sewer rat That snorts pesticides like they were Lines of coke and still Shows up on time to work the next day Looking no worse for 

Minister used top law firm to smear journalist

Labour Together was ‘desperate to make sure people stopped talking about the money’

A  Cabinet Office minister used a law firm to smear a journalist who was looking into pro-Starmer group Labour Together, The Telegraph can disclose.

Josh Simons instructed Mishcon de Reya to warn Telegraph journalists that it had “serious doubts about [the] motivation” of Paul Holden, who was writing a book about the Starmerite think tank, and “his credibility should be treated with extreme caution”.

At the time, Mr Simons was head of Labour Together, a think tank that helped propel Sir Keir Starmer to power. He is now a minister in the Cabinet Office.

Sir Keir is already facing calls to explain what he knew about Labour Together’s activities after it emerged that it had paid a public affairs firm to look into the sourcing of a Sunday Times story about the think tank, which resulted in its journalists being falsely described as Kremlin stooges.

In February 2024, Mr Holden, who has spent decades investigating corruption, was working with The Telegraph on a story about £730,000 of donations that Morgan McSweeney, the former director of Labour Together, had failed to declare to the Electoral Commission.

Journalist Don Lemon pleads not guilty in Minn. church-protest case Free Speech Center

 

The $31 million question: Are Trump’s settlements actually changing journalism? The Washington Times

Great opinion piece on how the super-rich avoid prosecution and accountability for crimes they committed. (Hint: "donating" to Trump's inaugural committee pays off)

Battling corruption sounds so old-fashioned and fusty, right? But it’s THE battle we have to win to keep our democracy:

One Man Stole $660 Million. He’ll Never Pay It Back.

 Andrew Wiederhorn lived large. His Oregon estate, on a bluff overlooking downtown Portland, had 10 bedrooms, a 2,000-square-foot pool and an indoor basketball court. Even after he lost the property, he flew on private jets, took luxury vacations and in less than four years spent nearly $700,000 on shopping and jewelry alone.

How did Mr. Wiederhorn get this money? According to the Justice Department, largely through fraud. Mr. Wiederhorn was the chief executive of the fast-food company that owns Johnny Rockets and Fatburger, and according to prosecutors, he stole some $47 million from the business in secret payments disguised as loans. (Mr. Wiederhorn and his legal team denied any wrongdoing.) This wasn’t even the first time Mr. Wiederhorn was accused of a criminal scheme: Two decades earlier, he spent over a year in prison for his role in a plan to steal from a union pension fund.

Mr. Wiederhorn was never convicted for the secret payments; his case never even went to trial. In late 2024, his company donated $100,000 to President Trump’s second inaugural committee. A few months later, the prosecutor on his case was fired by a White House official, and a few months after that, the government dropped the criminal case entirely. Mr. Wiederhorn, who had left his job after being indicted, returned to running the business he allegedly stole from. Shortly after, the company went bankrupt.