End-of-year link cleanout: Politics oh no

Skidding into 2025 with an aggressive effort to clear out my saved links, one broad theme at a time. (Did the same thing about a year ago, let's see if I can keep this up as an annual tradition.)

Pre-2024: "On October 6, 2022, President Biden issued a presidential proclamation that pardoned many federal and D.C. offenses for simple marijuana possession offenses. [Biden's] December 2023 proclamation adds to the list of pardoned offenses the following: offenses under federal law for attempted possession of marijuana; additional offenses under the D.C. Code for simple marijuana possession; and violations of certain sections of the Code of Federal Regulations involving simple marijuana possession and use."

"You may be too young to remember this, but Biden was one of the first major federal-level politicians to support gay marriage, and he dragged Obama along kicking and screaming to the finish line. This administration is one of the strongest allies the LGBTQ community has had. Ever." With receipts.

October: "Attacks targeting American public schools over LGBTQ+ rights and education about race and racism cost those schools an estimated $3.2bn in the 2023-24 school year, according to a new report by education professors from four major American universities."

November: "...most of the country is awash in right-wing propaganda all the time. For the olds, it’s Fox News, conservative radio and Sinclair-owned local news; for the youths, it’s the right-wing manosphere podcasts and streams that Trump so assiduously courted all campaign long [...] It helps explain Biden’s prodigious unpopularity, despite passing a ton of legislation that not only polls well, but has meaningfully improved people’s lives."

December: "President Biden on Thursday announced he is commuting the prison sentences for nearly 1,500 people and pardoning 39 others in what the White House said was the largest act of clemency in a single day in modern presidential history." (The article undercut this with a "...yeah but so what" in the headline.)

"President Joe Biden on Monday said he was commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 prisoners on federal death row to life without parole, taking the unprecedented step ahead of the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, whose incoming administration is widely expected to restart executions."

January: "I’ve worked for the Washington Post since 2008 as an editorial cartoonist. I have had editorial feedback and productive conversations—and some differences—about cartoons I have submitted for publication, but in all that time I’ve never had a cartoon killed because of who or what I chose to aim my pen at. Until now."

Sources about IRL "talking to headmates in the mirror"

My tally of "accounts by IRL plural systems who mention using mirrors to see different system members" is going up!

ETA: Using this as the masterpost to bring them all together. Started with 2, and I'll add new ones at the end.

First one is a memoir from 1995, second is a biography from 1906. So you know for a fact that neither of them could've been incepted with the idea from the Moon Knight TV show.

(...and, listen, I would defend the show's use of "talking to a headmate by seeing them in a mirror" even if it had zero basis in reality, because it's a great way to portray "talking to someone you can perceive, but who isn't a separate body in the same physical space as you." A TV series needs to be able to represent unusual, possibly-confusing concepts with visual shorthands that are easy for an audience to follow! But also...turns out it has some basis in reality.)

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(  She saw herself as another person in the mirror and was frightened by the extraordinary character of the expression. (Here she broke off her story to ask if it was possible to see oneself as another person in this way.) )