Reading

Created
Tue, 16/05/2023 - 04:58
This time over possible Chinese naval bases in the South Pacific. The anti-China campaign never stops… Hong Kong; Xinjiang; debt traps; the tennis player Peng Shuai, who was ‘disappeared’; Covid policies that were too strict and then too permissive; a property collapse; a shrinking economy that is now growing too fast and renewed beat ups about Continue reading »
Created
Tue, 16/05/2023 - 04:56
Yesterday, 15th May marked the 75th anniversary of the mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homeland, known as “the Nakba” or “the Catastrophe.” In 1948, the Jewish underground terrorist groups – the Hagannah, Stern Gang and Irgun ethnically cleansed more than 850,000 Palestinians from their homeland (70 percent of the Palestinian population) through terror Continue reading »
Created
Tue, 16/05/2023 - 04:54
The Australian Jewish Democratic Society (AJDS) stands firmly against the extra-judicial killings of militants by Israel and the high number of civilian casualties- including children – in Gaza. This adds to what the AJDS has been saying for many years with respect to Israel’s disastrous relationship with the people and government of Gaza. AJDS Statement Continue reading »
Created
Tue, 16/05/2023 - 04:53
It would be a fatal mistake for Labor to think that it represents the values and aspirations of its primary constituencies. It doesn’t. It is just that it misrepresents them slightly less than the coalition. The federal budget was a success, the more so for ticking off some Labor boxes and reaching a surplus. The Continue reading »
Created
Tue, 16/05/2023 - 04:52
This year’s budget will not set school education alight. It contains too many harsh lights, some bright lights and certain very soft lights. Funding arrangements have endured in the budget that will mean the diminishment of government schools and the expansion of non-government schools. Harsh lights For 2023/4, $28.3 billion will be provided for all Continue reading »
Created
Tue, 16/05/2023 - 04:50
On May 12, the former president of the UN Security Council, Kishore Mahbubani, warned Hong Kong that it faced ongoing turbulence amidst global tensions. It should expect to be “kicked around like a football” over the next decade, although this has already started. Since 2020, the US has sought to harm Hong Kong in various Continue reading »
Created
Tue, 16/05/2023 - 04:00
People have been living together with the potential for someone to commit a violent act since the beginning of time. There is never a 100% certainty that something bad won’t happen to you. To sanction the “pre-preemptive” murder of an unarmed person who is having a mental breakdown just because it might get violent is anarchy. Have they lost their minds? This is the natural consequence of the whole “stand your ground” and “castle doctrine” movement. Self-defense has been redefined to mean you can kill if you simply feel threatened. There’s no responsibility to retreat and there doesn’t have to be an actual threat. Kill first and ask questions later. It’s not the first time that vigilantism has become defensible in America. Like before, there is a real sense among a whole lot of people that they have the right to kill anyone who offends them and makes them feel insecure in their presence and there’s often a racist component to their “feelings.” It looks like we’re in for another round.
Created
Tue, 16/05/2023 - 02:30
The DeSantis Trump Iowa race has begin. And it’s as absurd as you imagined. It was supposed to be the first time the two main rivals for the Republican nomination faced off on GOP territory at the same time and the media couldn’t have been more excited. Despite still being undeclared, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was making a foray into Iowa, the first Republican primary state, on the same day as former president Donald Trump. What was going to happen when these two manly pugilists finally entered the ring? Well, the big confrontation didn’t happen as planned. DeSantis threw on a crisp blue shirt with a button down collar and a pair of skinny jeans and hit the trail and Trump bowed out at the last minute. The New York Times declared that a big win for the Florida Governor describing DeSantis’ intrepid trek to the area where Trump had been scheduled to speak as a “clear rebuke” to the man who has been “tormenting him” — a brave move to ensure that he doesn’t suffer the same result as all the other Republicans Trump has destroyed: For the first time in months, Gov.
Created
Tue, 16/05/2023 - 00:32
Under new rules created by the Online Safety Bill, all illegal content must be removed from social media platforms. The government position is clear that this content ‘has to go’, but the way the platforms will do it creates a new and dangerous threat to free speech. What is Prior Restraint? It’s about blocking the […]
Created
Tue, 16/05/2023 - 00:30
Being whipsawed is tiresome Right out of the gate this morning, the U.S. Supreme Court will review a racial gerrymandering case out of South Carolina. BREAKING: U.S. Supreme Court will hear case arguing that South Carolina’s congressional map is racially gerrymandered. In the lower court, a three judge panel found that the state’s 1st Congressional District violates the 14th Amendment and must be redrawn. Politico: — If the Supreme Court doesn’t act on Moore v. Harper, a case before the high court that addresses the independent state legislature theory, which gives state courts little to no role in interpreting election laws set by state legislatures, some legal experts are warning there could be chaos heading into 2024. Our Zach Montellaro explains: The future of the case “in question because a state-level ruling could make it moot. The nation’s highest court has also signaled that it may skip out on issuing a decision.
Created
Mon, 15/05/2023 - 23:00
Daniel Penny joins Kyle Rittenhouse Being homeless and in mental distress is now a crime. One or more Twitter users have declared Jordan Neely, the street performer choked to death on a New York subway, a criminal. The online defense fund for his subway choker, Daniel Penny, quickly exceeded $1.6 million over the weekend. Neely’s death was not explicitly political violence, but Neely may have been a casualty in the cultural civil war waged by the right. Even as MAGA celebrates Ashli Babbitt as a Jan. 6 martyr, the right is lining up to celebrate Penny as a cultural civil war hero like Kyle Rittenhouse. Brian Klaas writes at his substack about the right’s open embrace of political violence: In Texas, Governor Abbott previously said that he was “looking forward” to pardoning a man who murdered a Black Lives Matter protester. The murderer, Daniel Perry, was just sentenced to 25 years in prison. He had previously texted a friend that he “might have to kill” some people on his way to work.
Created
Mon, 15/05/2023 - 22:00

“Elon Musk is facing heavy criticism for Twitter’s decision to censor tweets at the behest of the Turkish government right before the country’s presidential election.” — Daily Beast

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Of all the rights claimed by a free people, perhaps none is more important than the right to speak freely and without fear, safe against capricious political retaliation or reprisal. The Founding Fathers considered freedom of speech so crucial to the experiment of self-government that they protected it in the very first amendment.

As a free speech absolutist, only death could stop me from defending the rights of Twitter users to speak without censorship. Well, either death or a request from an autocratic leader asking that I censor certain content that could be sensitive for their regime. Whichever comes first.