Reading
Former Obama spokesperson Ben LaBolt earned millions working for Facebook, Instacart, and Union Pacific before joining the Biden White House.
The Texas Legislature is set to enact three laws to redefine the rules concerning religion...
Fighting words: Tiffany Justice, co-founder of the right-wing book-purging organization Moms for Liberty, offered a righteous-sounding answer when asked this past weekend on “CBS Sunday Morning” what sort of book she wants to see remain in schools. “Books that don’t have pornography in them,” she piously declared. “Let’s just put the bar really, really low. Books that don’t have incest, pedophilia, rape.” That’s hard to square with what just happened in Martin County, Fla. The school district there recently decided to yank from its high school library circulation eight novels by Nora Roberts that are not “pornography” at all — largely prompted by objections from a single woman who also happens to be a Moms for Liberty activist. “All of it is shocking,” Roberts told us. “If you don’t want your teenager reading this book, that’s your right as a mom — and good luck with that.
Stone buildings in northern India reveal secrets of old structures that could save lives.
The post The Ancient Architecture that Defies Earthquakes appeared first on Nautilus.
Russell T. Davies teased that Star Trek: Picard spoiled an upcoming Doctor Who episode title and a possible return to SDCC this summer.
NOT. READY. FOR. PRIME. TIME. Desantis melts down today outside the protective bubble of his carefully controlled, scripted FL events. At the Museum of Tolerance, of all places. The question that set DeSnowflake off was about this. Originally tweeted by Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) on April 27, 2023. I wrote about this before but I think it’s important. There is evidence that Ron DeSantis covered up torture at Guantanamo. He refuses to talk about it. And if you think the guy in that video up top is incapable of being complicit in torturing you aren’t paying attention. Here’s an excerpt from the Guardian today. If you are interested in this story, you should read the whole thing: “DeSantis and his group, the JAGs people were there. They were conducting the investigation,” Aziz said. “They were coming the same day the people died. They came to the cells.” What DeSantis saw and heard in the hours and days after the three deaths could be key to an enduring mystery that has hung over Guantánamo ever since: how did Ahmed, Utaybi and Zahrani die?
The 21st Century is changing much about the world that humans take for granted. Among the more shocking possibilities is that it will sound the death-knell of the nation-state as the main instrument of human self-governance. The nation state, established in the Americas and in Europe post-Napoleon, is now so firmly ingrained in our identities, Continue reading »
Australia, and my Party too, must make a commitment to restoring the primacy of reason, rejecting a paranoid view of history and ‘telling truth to power’. Our blind adoption of irrational policies, supine and unquestioning acquiescence to anything the United States proposes must end. Our species, facing an existential threat to civilisation from climate change, Continue reading »
Penny Wong has inherited huge challenges in her role as Foreign Minister. She is surrounded by alpha males controlling the defence and security debate, convinced that only deadly military weapons can secure a safe future for Australia. She heads a department historically seen as weak and irrelevant by too many men in power. They dismiss Continue reading »
Subordination of the military to the civil power in a democracy is non-negotiable, but is often taken for granted. More democracies falter because of a breakdown of civil-military relations than through external subversion or foreign aggression. The near monopoly over the use of lethal force that military organisations hold imposes an obligation on governments to Continue reading »
Government announces that nice people drive electric cars; $50 a day Jobseeker payment “cruel”; and a Wiradjuri warrior’s Anzac Day. Read on for the Weekly Roundup of links to articles, reports, podcasts and other media on current political and economic issues in public policy. Economics Immigration: this is really a big reform. The Reserve Bank Continue reading »
Breakthroughs set to make a big difference in energy sector This could change everything. A series of breakthroughs by scientists in China will see expensive, hard-to-find lithium replaced by cheap, easily available sodium in many applications. China is building 16 sodium-ion battery plants and will have 95% of the world’s capacity within two years, analysts Continue reading »
If we look back on the major wars of the prior century and forward to the growing menace of a war fought with nuclear weaponry, there is one prominent gap in analysis and understanding: in an imperfectly governed world, spheres of influence in certain regional settings play crucial war prevention roles. This gap is to Continue reading »
If he testifies truthfully it could be helpful but it can’t erase his pushing of the Big Lie On Wednesday night the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that Donald Trump could not claim executive privilege to prevent his former Vice President Mike Pence from testifying before the Grand Jury that’s hearing evidence for Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the former president’s activities leading up to January 6th. Immediately on Thursday morning Pence testified for more than five hours. I guess they didn’t want to waste any more time. Pence and his team had negotiated with the Special Counsel for months to avoid having to do a voluntary interview and ended up filing a lawsuit to prevent testifying under subpoena. He claimed that as President of the Senate he could not be compelled to testify under the Speech and Debate clause of the constitution which protects members of congress and a judge partially bought the argument. Pence was told he must testify but he can avoid answering questions about his legislative role on Jan. 6.
He listens when you speak, he appears to understand his privilege and complex power dynamics, and he’s never once lectured you about a Paul Thomas Anderson movie—sorry, “film.” Though not necessarily a common occurrence, coming across a seemingly perfect cis heterosexual man, either socially or in the workplace, can be a very overwhelming experience.
Maybe he’s the only man in the office who doesn’t talk about sports at the start of every meeting—completely oblivious to who might be left out of the conversation. Or maybe you met him on a dating app, and he actually asked you a question about yourself. At first, you might have thought, “Wow, he sees me as a fully realized human being with agency and he has a nice haircut. This is too good to be true.” It’s probably not too good to be true. It’s just too good to be entirely his doing.
Former president Donald Trump hugged and consoled a woman who breached the Capitol during the January 6th insurrection at a campaign stop in New Hampshire, the Washington Post first reported. In a clear attempt to appeal to the further-right members of his base, Trump embraced 54-year-old Micki Larson-Olson, a Trump über-fan who’d driven 30 hours to see him speak in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Thursday. “President Trump, will you please sign my Trump backpack that I carried up to Jan. 6?” she shouted, donning a red-white-and-blue ensemble with a matching wig. “I went to jail for 161 days for Jan. 6. I’m an Iraq War veteran.” Larson-Olson was found guilty last September of a misdemeanor for resisting police efforts to clear the Capitol complex after the breach. According to the Justice Department, U.S. Capitol Police approached the Texas woman, “who was dressed in a Captain America costume and holding two flags in the air,” and repeatedly asked her to leave.
The ACLU’s Keegan Medrano, a queer, Native advocate in Helena, said Zephyr’s expulsion was the culmination of months of attacks from Montana’s far right.
The post An Insider’s View of the Montana Legislature’s Attacks on Trans Rep. Zooey Zephyr appeared first on The Intercept.
Peter Davison & Georgia Tennant set for Big Finish's 60th anniversary event, Doctor Who: Once and Future - "The Artist at the End of Time."
Day after day Shake that man’s hand. I continue to be amazed that, Pulitzers or not, Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Mike Luckovich hasn’t been run out of his swing state. Georgia is not that purple. From Wednesday: From Thursday (O-U-C-H!): Damn. Has Luckovich got a security detail? Here’s another classic: