Our cultural excitement for the week was a visit to the spectacular Château Laurens in Agde, an art nouveau villa built at the end of the 19th century by a spectacularly rich idle opium smoker and yachtsman, sold to friends when he lost all his money, locked up for 50 years and then reopened in […]
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I wonder what Franz Kafka would have to say about the social media phenom of “doxxing” (apart from “Whad’ya expect?!”). In case you missed it, here’s a chilling story from 2020: By the standards of the pandemic, Thursday had been a normal day for Peter Weinberg. A 49-year-old finance marketing executive, he worked from his home in Bethesda, Maryland, right outside of the District of Columbia, staying busy with Zoom meetings and the new rituals of our socially isolated world. Then, around 10 p.m., he received an irate message on LinkedIn from someone he didn’t know. He brushed it off, thinking it was probably just spam. Then he got another. And another. The third message was particular strange, as it mentioned something about the cops coming to find him. Perplexed, he watched as the messages continued to pile up. They were all so similar: angry, threatening, accusatory. His profile views suddenly soared into the thousands. He began to panic. He decided to check Twitter. Although he’d had an account for more than a decade, Weinberg didn’t use the social platform very much.
And a grifter gets his gig It’s football season and all the players and coaches are back on the field: But Joe Kennedy won’t be among them. The assistant coach of the Bremerton High School football team in Washington state quit his job after participating in just one game last week. Kennedy’s employment status is generally not worthy of national attention on its own terms. This particular coach, however, waged an eight-year legal battle to reclaim that job and got the Supreme Court to reshape the balance between church and state in public schools along the way. He won the case, he got his job back, and then he quit almost immediately. I have written before about the Supreme Court’s tendency in recent years to take what I have charitably described as “phantom docket” cases. But these might be more simply described as fake: They rest upon nebulous theories of standing, hypothetical injuries, and right-wing causes célèbre. Phantom-docket cases have allowed the court’s conservative majority to rewrite precedents while avoiding any immediate real-world consequences of their rulings.
They’re soon to be responsible for 20 million deaths Anti-abortion Republicans would have you believe that they are all about preserving life. We know that isn’t true by their blood-thirsty attitude about anyone they consider an enemy but this takes it to another level: The AIDS epidemic has killed more than 40 million people since the first recorded cases in 1981, tripling child mortality and carving decades off life expectancy in the hardest-hit areas of Africa, where the cost of treatment put it out of reach. Horrified, then-President George W. Bush and the U.S. Congress two decades ago created what is described as the largest commitment by any nation to combat a single disease. The program, known as the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, partners with nonprofit groups to provide HIV/AIDS medication to millions around the world. It strengthens local and national health care systems, cares for children orphaned by AIDS and provides job training for people at risk.
The NY Times on rich GOPer hand wringing: On Labor Day, Eric Levine, a New York lawyer and Republican fund-raiser, sent an email to roughly 1,500 donors, politicians and friends. “I refuse to accept the proposition that Donald Trump is the ‘inevitable’ Republican nominee for President,” he wrote. “His nomination would be a disaster for our party and our country.” Many of the Republican Party’s wealthiest donors share that view, and the growing sense of urgency about the state of the G.O.P. presidential primary race. Mr. Trump’s grip on the party’s voters is as powerful as ever, with polls in Iowa and New Hampshire last month putting him at least 25 percentage points above his nearest rivals. That has left major Republican donors — whose desires have increasingly diverged from those of conservative voters — grappling with the reality that the tens of millions of dollars they have spent to try to stop the former president, fearing he poses a mortal threat to their party and the country, may already be a sunk cost.
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Andrew Forrest makes impassioned plea for governments to hold business responsible for climate action. African countries struggle to extract their natural resources without destroying their environments and people. Dr Twiggy’s prescription for human survival If you’ve got 24 minutes, I strongly recommend watching Andrew Forrest’s speech at the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference in Continue reading »
Referral comes in same week the controversial procurement will face a second parliamentary hearing. The Defence Department’s $46 billion (and rising) acquisition from BAE Systems of nine warships has been referred to the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC). The referral follows our exclusive two-part investigation into Australia’s second largest naval procurement. Greens’ defence spokesperson Senator David Continue reading »
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted in a profoundly sick society” – Jiddu Krishnamurti It’s one of the most revealing ironies of our time, namely, the obsession with health and wellbeing while we, in wealthy nations, have never been so sick. Soul sick. There’s nothing new about this. James Hillman in Continue reading »
Recently there have been reports from Canada on demands for the Catholic Church to apologise for its actions in church run boarding schools. In Australia we have had details of the sex abuse scandals. But what we have not had from the Church, in Australia, is an apology for what its doctrinaire attitude to family Continue reading »
“The Uluru Statement from the Heart is an invitation to the Australian people from First Nations Australians. It asks Australians to walk together to build a better future by establishing a First Nations Voice to Parliament enshrined in the Constitution, and the establishment of a Makarrata Commission for the purpose of treaty making and truth-telling.” Continue reading »
Australia has no business playing the victim when the lines between strategy and economic interests have become increasingly blurred. Beijing should treat with caution renewed efforts to get relations back on track, and avoid rewarding Canberra for its coercive behaviour. Representatives from the Australian government embarked on a trip to Beijing last week, signalling the Continue reading »
A good way to scare people is to suggest your chief security body has written something so frightening that you can’t possibly let anyone read anything about it. Or maybe your top spooks have just produced something that would embarrass the government greatly, and therefore it really must stay hidden. It’s more likely to be Continue reading »
I don’t know if you have the stomach for it, but this appearance by Alex Jones on Russian TV is not only bizarre it’s shockingly pro-Russia, even beyond what we’ve come to expect from the American right. (If you watch it, turn off the sound and just read the closed captions.) Both of these people are clowns, of course, and it’s hard to imagine anyone taking them seriously. But I guess it shows that we aren’t the only culture that has such batshit crazy political media stars. Still, maybe I’m showing my age but it’s still stunning to me to see an American right wing figure kowtowing and pandering to a Russian audience, begging them to understand just how much America really supports them and their aims. I never thought I’d see the day.
The BBC’s Marianna Spring specializes in branding average citizens as conspiracy theorists and potential terrorists for questioning official claims. When caught lying about her own professional record to advance her ambitions, she says she thought her deceit “wouldn’t be a big deal.” On September 6th, The New European reported that BBC’s “specialist disinformation correspondent” Marianna Spring lied on her résumé in a failed attempt to bag work with Coda Story back in 2018. While posing as an independent outlet, Coda Story […]
The post BBC ‘disinformation’ correspondent busted spreading disinfo on her own bio first appeared on The Grayzone.
The post BBC ‘disinformation’ correspondent busted spreading disinfo on her own bio appeared first on The Grayzone.
Vivek lies even more flamboyantly than he does Okaaay: HASAN: “You say [Trump] behaved in downright abhorrent behavior that makes him a danger to democracy. What was it that was downright … tell me what he did that was downright abhorrent.” RAMASWAMY: “Let’s actually be really fair to your audience. So on Jan. 10, 2021, thereabouts, days after that incident, I wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal arguing that censorship was the real cause of what happened on Jan. 6. …” HASAN: “Which isn’t true …” RAMASWAMY: “… Well, that’s what I wrote. I’m giving you the facts of what I said. That’s a hard fact. That was published in The Wall Street Journal.” CNN’s Daniel Dale fact-checked said facts, and surprise! Ramaswamy’s claim is false. He never argued in The Wall Street Journal op-ed that censorship was the real cause of the January 6 riot. Rather, Ramaswamy and his co-author criticized social media companies for banning Trump and some of his supporters in the days after the riot.
What is it Emily’s List says? Early Money Is Like Yeast? So, perhaps, are early branding ads. In preparing the ground ahead of the next election, Democrats’ efforts always seem too little and too late. But with Biden’s low approval numbers, Democrats and their allies are not waiting to give their candidate a boost (Politico): The cavalry is arriving extraordinarily early for President Joe Biden. With poll after brutal poll showing the president in danger of losing a likely rematch with former President Donald Trump, his campaign is getting an unusual boost from a super PAC spending millions of dollars to resuscitate public opinion of him in major battlegrounds. The ads are striking for both their timing and their content. The election is still 423 days away, and Biden and an affiliate of his chief super PAC are already running TV ads in nearly every major battleground state — far earlier than normal for a presidential election. And instead of going on the attack, as super PACs usually do, the ads are trying to boost Biden’s image.
Also, New York passes worker protections, Oklahoma schools chart their own path, and the government comes for Big Tech.
What your votes will decide in 2024 What’s on the 2024 ballot appears every day in stark terms. Women’s rights Republicans also have a “Fugitive Slave Woman Acts” problem to add to the list above. Climate change CNN: At least 14 people have died and several remain missing across Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria as torrential rain and severe flooding batter southern Europe. Gun violence Another typical day in America: Albuquerque police say a road rage shooting left an 11-year-old boy dead Wednesday night after he and his family left Isotopes Park. As the boy and his family were driving away from the park, their vehicle pulled in front of another vehicle, according to APD Chief Harold Medina. That vehicle made a U-turn and confronted the family on Avenida Cesar Chavez, Medina said. Then, someone in the suspect vehicle fired 17 shots at the family’s vehicle before reportedly leaving the area. Ms Magazine: In 2023 the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School found that “40 percent of young Americans are concerned about being victims of gun violence or mass shootings.
In today's BCTV Daily Dispatch: WGA/AMPTP, Loki, AHS: Delicate, Fear TWD, Godzilla, Doctor Who, Gen V, Star Trek: Lower Decks, and more!
Vice’s hard-nosed coverage on Saudi Arabia changed after investment deals with the repressive kingdom. A deleted documentary is not completely gone, however.
The post Vice Pulled a Documentary Critical of Saudi Arabia. But Here It Is. appeared first on The Intercept.
Rep. Greg Casar gives a rundown of a recent trip he, AOC, and a handful of other Democratic lawmakers took to leftist-run Latin American nations.
The post Inside the Lefty Congressional Delegation to Latin America appeared first on The Intercept.