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In many ways, Claude was lucky. He had a job, a place to live, the support of loved ones. But incarceration exacts a heavy toll.

The post Claude Garrett Was Wrongfully Imprisoned for Decades. He Died After Five Months of Freedom. appeared first on The Intercept.

This is why food in the US and Britain will never be quite good enough.

The 2023 Seattle International Film Festival is running now through May 21st, featuring 264 shorts, docs, and narrative films from 74 countries. I’ve been bingeing all week, and thought I’d  take a breather and share a few reviews. Hopefully, some will be coming soon to a theater (or a streaming service) near you! A Disturbance in the Force (USA) *** – I missed “The Star Wars Christmas Special” in 1978…but after seeing Jeremy Coon and Steve Kozak’s documentary, perhaps that’s for the best. Leaving viewers and TV critics aghast, the unintentionally kitschy one-off has since garnered cult status (George Lucas initially OK’d the project but disowned it following the broadcast). The backstory is recounted in a cheeky and entertaining fashion. Warning: this film may trigger nightmares about Bea Arthur tending bar at the Mos Eisley Cantina. Chile ’76 (Chile/Argentine/Qatar) *** – Echoes of Graham Greene’s The Honorary Consul permeate this examination of the moral, ethical, and political dilemmas presented by life in a totalitarian society.

A new trailer for the Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Specials was released at the end of Eurovision tonight & we have some questions about it.

Source - Patreon

Source - Patreon

It’s not pretty Most congressional Republicans seem to have shrugged off Donald Trump’s wildly irresponsible suggestion, at Wednesday night’s CNN town hall, that a U.S. debt default would be an acceptable (if not desirable) outcome of the fraught negotiations underway between Kevin McCarthy and the White House. But that doesn’t mean Trump’s comments won’t have an impact. House GOP leaders continue to pretend that it’s Biden and his Democrats who are risking a default and the baleful economic consequences… But congressional Republicans varied in how annoyed they sounded in brushing off Trump’s “political advice” (as his close Senate ally J.D. Vance chose to put it). Even some House Freedom Caucus members were clearly irritated, according to Axios: Here’s the problem: With McCarthy white-knuckling it over his narrow control of the House (his own debt-limit/spending-cut proposal only passed by two votes), it wouldn’t take much of a rebellion by hard-core HFC types to blow up his negotiating position and/or to threaten his slippery grip on the Speaker’s gavel.

This long article about Jack Texeira, the Air Force airman who shared classified material to an online group friends is just chilling. (I have included a gift link for those who don’t have the Washington Post sub. so you can read it.) This guy was far more than just an innocent little Christian boy who liked to chat online. He fits the profile of most mass shooters with white supremacist views. Here’s the opener: Jack Teixeira, dressed in camouflage fatigues, his finger wrapped around the trigger of a semiautomatic rifle, faced the camera and spoke as though reciting an oath. “Jews scam, n—–s rape, and I mag dump.” Teixeira raised his weapon, aimed at an unseen target and fired 10 times in rapid succession, emptying the magazine of bullets. The six-second video, taken at a gun range near Teixeira’s home in Massachusetts, affords a brief but illuminating glimpse into the offline world of the 21-year-old National Guard member, who stands accused of leaking a trove of classified military intelligence on the group-chat platform Discord.

Scary stuff happening in Florida schools DeSantis has the nerve to accuse these people of “grooming” and “indoctrination:” Adam Tritt, a high school English teacher in Palm Bay, Florida, was shocked when his school’s librarian – eager to comply with Florida’s new law restricting “inappropriate” books in schools – removed one-third of the books on his classroom shelves, including a collection of Emily Dickinson’s poetry that was not on her list of approved books. Vivian Taylor, a seventh-grade teacher in Miami, says she was told to hardly discuss Emmett Till – the 14-year-old victim of one of the US’s most notorious lynchings – in her civics classes because under Florida’s year-old “stop woke” law, “people say you’re not supposed to talk about that because it will make children uncomfortable”.

Here's a look at the official trailer/episode title reveal video released by the BBC today for the Doctor Who 60th-Anniversary special event.

Greenhouse gas emissions continued to increase in 2022, as did the effects on Earth’s climate and the consequences for humans. Pet trading within Australia needs to be more strictly monitored and regulated. Global Climate Report 2022 The World Meteorological Organisation’s (WMO) 2022 update continues to tell the same sad story of political neglect: Emissions of Continue reading »

It is a big week for ‘but’ and ‘however’, delivered with some vehemence in responses to the Federal Budget. It is also a timely reminder that simple things matter, like our tone of voice in private and public conversations. We may all be happier and more grateful if we were carefully attentive to how we Continue reading »

Alexander Csergo, accused of ‘reckless foreign interference’, is being held in a top-security jail cell in Australia. His case is a ‘show trial’, his lawyer says, which reflects ‘an absolute hypocrisy in our approach to doing business with China’. The Australian businessman arrested in Sydney last month on the criminal charge of “reckless foreign interference” Continue reading »

Lines composed on Budget Day as Australia starts saving up for our new nuclear-powered fleet. The ocean is restless tonight. Is that the boom from cliffs at Dover Heights, With their surf unheeding? Or melancholy, long, withdrawing roar Of empire, receding? Once, a fleeing General came ashore; Took charge, returned as pledged, but then hove Continue reading »

There are numerous signs that the United States is undergoing a secular and irreversible process of decline, especially relative to China and other powerful developing nations. The global influence of the US in the military, diplomatic, economic, technological, ideological, and cultural realms is declining unabatedly. In recent years, this process has sped up and is Continue reading »

In a society built on lies, the search for truth is a game. Consider the debate surrounding alleged ‘threats’ to the BBC’s ‘independence’, even as the BBC itself reports of its outgoing chairman: ‘As for Mr Sharp’s departure, I understand conversations between the BBC and the government have been had in recent days. You’d expect Continue reading »

… as long as the victim is a designated enemy of wingnuttia The latest from the worst Governor in America: Gov. Ron DeSantis voiced his support for Daniel Penny, the Marine charged in the chokehold death of Jordan Neely, in a tweet Friday. “We must defeat the Soros-Funded DAs, stop the Left’s pro-criminal agenda, and take back the streets for law abiding citizens,” DeSantis wrote in a tweet with a fundraiser for Penny’s legal funds. “We stand with Good Samaritans like Daniel Penny. Let’s show this Marine… America’s got his back.” This is a man who wants to be president of the United States. And people keep telling me that he would be better than Donald Trump. Why? Basically, this law and order candidate is declaring that unarmed mentally ill people who make people uncomfortable can be killed with impunity. There’s a big story in the NY Times today about how DeSantis is “re-tooling” his sputtering campaign. Here’s an excerpt: In six short months from November to May, Mr. DeSantis’s 2024 run has faltered before it has even begun. Allies have abandoned him.

Looks like Erdogan demanded @elonmusk censor his political opposition a day ahead of the election and he immediately complied. Musk is either the world’s most sanctimonious hypocrite, coward and fraud or actually wants to censor the opposition to help Erdogan. Or both. If you want to buy the platform to help right wing governments around the world, just say it with your chest. It’s your money, go for it, but spare us the free speech BS. Old twitter rejected 50% of these demands, which isn’t perfect. New Twitter complies 100%. “to ensure twitter remains available” clearly means Erdogan threatened to block twitter completely if it didn’t serve his regime. @elonmusk said ok cool you got it boss. Good luck at the polls tomorrow. Originally tweeted by Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) on May 13, 2023. Musk is a right winger who is pretending to be a “free speech” absolutist. That should be obvious by now. I’m sure most of you know that Pepe the frog is an alt-right, white nationalist symbol.

The BBC confirmed via a binary code teaser tweet that a look at the Doctor Who 60th-anniversary was on the way later on today.

American economist Hyman Minsky described capitalism as a “two price” system. On one side are asset prices—both financial, like government or corporate bonds, and physical like residential or commercial property. On the other, there are consumer prices—goods and services that determine current output and consumer price inflation.   In the contemporary global economy, asset prices […]

Or get busy watching freedom die Blue America‘s Howie Klein (Down With Tyranny) points to an old idea still current and still popular: FDR’s proposed Economic Bill of Rights (1944). Our political bill of rights, FDR saw, was inadequate for assuring “equality in the pursuit of happiness.” “I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.” “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”January 20, 1937 As a record number of people die on America’s streets, Abdul Curry fights to stay alive. Howie excerpts FDR’s speech: It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people— whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth— is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.

So much happens at the margins The authoritarian right takes an Everything Everywhere All at Once approach to undermining, well, most everything that undergirds this democracy. A friend at Daily Kos pointed to this notice from the League of Women Voters: HARRISBURG, Pa. — Today voting rights advocates agreed to dismiss a lawsuit that pitted them against conservative activist group Judicial Watch, in a lawsuit Judicial Watch originally filed in 2020 to force three Pennsylvania counties to remove thousands of voters from the rolls ahead of the 2020 election.  The settlement agreed to by the parties simply requires the Department of State to separately publish online data it already collects and publishes under Pennsylvania law. Under the settlement, the Department will carve out the data for five county defendants and publish it separately. The lawsuit did not show any failure of the state of Pennsylvania to comply with either federal or state law governing voter roll list maintenance. Judicial Watch was unsuccessful in forcing any purges of the voter rolls.

Also, rail companies and airlines could face tougher regulations, workers are challenging Amazon, a new production company takes on Big Oil, and more.