A bipartisan amendment to ban the Biden administration from sending cluster munitions to Ukraine was undermined by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
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Back in 2004 I recall a lot of complaints when the Dean campaign had a lot of young out-of-state volunteers coming in to Iowa to canvass for their guy. They wore orange wool hats and t-shirts, making them stand out in a crowd, and the locals were not impressed. It was, I thought, a lesson learned by everyone. But at least the Deaniacs were true believers. Guess who’s doing it again not even ten years later. And this time they’re just random people being paid to do it: With his foot on a front porch of a stately home in Charleston, S.C., a canvasser for a $100 million field effort supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) vented on July 7 about a homeowner who he said had told him to get off his lawn. Speaking on his phone while wearing a T-shirt with “DESANTIS” in big letters and a lanyard representing the Never Back Down super PAC, he used lewd remarks to describe what he would tell the homeowner to do to him.“And I’m a little stoned, so I don’t even care,” he added, holding materials and appearing to wait for another homeowner to come to the door.
This piece by David French in the NYTimes makes the point that the right’s bully strategy as exemplified by Donald Trump and Elon Musk is predictably creating a backlash. I think this is a particularly apt observation: Any form of domination and bullying will create a backlash, and that backlash will gain particular momentum when the bullies are both aggressive and absurd — and that’s exactly the world that both Trump and Musk built. When I watch the world’s richest man take “Catturd” seriously, traffic in conspiracy theories and interact with a menagerie of right-wing trolls, these words come to mind: Four Seasons Total Landscaping. Who can forget when the legal team of the president of the United States, including Rudy Giuliani, promoted its alleged examples of voter fraud at a landscaping business in Philadelphia almost adjacent to a crematory and a porn shop? The only thing that keeps one from laughing at episodes like this one, and at Musk’s juvenile tweets, is the depressing realization that both Trump and Musk possess immense power and maintain loyal followings in the tens of millions.
Australia’s energy transition pathways are piecemeal and incoherent and inconsistent with achieving the 1.5oC goal. Eliminating fluorocarbons helps the climate and the ozone layer. No future for CCS in the steel industry. Australia’s shambolic national energy pathways Australia’s current climate change commitments, targets and policies include: A commitment to limit global warming to 1.5oC Net Continue reading »
Its mid-summer in Rome and last week there was a heat wave with a top temperature of 38° Celsius. Hot days in Rome are stifling, with the heat compounded by the over-whelming influx of tourists. Like most Italian institutions, the Vatican normally closes down in summer, with previous popes retiring to Castel Gandolfo on Lake Continue reading »
Europeans endured two world wars in the 20th Century. Surely they have no wish to begin the 21st Century with a third. Johann Sebastian Bach died in Leipzig in 1750. Two hundred years later, Leipzig, the musical capital of Germany, was behind the Iron Curtain. The Berlin Airlift, the detonation of Russia’s first atomic bomb Continue reading »
The Australian War Memorial Council believes it’s a strength that Council members can campaign against Council decisions – a far sighted and enlightened view in many ways but also one that could allow a minority to undermine the AWM’s mission. Recently the Defending Country Memorial Project Inc wrote to AWM Chair, Kim Beazley and the Continue reading »
Some might argue the appointment of Michele Bullock as RBA Governor renders irrelevant the slandering of two of our most senior public servants as “tainted”. Peter Dutton should not be let off the hook so lightly. Perhaps a product of the Fadden bye-election, Peter Dutton’s slur was misguided and mischievous. Two distinguished public servants, particularly Continue reading »
The Israeli army’s recent attack on Jenin refugee camp resulted in 13 deaths (12 Palestinians, including four children, and one Israeli soldier killed by suspected friendly fire). An additional 143 Palestinians were injured, with 20 in critical condition, and up to 4,000 displaced. While this mass displacement has received less media attention than other aspects Continue reading »
The Taliban has not once, but twice eradicated Afghanistan’s poppy cultivation, the world’s largest source of heroin. Despite western accusations, it has never been The Taliban behind the Afghan drug industry, but only ever the US and its allies, with billions in profits breezily laundered through the global financial system. First published in THE CRADLE Continue reading »
Surprised? I would hope that this puts him in the category of Alex Jones and normal people stop dealing with him as if he’s a serious person. But I’m not getting my hopes up. This is on par with Donald Trump and the MAGA crazies so I think that’s just the way things are in our political culture: Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dished out wild COVID-19 conspiracy theories this week during a press event at an Upper East Side restaurant, claiming the bug was a genetically engineered bioweapon that may have been “ethnically targeted” to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people. Kennedy floated the idea during a question-and-answer portion of raucous booze and fart-filled dinner at Tony’s Di Napoli on East 63d Street. “COVID-19. There is an argument that it is ethnically targeted. COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately,” Kennedy said. “COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people.
Dems are winning swing voters From Nate Cohn at the NY Times on the 2022 election. Yes, the Republicans turned out as they always do. But something else happened: Ultimately, the Democratic performance depended on something that went far beyond turnout: A segment of swing voters decided to back Democratic candidates in many critical races. For all the talk about turnout, this is what distinguished the 2022 midterms from any other in recent memory. Looking back over 15 years, the party out of power has typically won independent voters by an average margin of 14 points, as a crucial segment of voters either has soured on the president or has acted as a check against the excesses of the party in power. This did not happen in 2022. Every major study — the exit polls, the AP/VoteCast study, the recent Pew study — showed Democrats narrowly won self-identified independent voters, despite an unfavorable national political environment and an older, whiter group of independent voters.
They’re beyond being embarassed Shamelessness was just for warm-ups. Sometimes the gibberish is less offensive than what’s behind it: Robinson’s latest comments come as he has been the subject of national attention for his long history of racist, antisemitic, and anti-LGBTQ+ comments. In February 2018, he penned an attack on the film “Black Panther” because the title character was created by Stan Lee, whom he called “an agnostic Jew,” and “put to film by a satanic marxist. How can this trash, that was only created to pull the shekels out of your Schvartze pockets, invoke any pride?” He received bipartisan condemnation in October 2021 for a sermon in which he referred to “transgenderism” and homosexuality as “filth.” I’d like North Carolina to go blue in 2024. Even more, I’d like to keep the governor’s mansion out of Mark Robinson’s hands.
Some good news to report! Doctor Who Showrunner Russell T. Davies took to social media to confirm that Series 14 has wrapped filming.
Also, private equity loses out, schools get some dough, Sonic the Hedgehog gets a union, and more.
Quick dispatch from Netroots-Chicago Tennessee state Rep. Justin Jones related his experience with being expelled from the state House, reinstated by constituents, and returning to the state Capitol to encounter the white men who voted to expel him. “I walked in with the energy that they are in the ‘find out’ portion of our movement,” Jones said to applause. Later, the Rev. Jesse Jackson made a surprise appearance with Jones. Jackson announced his retirement from leadership of Rainbow PUSH (NPR): He announced in 2017 that he had begun outpatient care for Parkinson’s disease two years earlier. In early 2021, he had gallbladder surgery and later that year was treated for COVID-19 including a stint at a physical therapy-focused facility. He was hospitalized again in November 2021 for a fall that caused a head injury. Before another tornado blew through town last night, a few notables under 35 found each other at Netroots Nation. Jones, Rep. Maxwell Frost of Florida, NC Democrats’ state chair Anderson Clayton, David Hogg (A March For Our Lives) and other young activists shared dinner. Networking is why we come.
No one wants to fall into debt. No one wants a boot in their door. No one likes bailiffs. The use of bailiffs to tackle council tax arrears is a violent, humiliating, and unnecessary practice. That’s why ACORN Haringey is organising to end the council’s use of this cruel and bullying industry. With the support […]
Philosophy professor Kathleen Stock has been actively engaged in ongoing discussions about gender identity and transgender issues for a long time. In these discussions, she has expressed scepticism and concern about certain aspects of transgender ideology, particularly in relation to gender identity and its implications for women’s rights and spaces. Stock has argued that the […]
More AI madness! Couple of months ago there was a weird Daily Beast piece. It’s bad, but in a goofy way, causing me to say at the time ‘not today, Hal!’ But now I’m collecting op-ed-ish short writings about AI for use as models of good and bad and just plain weird writing and thinking, […]
As crews continue to search for an aggressive sea otter that’s been caught on video stealing surfboards, the Monterey Bay Aquarium speaks out on its “interesting history.” “This otter was born in captivity up at UC Santa Cruz. It was not bred in captivity, but its mother was in the wild and had to be re-captured. And when they captured the mother, she was pregnant,” said Kevin Connor with the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Subsequently, the sea otter pup — tagged 841 — and its mother were taken to the aquarium to be examined and cared for. The pup was released in June 2020 after it was found to be healthy and old enough to survive in the wild. “We have certain standards for release. They need to be a certain weight. They need to demonstrate they can feed themselves and that they can survive in the wild. Certainly, if an otter is displaying behavior when it’s with us, that says release may not be the best option that would get evaluated by Department of Fish and Wildlife,” said Connor. The mother was determined to be unfit to stay in the wild and was taken to another aquarium.