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Anti-abortion zealots can’t wait to make Americans’ lives more miserable Iowa FTW: The legislation was passed during a rare one-day special session called by Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) for the “sole purpose” of enacting new restrictions on abortion. Reynolds celebrated the bill’s passage in a statement late Tuesday and said she will sign it on Friday. “Justice for the unborn should not be delayed,” she said. Iowa’s House and Senate passed the legislation alongmostly partisan lines late Tuesday after hours of hearings and sometimes heated protests. It is expected to face legal challenges. Abortion is currently legal in Iowa up to 22 weeks of pregnancy.

When will Australians realise, as Paul Keating has been unerringly consistent in arguing, that they are part of the cosmopolitanism and complexity of Asia, and not a Western imagined community presided over by a fast declining America? During the maligned years of the Morrison-Turnbull-Abbott governments, Australia’s international reputation fell on a number of significant measures Continue reading »

Journalism is tough at a time when many topics could be seen through a political lens. Hong Kong provides an interesting case, although it is not the only place where journalism is having to navigate shifting geopolitics and social developments that divide countries and communities. Pearls and Irritations, created by Australians in Australia, is a Continue reading »

The Robodebt scandal reflects badly on the Australian Public Service generally, and not just on those immediately responsible. The main focus of the Report by the Royal Commission into Robodebt and subsequent publicity and comment has been on the illegality of the scheme. But as has been observed by some Liberals, the illegality could readily Continue reading »

Defeat for the Voice referendum will reverberate internationally. Surviving suspicions about our racist past will be refreshed. It will come at the same time as our renewed embrace of our ‘forever friends’ in Britain and the United States and our growing enthusiasm for closer ties with NATO. Race is constantly referred to by both sides Continue reading »

In 2005 we commenced a campaign for a Human Rights Act for Australia. In 2009 as part of our campaign a Bill was drafted to ‘respect, protect and promote Human Rights for Australia’.  This model Bill formed the core of our group’s submission to the National Human Rights Consultation, chaired by Frank Brennan SJ OA.  Continue reading »

Governments around the world are promoting and subsidising carbon capture and storage (CCUS) to facilitate an increase in fossil gas mining. This will dash any hope of controlling world emissions at a time when there are deep concerns for climate change becoming uncontrollable. Yet the Australian government and the fossil gas industry are driving huge Continue reading »

The Australian Defence Department’s new Frigates project is a jobs merry-go-round for former military officers, bureaucrats, and weapons makers. Integrity concerns with Australia’s $46 billion procurement from BAE Systems of nine warships were examined in Part One of Declassified Australia’s special ‘Sinking Billions’. The Defence contract management process was revealed to be flawed and suffering what the Australian Continue reading »

Geo-politics is played on a world chessboard often by sad oldies in sober suits. To keep membership exclusive the polymath gamers use polysyllables and foreign tongues. Clearly not the place for a perky American doll. Yet Barbie has made it to the top without studying at the Sorbonne. She’s getting into the space of Xi Continue reading »

Over the past several months, lawmakers on both state and federal levels have worked to...

Inspired by The Lever’s reporting, Congressman Brendan Boyle introduced legislation to stop Fox from deducting the cost of its $787 million payout over its election lies.

“Housewife fascism” on the move And people wonder why they have been designated as an extremist organization. This is not a new phenomenon in America: As the historian Michelle Nickerson demonstrates, the period surrounding the cold war is a useful lens for understanding how mothers’ movements became a pillar of American conservatism. Like Moms for Liberty, these groups responded to cultural change by condemning the spread of progressive ideologies through public school systems. Fueled by anti-communist panic, they fought for the removal of textbooks, teachers and administrators they judged to be tainted by progressive ideals. A defining feature of these groups was how they leveraged cultural beliefs surrounding motherhood for political ends. They invoked motherhood to argue that they were uniquely connected to the domestic sphere and childrearing and therefore uniquely able to speak for the moral interests of parents, families and children. Moms for Liberty pulls deeply from this established playbook of “housewife populism”.

Be warned, this “cozy” and “rustic” place to “commune with nature” is just a 10 by 15-foot room, like a wooden prison cell. Not sure if the listing used a fish-eye lens, but if I wanted a tiny house I would have filtered for one, buddy. — 1 Star

No Wi-Fi? Unbelievable. — 0 Stars

A good price, but the place is shoddily constructed. Makes sense, as I’ve since learned it was built by the owner, some Harvard liberal arts dweeb. — 2 Stars

Pretty, but hard to find. Listing just says “on the shore of Walden Pond” and “on the side of a hill.” Would it kill them to send a Google Maps pin? — 2.5 Stars

No streaming services, just a bunch of dusty books on crude shelves. When I complained, the owner just stared and said, “Books are the treasured wealth of the world.” WTF? I missed the premiere of Billions. — 1 Star

There have always been eccentric, senile and downright simple-minded members of congress. That’s democracy in action. But there is an unusually high number of them these days and they are all right wing Republicans. We’re accustomed to the House MAGA chaos agents’ preposterous escapades. Like this, for instance: It’s hard to know if Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene still doesn’t understand how the government works or how the world works but she does have a way of getting attention. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy couldn’t be more happy with her. He told Axios, “I think Marjorie Taylor Greene is one of the best members we have, I think she’s the one of the most conservative members and one of the strongest legislators. I support Marjorie Greene very strongly.” (That was in response to a question about her ouster from the Freedom Caucus which is reportedly because she can’t be trusted not to share their strategies with McCarthy.) The House has always been the more fractious of the two houses of congress, more partisan and subject to volatility.

. Sublime, breathtaking, and absolutely magnificent. A choir of angels touching the depths of my soul.

Bonfires to mark the day in Northern Ireland are often used not as a symbol of one’s national identity but as a marker of territory, writes Emma deSouza

Over the fold, a piece I wrote for The Conversation. It’s focused on Australia, but includes a swipe at European advocates of a “nuclear renaissance”, the most notable of whom are Macron and (at least until his defenstration) Boris Johnson Last week, opposition leader Peter Dutton called for Australia to join what he dubbed the […]

The BBC had a little Doctor Who fun, showing us what the TARDIS would look like landing in Barbie's World - and we're kinda digging it.

Crash on the levee, momma What’s it gonna take for governments to take climate change seriously? Weren’t we just here the other day? CNN: Intense rainstorms inundating the Northeast are turning streets into rivers, forcing evacuations and have prompted officials in Vermont’s capital, Montpelier, to close the downtown area. “Make no mistake, the devastation and flooding we’re experiencing across Vermont is historic and catastrophic,” Gov. Phil Scott told reporters Tuesday. Floodwater continues to rise in some places, the governor said, “and have surpassed levels seen during Tropical Storm Irene,” he added. Irene hit the US as a hurricane in August 2011 and left entire communities submerged, killing more than 40 people in several Eastern states. A bit south of Montpelier on Sunday, things were dicey in the Hudson Valley: We easily brush off deadly flooding in foreign countries, even in Appalachia, dammit. But you know how this works. Until it happens to you….

In your head Wrap a police tape perimeter around Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. His anti-woke mania is a crime scene. Greg Sargent explains: In recent weeks, plaintiffs who are suing to invalidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s “Stop Woke Act” have been confronting its defenders with a seemingly loaded question: Would the law, which restricts school discussion of race, prohibit a public university professor from endorsing affirmative action in a classroom setting? Surprisingly, lawyers defending the DeSantis administration just answered this question with a qualified “yes.” Which exposes a core truth about his anti-woke directives: They really do constitute efforts at state censorship, not just of concepts he likes to call “woke indoctrination” but also of viewpoints that are contested yet remain squarely within mainstream academic discourse. A provision in the law prohibits instruction that “espouses” or “promotes” certain ideas. Affirmative action, for instance: DeSantis has already fielded election police.