Reading

Created
Fri, 06/09/2024 - 03:00

Raising my beautiful cherubs is my sole purpose in life. I am a womb with two legs. Madame Bovary? More like Madame Ovaries. (I haven’t read the book, and I definitely didn’t check it out of the local library before my tradwife besties had it banned.) Please take away my rights to my own body—oh wait, you already did. Cool. I am an unstoppable life-giving vessel doing my God-given part. My husband, Jedediah Jehoshaphat, is out there chopping wood, stocking our underground fallout bunker, and watching football with his friends.

(For the record, I never wrote this, because traditionally, women are property who can’t read or write, obviously.)

It’s been three months nonstop with my little darlings, Rifle (8), Brick (7), Eagle (6), Riesling Marie (5), and Paizleee Marie (also 5—they are not twins), and I’ve never been happier. Every September, I am devastated to be without them and feel not the slightest hint of relief, calm, or relaxation in their absence.

Created
Fri, 06/09/2024 - 02:30
Musk’s new “commission” looks like a go He plans to cut taxes and regulations to make life easier for his vastly wealthy friends to raze the government to the ground: Donald Trump plans to outline a suite of economic proposals in a speech here Thursday, including introducing a government efficiency commission recommended by Elon Musk, taking an even more aggressive swipe at regulations than during his first White House term and pledging to rescind certain unspent funds appropriated during the Biden administration. The commission would conduct “a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government” and make “recommendations for drastic reform,” the Republican former president plans to say in an appearance before the Economic Club of New York. The goal would be to identify ways to eliminate fraud and improper payments, according to portions of the speech viewed by The Wall Street Journal. An “audit” and “performance review” by the guy who just destroyed twitter for his personal entertainment. Whatever.
Created
Fri, 06/09/2024 - 00:30
They’re banning what’s already banned As closely as I monitor these things, this one slipped by me (Center for Media and Democracy): Eight states will vote to amend their state constitutions in November to ban noncitizens from voting in elections. If these amendments pass in Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Wisconsin, it will bring the total number of states with constitutions specifying only citizens are allowed to vote to 20. The little known dark money group Americans for Citizens Voting (ACV) is backing and tracking the effort. Since 2018, voters in six states have added the amendment to their state constitutions. ACV has its eyes locked on another 11 states in 2025: Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia, according to its website. ACV has enlisted the help of the pay-to-play American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to move a model state constitution amendment in these states and others to ban noncitizens from voting in elections.
Created
Thu, 05/09/2024 - 23:32

During World War II, American leaders proudly proclaimed this country the “arsenal of democracy,” supplying weapons and related materiel to allies like Great Britain and the Soviet Union. To cite just one example, I recall reading about Soviet armored units equipped with U.S. Sherman tanks, though the Soviets had an even better tank of their own in the T-34 and its many variants. However, recent news that the United States is providing yet more massive arms deliveries to Israel (worth $20 billion) for 2026 and thereafter caught me off guard.  Israel quite plainly is engaged in the near-total destruction of Gaza and the massacre of Palestinians there.  So, tell me, how over all these years did the self-styled arsenal of democracy become... Read more

Created
Thu, 05/09/2024 - 23:21
Why The Left Taking Over The Republican Party Is Even Harder Than Taking Over The Democratic Party

By Swamp Yankee

(Ian–this is another elevated comment. I thought (and think) it’s an excellent one, informed by life experience. In general the quality of comments lately has impressed me.)

For those advising an attempt to take over the Republican Party. I think candidly that that is even less likely than taking over the Democratic Party.

Created
Thu, 05/09/2024 - 23:13

As Israeli forces target refugee camps and civilian infrastructure, fears grow that this military campaign is setting the stage for the de jure annexation of the West Bank.

The post Operation Summer Camps: Israel’s Largest West Bank Assault in Two Decades Sparks Fears of Annexation appeared first on MintPress News.

Created
Thu, 05/09/2024 - 23:00
Precious few, but not no principled conservatives Only a fool would predict a new Donald Trump scandal will finally collapse his support. The Trump shock troops who cover their lawns and trucks and boats and bodies in loud professions of their MAGA faith are too far gone. Trump has spent his life flouting the law using his daddy’s money, his own notoriety, and a bevy of attorneys to keep himself out of the hoosegow. It’s the habit of a lifetime of crime. Laws that apply to ordinary people are but annoying flies Trump swats away. He believes his shit doesn’t stink (contrary to reports) despite attracting swarms of prosecutorial flies. If anything does end Trump, it won’t be a bullet or another criminal indictment or an investigation into his illegally accepting $10 million in 2016 from an account tied to the Egyptian General Intelligence Service. It might be a personal insult to ordinary Americans. Like the families of fallen soldiers he’s already described as losers and suckers. Only this time, he did not issue the insult on foreign soil but at Arlington National Cemetery.
Created
Thu, 05/09/2024 - 23:00

Zoë Hitzig’s newest, called Not Us Now, is a collection of poems written against—into the teeth of—the particular kind of algorithmic society many of us are now ensnared in. A society in which our moves are tracked and goaded by corporate systems for guiding behavior and feeling. Which makes for a culture of trending and buzzing, immediacy, and profitable smoothness. Hitzig offers a vision for another, freer, wildly alive, and compelling use for the power of numbers. Which is to say, she uses the language of our society against it, to unmake and remake it in the imagination. Here, for instance, is the lyric power of “Greedy Algorithm”:

Is this or is this not
what you tasked me with.
To play our every hand.
To replace each arrival with
the nearest destination.
To keep you in what may
still be called breath.
Cliffs, ropes, pills, wings …
it’s not like you specified
any real alternatives.

The failure of imagination is not the algorithm’s fault but, as always, dear Brutus, in the imaginations that imagined it. So the poem finishes:

Created
Thu, 05/09/2024 - 22:00

Dear Whoever Is Trying to Hack into My Instagram Account,

Hey, man. Just got that little automatic email you generated trying to hack into my Instagram account. Dude, no. You do not want to go in there. Seriously. This is for your own good.

I may not know you, but I’m confident you do not have the mental or emotional stamina to survive the torment and torture that is my Instagram account. Stop trying to guess my password and SAVE YOURSELF.

Created
Thu, 05/09/2024 - 21:31

Foreign Secretary David Lammy’s recent announcement that the UK is suspending some arms export licenses to Israel was remarkable. For the first time, the government has acknowledged that weapons supplied by Britain might be used to violate the laws of war. More than saving Palestinian lives, however, the Foreign Secretary’s primary concern may be with placating campaigners […]

Created
Thu, 05/09/2024 - 20:27

MintPress uncovers the troubling role of US and Canadian donors in backing Israeli soldiers accused of raping and torturing Palestinian detainees, spotlighting the international reach of financial support for human rights violations.

The post Exposed: The US and Canadian Funding Behind Israeli Soldiers Accused of Rape appeared first on MintPress News.