Reading

Kyrsten Sinema took cash and did favors for cryptocurrency companies while in Congress. Now, she’s going to work for one of them.

Some of them seem to be repeat offenders

The post The Problem with Problem Sharks appeared first on Nautilus.

Nominating this freak as HHS Secretary The RFK Jr hearing today was unbelievable. I have concluded that Trump is so angry about the attempts to hold him accountable for his crimes that he just wants to hurt Americans. I also think that he’s showing some serious signs of dementia now. This stuff about the “valve” and sending Elon to space is weird even for him. It’s possible that he’s just owning the libs but I have a sense that it may be more than that. Choosing a conspiracy theorist like Bobby Jr. covers all those bases. He is an insult to all Americans. If the Republicans let him go through despite knowing what a monstrous freak he is, we’re truly in Mad King territory.

Music fans throughout the colony of New South Wales have gone into an absolute snit of complaint after the catchy ballad Bound For Botany Bay took out first place in the Triple J Hottest 100 for 1788 “I’ve never heard... Read More ›

Oopsie. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt just tweeted this: This is NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze. It is simply a rescission of the OMB memo. Why? To end any confusion created by the court’s injunction. The President’s EO’s on federal funding remain in full force and effect, and will be rigorously implemented. I assume this is them trying to be clever and moot the court injunction? Probably not a good idea to say this out loud. Meanwhile here’s Potus and his Majordomo entertaining the MAGA faithful with fantasies: Except… note the date They think they’re in a movie. They’re just lucky that the only people paying attention are MAGA cult members and a few die-hards like us.

Gabbard is a rare Washington politician who defended the NSA whistleblower. But she has also changed positions and even political parties.

The post Tulsi Gabbard Once Called for an Edward Snowden Pardon. Will She Flip-Flop Now? appeared first on The Intercept.

A Trump takeover of Greenland could open the door to tech moguls’ mineral interests and their utopian aspirations.

“The Trump administration is offering nearly all federal workers the opportunity to resign from their posts now and still retain full pay and benefits through Sept. 30.” — NPR

During the first week of His Return, President Nyarlathotep issued a number of screeching carrion calls from Mount Blasphemy (formerly 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.) concerning the Cult of the Dread Lord. Among those directives, the President required that cultists return to in-person black masses at their local nexions, restored accountability for cults who retain mind-flaying authority, restored accountability for the few remaining Old Guard from the Days of Relative Sanity, and reformed the federal hiring process to focus on sadism. As a result of the above orders, the culling of the Cultists will be significant.

The Reformed Cult of the Dread Lord will be built around four pillars:

Return to the hell of conflict or forward to peace and security? Just when the world was hopeful that the war of genocide was coming to an end, the Israeli government launched a new round of violence, destruction and bloodshed against Palestinians in the West Bank. Israelis often talk about their quest for security and Continue reading »

In his address to the National Press Club on 24 January 2025, Prime Minister Albanese reflected on his Government’s decision announced a year earlier to change “the tax plan we inherited from the Morrison Government to make it better and fairer”. It is likely to be a major selling point in the coming Federal election. Continue reading »

For the second year running, lies have emerged as the primary risk facing humanity, in the Global Risks Survey 2024-25 conducted by the World Economic Forum of 900 experts worldwide. Disinformation and misinformation are now deemed more dangerous, in the short run (next two years), than violent climate events, wars and societal disintegration. Even over Continue reading »

At the 2025 World Economic Forum in Davos, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim stood out as a voice of reason and diplomacy, presenting the Asian vision of peace, development, and regional cooperation. Representing a nation with one of Southeast Asia’s fastest-growing economies, Anwar showcased a pragmatic and authoritative approach to resolving disputes, emphasising dialogue and Continue reading »

Humphrey McQueen (Pearls and Irritations, ‘The lucky Aborigines’ 26 January 2025), has reminded us of John Howard’s opinion that “the luckiest thing that happened to this country was being colonised by the British. Not that they were perfect by any means, but they were infinitely more successful and beneficent than other European colonisers.” Really? Infinitely Continue reading »

Of the two billion voters who set out to vote across 60 countries last year, 33 percent were from the Commonwealth, a 56-member union with 2.7 billion citizens. In 2024, demands for democracy and human rights characterised elections worldwide. But many voters within the Commonwealth faced more dangerous political environments, where peaceful resistance was met Continue reading »

For more than 40 years Hugh White has been an important analyst of Australian defence and foreign policy. After working in the Office of National Assessments he became an adviser to Defence Minister Beazley and Prime Minister Hawke, He was a deputy secretary in the Department of Defence and the first head of the Australian Continue reading »

In late February 2022, I was walking on a street in Irkutsk (in the middle of Russian Siberia) when I met a former female student of mine who had just come from her work office. She was upset by the invasion of Ukraine but even more so by the attitude of some women in the Continue reading »

The buzz around Xiaohongshu and then DeepSeek has had an unusually high volume of westerners speaking positively about China for the last couple of weeks, which of course means we’re also seeing many westerners falling all over themselves to say “Well actually China is actually quite bad actually” in response. Western liberals who fancy themselves Continue reading »

Stirling Newberry pointed this out, and I agree.

Some of Trump’s Executive Order are clearly illegal, unconstitutional, or both. Trump can’t get rid of Birthright Citizenship and his order goes clearly against the written text of the amendment:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

This isn’t open to interpretation. There is no wiggle room.

In the best sort of antiques store or second-hand bookshop you will often find heaped up remnants of literate culture on the brink of extinction, thrifty oddities of survival clinging to the shelves: unappetising cookbooks, compendiums of humour from also-ran television comedians, lively tracts addressed to now-inert controversies. (In one of my favourite discoveries, an […]