Reading
“It’s up to the states” is not going to cut it He thinks he can wash his hands of the abortion issue but I’m afraid the blood isn’t going to come off that easily: Back in 2022, when it looked as if the Supreme Court would soon overturn Roe v. Wade, Senate Republicans’ campaign arm sent out a memo encouraging GOP candidates to get their messaging right. “Republicans DO NOT want to throw doctors and women in jail,” the memo maintained. It cast the statement as a rebuttal to Democrats’ “lies” about the GOP’s abortion positions. Donald Trump did not get the memo. The former president on Wednesday responded to the Arizona Supreme Court’s reviving a harsh 1864 abortion ban — which indeed threatens abortion providers with two to five years in prison — by punting on this basic issue. Asked whether doctors who provide abortions should be punished, Trump allowed that certain states could do that. “I’d let that be to the states,” Trump said. “You know, everything we’re doing now is states and states’ rights.
The major obstacle to lobbying reform is that for members of parliament, their staff and senior officials, lobbying provides a very lucrative income when they leave parliament, the military or the public service. So they refuse to act on the lobbying scourge. Submission to Senate Finance and Public Administration References Committee re Lobbying, February 8, Continue reading »
How can it happen that person who probably does not exist can keep an entire nation, North Korea, in poverty for more than twenty years, and the rest of us under prolonged nuclear threat. Continue reading »
I have flashes of climate grief, recognition in photographic bursts: Pakistani cotton farmers walking through knee-deep water trying to salvage a few white puffs of income off blackened plants; precious graves of ancestors being inundated by the sea in Fiji, the Torres Strait Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Samoa, the Marshall Islands; the view of fire-ravaged forests, Continue reading »
Almost unnoticed, the federal government has quietly pushed a Bill into parliament that will transform the NDIS as we know it. Make no mistake – this Bill is about containing costs. And for good reason. The spiralling cost growth of the NDIS – the National Disability Insurance Scheme – threatens its very existence. Doing nothing Continue reading »
UK Health Minister Aneurin Bevan introduced the National Health Service (NHS) pointing out that “Illness is neither an indulgence for which people have to pay, nor an offence for which they should be penalised, but a misfortune the cost of which should be shared by the community.” Advancing age brings with it infirmity and a Continue reading »
Is democracy spawning elected autocracies? In 2024, a tale of two much-vaunted yet internationally ranked “flawed democracies” is unfolding. The outcomes of their national elections—India in June and the US in November—will test the mettle of the democratic institutions that underpin their governance systems. In the lead-up to these pivotal elections, a disconcerting similarity confronts Continue reading »
There is no risk of China’s property sector woes spreading into a financial crisis but there is a policy-induced housing crisis and restrictions must be further eased. The property market must be stabilised to restore public confidence and spur private consumption, so economic growth can reaccelerate. A Chinese former official made headlines last September by Continue reading »
President Biden has announced an order forgiving more student loans. It hasn’t been easy since the right wing Supremes knocked down his big initiative, but they’ve kept at it, chipping away, bringing relief to many people’s debt burden. They say they aren’t done yet. The wingnuts are having their usual fit about anything that might benefit people other than the rich and the fascist, caterwauling that it’s not fair to other Americans who didn’t take out loans or who paid them back already. Why shouldn’t they get a break too? Guess what? They’re special people who deserve it, we know that. The American people should be proud to subsidize them — they’re all millionaires, of course. Those scofflaws who haven’t paid back their student loans need to be taught a lesson.
Plus, JPMorgan screams the quiet part about health care, Larry Hogan feels the heat from The Lever, and SCOTUS gets even more corporate.
Whaddup. It’s the flu your four-year-old brought home for spring break. Are you gonna let me in or what? You’re hoping I leave you alone? You booked a family trip to Wolf Lodge Water Park? The deposit is nonrefundable?
Listen, I just KO’ed two dozen preschoolers like complimentary chips and dip at Casa Azteca, and now I want my entrée, capisce? Vis-à-vis for the next week or so, this is my house. And lemme tell you something—Michelangelo had marble. Da Vinci had paint. I have fever, vomiting, and diarrhea. And in three days, your GI tract will be my magnum opus.
Even if I wanted to, which I don’t, I’m way too contagious to pass you by. I’ve literally spent a millennia evolving my DNA to inflict maximum carnage on your O-ring. The fact we’re even having this conversation means I’m already prancing through your upper respiratory system, painting the walls with flu.
What I’m saying is the chain reaction has begun. There’s no stopping the shitstorm descending upon your world. Think of me as Franz Ferdinand, the flu.
Not a WWI buff?
It’s not going his way Later that day… Via Daily Beast: Arizona Republicans refused to vote on a bill to repeal the state’s extreme abortion ban Wednesday, a day after Republicans—including President Donald Trump—attempted to distance themselves from the decision. State Rep. Matt Gress (R) moved Wednesday to bring a Democratic bill repealing the ban, which outlaws all abortions except to save the life of the mother, to a House vote. Before a vote could be called, Rep. David Livingston motioned for a recess and all Republicans in the House—including Gress—voted to table the proceedings. Democrats in the House chanted “Shame!” at their Republican counterparts as voting rapidly came to a close. In a livestream after the session ended, Rep. Analise Ortiz (D) said Republicans moved to recess so they “would not have to be on the record voting to repeal the abortion ban.”
Why clocks need to follow the tempo of nature.
The post A Revolution in Time appeared first on Nautilus.
A recent Byline Times investigation uncovered evidence that led to the Metropolitan Police announcing that it is re-examining its decision to charge the TV star with assault
Activists are calling for the media to shine a spotlight on the state of the war and Sudan's humanitarian crisis
Karam Bales examines the close links between the FSU, the Office for Students and the Government's drive to legislate on freedom of speech