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On college campuses around the country, administrators are responding to peaceful sit-ins with sanctions and criminal charges.

The post Amid Gaza Protests, Universities Are Cracking Down on a Celebrated Protest Tactic: Sit-ins appeared first on The Intercept.

The Post Office Scandal. The contaminated blood scandal. Hillsborough. Orgreave. Time and time again, we have witnessed unforgivable episodes in modern British history that demonstrate the total disregard those in position of power and influence have for the lives of ordinary working-class people. Profits and furthering personal careers take priority while working-class communities are forced […]

I’ve been reading Maylis de Kerangal’s Réparer les vivants (oddly available in two different English translations as Heart (US) and Mending the Living (UK)), which I highly recommend. De Kerangal’s speciality is writing about people at work and this is the saga of a heart transplant over 24h, from the beginning of the donor’s day […]

Source - Patreon

Source - Patreon

Source - Patreon

Roger Stone must be proud In case you were wondering who the guy is who’s pushing this scandal about Fani Willis having an affair with her co-prosecutor, it’s this guy. (Article from 2016) Donald Trump’s “election protection” effort will be run by Mike Roman, a Republican operative best known for promoting a video of apparent voter intimidation by the New Black Panthers outside a polling place in 2008. Roman is to oversee poll-watching efforts as Trump undertakes an unprecedented effort by a major party nominee by calling into question the legitimacy of the popular vote weeks before election day. The Republican nominee has insisted, without evidence, that dead people and undocumented immigrants are voting in the United States. Trump has long claimed that the 2016 election is rigged but has amplified his claims of voter fraud in recent days. On Monday he tweeted: “Of course there is large scale voter fraud happening on and before election day. Why do Republican leaders deny what is going on?

There are exceptions:

Use to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts.

It should be good news for Biden. Generally presidents benefit from good economic “vibes.” But who knows? He’s old so they may just hate him no matter the reality. It appears Americans are finally feeling better about the economy. Consumer sentiment, a window into the nation’s financial mood, jumped 13 percent in January to its highest level since mid-2021, reflecting optimism that inflation is easing and incomes are rising, according to a closely watched survey by the University of Michigan. Since November, consumer sentiment has risen 29 percent, marking the largest two-month increase in more than 30 years. Gas prices, often a key driver of sentiment, have fallen 40 percent since June 2022, to just over $3 a gallon. Weekly jobless claims are at their lowest level in more than a year. Sales of cars, clothing and sporting goods all picked up during the holidays, as consumers felt confident enough to keep spending. Meanwhile, the stock market is surging to new records, with the S&P 500 closing at an all-time high on Friday.

Philip Bump did a necessary deep-dive into James Comer’s mendacity about those transcripts. It’s truly astonishing that they are able to get away with this: One of the arguments offered by attorneys for President Biden’s son Hunter when responding to a subpoena from the House Oversight Committee for a closed-door deposition was that the committee had shown a pattern of cherry-picking what would be presented to the public. This is unquestionably true. Over and over and over and over and over, committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) has made debunked and unsubstantiated public statements that cast the president and/or his son as dishonest or has rushed to release unsubstantiated claims or information that similarly collapse under scrutiny. The first year of his investigation into the Bidens made extremely little progress as a result — except where it matters, in the right-wing media universe. Clearly, though, this has not gone unnoticed by those enmeshed in Comer’s sprawling investigation. There was that letter from Hunter Biden’s lawyer Abbe Lowell in November.

We have all heard that 2023 was the warmest year ever for the world, by some margin. We have heard things like this before. What, on the face of it, was worthy of huge headlines got a mention but not a great amount of attention. The IPCC and many competent authorities tell us acting resolutely Continue reading »

Amplified by the terrible sufferings in many places, and by the divided voices, especially as regards Israel/Gaza, we have some learnings about peacebuilding that it might be timely to reflect on. ‘Cease-fire,’ of course, is just a less vivid way of saying ‘we will stop killing people we don’t know.’ We continue to pray that Continue reading »

With Netanyahu now declaring Israel will not accept the creation of a Palestinian state the burning question is how the US will react. To complicate matters Netanyahu has also said that the war against Hamas will continue for months enlightening the world to the fact that the slaughter of civilians will continue. To this course Continue reading »

John Menadue talks to Phillip Adams about being an outsider, about his career in politics, particularly about the criticism surrounding his decision to continue as Head of the Department of Prime Minister after the dismissal on 11 November, 1975 and about his deep spiritual beliefs. Originally broadcast on 12/10/99. Listen to the interview: Continue reading »

This article has been so difficult to write but I am convinced it needs to be said to open up discussion about how caring for the severely and progressively disabled proceeds in relation to any hallucinations that may come along as part of the disability. I am wanting to emphasize that treating and relating to Continue reading »

Mark was born and raised in the Boston area. His rough and tumble youth left an indelible mark reflected in his Boston blue collar accent, attitude and life-long membership of the Red Sox nation. He fell in love with Hawaii the moment he arrived in January 1969 to pursue a PH. D. in Oceanography at Continue reading »

The underbelly of contemporary violence is colonialism, the politics of disposability, religious fundamentalism, neoliberalism, and raw militarism. Violence seems to have engulfed the earth like a blinding sandstorm. Women and children are being killed en mass in Gaza, homelessness is increasingly spreading among youth in many countries, inequality exists at staggering levels, and a culture Continue reading »

In exact opposition to the way Israeli ‘journalists’ are now burying the truth of their government’s genocide in Gaza, Pilger wrote in 2006: ‘In reclaiming the honour of our craft, not to mention the truth, we journalists at least need to understand the historic task to which we are assigned – that is, to report Continue reading »

. Sublime, breathtaking, and absolutely magnificent. A choir of angels touching the depths of my soul. In loving memory of my parents-in-law, Ritva [† 2021] and Erik Syll [† 2020]

The rumors & rumblings surrounding how long Millie Gibson's Ruby Sunday will be a companion on Doctor Who got louder with a recent report.

Sixty years ago today, Capitol Records issued the “Meet The Beatles!” album, which was the American version of the “With The Beatles” LP that had been issued the previous November in the U.K. I actually didn’t get to listen to … Continue reading →

Removed from reality Somewhere over the last day or so someone remarked that the Masters of the Universe meeting in Davos, Switzerland seem utterly unremarkable. That is, judging by the lack of fresh ideas floating around the ultra-rich conclave. On what to do about fanatical populism spreading across the globe, they’ve got worries but otherwise nothin’, according to Nahal Toosi, Politico’s senior foreign affairs correspondent: In conversation after conversation here, I detected resignation and helplessness among business executives when it came to their counterparts in government. There’s a desperate desire to see the world’s political leaders appeal more to moderates instead of capitalizing on extremes, but there’s also recognition that the political market doesn’t easily reward the people in the middle. C-suite types fear the polarization will only deepen as half of the global population, in more than 60 countries, votes in 2024 — everywhere from South Africa to the United States.