Reading
It’s time for me to have my final say on a dispute with Matt Yglesias that has been going at a fairly slow pace. A couple of weeks ago, Matt put up a post (really a Substack newsletter, but I still think in blog terms), headlined Polarization is a choice with the subtitle, “Political elites […]
Let’s not pretend otherwise 🚨 BREAKING: Our video has now been seen by over 1.8 million people. We must stop MAGA fascism. Share this and chip in to help this ad get on air at the next GOP debate: https://t.co/8dvjb4tsxC pic.twitter.com/yEC8WdL9pk — Mission: Democracy (@MissnDemocracy) September 20, 2023 Look what’s going on: A Republican candidate for Missouri governor on Monday vowed to burn books if elected after he was criticized for a video showing him burning cardboard boxes with a flamethrower. The video, which has gone viral on social media, shows state Sen. Bill Eigel, a Weldon Spring Republican who is running for governor in 2024, and state Sen. Nick Schroer, a St. Charles Republican, using flamethrowers to torch a stack of boxes at a fundraising event in Defiance in St. Charles County on Friday. “In the video, I am taking a flame thrower to cardboard boxes representing what I am going to do to the leftist policies and RINO corruption of the Jeff City swamp,” Eigel said in a statement to The Star on Monday.
San Diego is a biodiversity hotspot for bees. Researchers need help documenting them.
The post Where the Wild Bees Are appeared first on Nautilus.
It’s been years since I raged at Joe Klein, mostly because I blessedly never come across anything by him anymore. Unfortunately, he has a substack and it came to my attention today. Nothing has changed. He’s still the hippie bashing piece of work he always was. Get a load of this: A metaphor that applies to my current political dismay: I am annoyed by Joe Biden but I am appalled by Donald Trump. Why is that a metaphor? Because I am annoyed, chronically, by the Democratic Party but appalled, mortally, by the Republicans. Which raises a question: I haven’t toted up the word count, but I suspect that I spend a lot more space criticizing Dems than GOPs. Why is that? Well, because it seems in these DysTrumpian times, the Democrats are the only hope of saving our democracy, despite their idiot array of indulgences. They are misguided, but not fundamentally irrational. They believe in our institutions, even those—like the Supreme Court and the electoral college—that are weighted against them; even those—like the military—that they really don’t believe in.
“Telling workers they’ll be fired for striking is violating federal labor law, and that’s not something becoming of a senator.”
The post UAW Files Labor Complaint Against Sen. Tim Scott for Saying “You Strike, You’re Fired.” appeared first on The Intercept.
More than 11,000 people have been confirmed dead in the devastating floods in the Libyan city of Derna. Yet mainstream media outlets would have you believe the destruction that has drawn worldwide headlines is due to climate change.
The post The Real Reasons the Derna Dam in Libya Broke appeared first on MintPress News.
With something expected to drop this weekend regarding the 60th anniversary of the BBC's Doctor Who, The Subwave Network shared a video.
It sure looks like they’re going to shutdown the government. What comes next should be very fun: President Biden has steered clear of the chaos in the lower chamber, but his aides have instead urged McCarthy to stick to the spending deal he struck with Biden back in May. One such aide said, “We agreed to the budget deal…House GOP should abide by it,” and added that their “chaos is making the case that they are responsible if there is a shutdown.” Gaetz was all too ready to lay the blame at McCarthy’s feet should a shutdown occur. On Wednesday afternoon, he said, “We will have a government shutdown and it is absolutely Speaker McCarthy’s fault. We cannot blame Joe Biden for not having moved our individual spending bills. We cannot blame House Democrats. We can’t even blame Chuck Schumer in the Senate.” Does Gaetz think he’s going to be the speaker? I’m beginning to think he does. Which is ridiculous. What does Gaetz want McCarthy to do? He wants him to defund the Jack Smith Special Counsel. He is only following orders: I think there’s a typo.
Although supporters stood in the rain for hours to enter, Trump’s rally in Dubuque is not as well attended as past rallies have been. The venue can hold 3,000 people. From my vantage point in the back, accounting for the large press area, I would guess the room is about half full pic.twitter.com/bFWvG6ws8n — Olivia Nuzzi (@Olivianuzzi) September 20, 2023 Trump has been speaking for over an hour. His supporters are beginning to leave. — Olivia Nuzzi (@Olivianuzzi) September 20, 2023 CNN reports on what he’s selling in Iowa this year: Trump largely focused his Dubuque speech on immigration and the border. While he did at times call out Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Trump largely focused on attacking President Joe Biden over what he referred to as the “nation-wrecking catastrophe” on the southern border, describing it as “an invasion.” The former president also lauded his immigration policies while in office, saying he replaced “catch-and-release” with “detain and deport.” He also argued that Mexico paid for the wall because they supplied the US with soldiers at the border for free.
During the disastrous Vietnam War, it was said that the US government treated the public like a mushroom farm: keeping it in the dark and feeding it with manure. The heroic Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers documenting the unrelenting US government lying about the war in order to protect politicians who would be embarrassed Continue reading »
India appears to have taken a leaf out of Saudi Arabia’s book in dealing with its critics abroad, with the alleged killing by Indian agents of a prominent Khalistan activist in Canada recently. In fact, if one goes by the accusation levelled by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, India has not even bothered to hunt Continue reading »
‘I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice’ ~ Abraham Lincoln The UK High Court decision in the Assange case may be just over a week away. The delegation of Australian politicians currently in Washington DC have reportedly been granted audience with Republicans Rand Paul, Thomas Massie, & Vivek Ganapathy Ramaswamy and Continue reading »
Two significant reports concerning people with disabilities are due be released. First will be the Independent Review of the National Disability Insurance Scheme and second, the findings of the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability. Underpinning both inquiries is Australia’s commitment to the United Nations Convention on the Rights Continue reading »
Magicians regularly use distraction to trick us into perceiving one thing while another is happening. Politicians use similar tricks to signal concern about public policy problems. Recently there has been an organised campaign to get us to believe that NAPLAN literacy results can all be explained by differences in the methods used to teach reading. Continue reading »
Inherent in the nature of insanity is the fact that those inflicted by it are unaware of their mental state. As the emission of greenhouse gases continues, global warming accelerates, bushfires and floods engulf the planet, new fossil fuel projects are subsidised, climate science is ignored, climate change projections are kept away from the public Continue reading »
“War is good for business.” So reads a quote from an arms industry executive in a recent Reuters article titled “At London arms fair, global war fears are good for business” about Europe’s biggest arms show, the biennial Defence and Security Equipment International. You will probably be unsurprised to learn that Reuters does not name Continue reading »
Amnesty’s new report accusing Eritrea’s government of gruesome war crimes relies heavily on anonymous testimony, grainy satellite images, and zero field investigation. It is the latest salvo in the West’s campaign to topple the country’s independent government. Eritrea is a small country with a geostrategically significant coast on the Red Sea. Fiercely independent, it is one of only two African nations that refuse to collaborate with AFRICOM, the US Africa Command. Committed to an incremental, self-reliant development strategy, it has […]
The post Amnesty International pushes regime change in Eritrea with dubious, unverifiable report first appeared on The Grayzone.
The post Amnesty International pushes regime change in Eritrea with dubious, unverifiable report appeared first on The Grayzone.