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It’s just a legal license to kill The NY Times had this on the shooting of Ralph Yarl in Kansas City: Chief Graves said that the teenager was expected to give a formal statement to investigators when his injuries allow. She also said that there was a “potential” self-defense or “stand your ground” element that investigators were examining. But the following day, Mayor Lucas said that Missouri’s Stand Your Ground law, which was adopted in 2016, should not apply in this case. “If Stand Your Ground really lets somebody just shoot somebody that rings a doorbell,” he said, “that put the life of every postal worker, every campaigner, every Amazon delivery person at risk in this country.” I’m sure the man believes he was standing his ground because he “felt threatened” when a Black teenager rang his doorbell. Then there’s the man in New York who shot at a car that accidentally turned into the wrong driveway and killed a young woman as the car was turning around. I’m sure he believes he was “standing his ground” too.
Like so many Australians, I am very worried by our commitment to AUKUS. I agree strongly with many other critics that we have been placed in peril by our government’s submarine agreement with the US and the UK. As John Menadue wrote on 1st April “The AUKUS alliance has forever changed Australia’s sovereignty. Foreign policy Continue reading »
US and British arms industry companies and their little mentioned but crucial support cast of Taiwanese military, lawmakers and government official counterparts are opposed to China-Taiwan reunification, because the current situation acts as their ATM, generating billions of dollars in profit. The recent visit to China by former Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou – the first Continue reading »
One of the most hated aspects of the Morrison government was the secrecy. Over and again, we continue to shock to revelations of hidden wrongdoing long after their defeat last May. It was a crucial aspect of the Coalition government’s efforts over a decade to diminish our democratic structures, shifting us towards competitive authoritarianism, and Continue reading »
In Australia, public universities face a crisis that threatens the future of this country. It is not a crisis of funding. Nor is it yet a quality crisis, although members of the Association of Australian University Professors (AAUP) are attuned to seeing standards slip and young colleagues brutalised by the Australian Higher Education System (AHES). Continue reading »
The countries where it’s not safe for Australians to travel have multiplied, but not because of COVID. They include the places where we fought the war on terror. Twenty years ago Australia joined the US ‘coalition of the willing’ to invade Iraq. One reason for doing that, our leaders said, was to remove Saddam Hussein’s Continue reading »
A speech by former Treasury secretary Dr Ken Henry last month was reported as a great call for comprehensive tax reform. But it was also something much more disturbing: an entirely different perspective on why our economy has been weak for most of this century and – once the present pandemic-related surge has passed – Continue reading »
Trump’s suit against Michael Cohen is characteristically stupid From David Corn: Last week, when Donald Trump filed a $500 million civil lawsuit in federal court against his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, legal experts scoffed and guffawed. Trump’s suit accused Cohen of breaching confidentiality and “spreading falsehoods” about the former president—that is, ratting out Trump. The timing of the filing was suspicious, given that it came shortly after Trump was indicted in the porn-star-hush-money case for which Cohen is a key witness. It seemed an act of revenge on Trump’s part. The Florida attorney Trump retained for this effort, Alejandro Brito, is a specialist in franchise disputes (not half-billion-dollar high-stakes cases), and the complaint was written in a bombastic and amateurish manner often associated with many of Trump’s legal efforts. The lawsuit raised the boomerang-ish prospect of Cohen winning the opportunity to submit Trump to the discovery process and obtaining documents and testimony from the former failed casino operator.
~ Today's Water Cooler ~
In honor of David Tennant's special day, Georgia Tennant posted birthday wishes, and Doctor Who shared a new 60th-anniversary look.
Offered as a public service. This man is the likely GOP nominee for president and it will be close. Dear God. He wants to build concentration camps. Maybe they can build munitions for the war effort against Mexico.
Shameless hypocrisy Keir Starmer has told Sky News that Tory PM Rishi Sunak shouldn’t ‘hide behind the process’ to obscure or delay details of Sunak’s failure to properly declare his interests: But Starmer infamously and excruciatingly squirmed, dodged and yes, hid behind the process during the Labour leadership contest to hide his right-wing millionaire donors […]
Two thirds of police stations in England have closed since 2010. A new study digs into the dire consequences, Josiah Mortimer reports
Fox’s lead attorney argued that, without makeup, Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity would be “totally unrecognizable to the jury.”
CIVIL SOCIETY COMMITTEE STAGE BRIEFING ON THE ONLINE SAFETY BILL FOR HOUSE OF LORDS: ILLEGAL CONTENT SAFETY DUTIES AND PRIOR RESTRAINT – Supported by Wikimedia UK, Index on Censorship, and Open Rights Group. Published by Open Rights Group – Open Rights is a non-profit company limited by Guarantee, registered in England and Wales no. 05581537. […]
But you knew that Rep. Jeff Jackson (D-NC) will be lucky to survive the coming next round of gerrymandered congressional maps from the NC GOP. But he has shown himself adept at using social media since long before he got to Congress. Watch. He’s slick. @jeffjacksonnc Rep. Jeff Jackson (NC): Fake anger #fyp #politics #nc #charlotte #raleigh #asheville #durham #greensboro ♬ original sound – Jeff Jackson Maybe too slick. Perhaps another of those pretty boys we’ve seen use his military service to position himself for public office. But watch that space.
Sofia Samatar is the author of five books, most recently the memoir The White Mosque. Kate Zambreno is the author of nine books, most recently…
I’ve got a piece up at Politico this morning, setting out what I think the real Clarence Thomas scandal is, why corruption may not be the best way to think about it, and what the proper approach of the Left should be to the problem of Clarence Thomas: As a description of the problem of Clarence Thomas, however, corruption too has its limits. Morally, corruption rotates on the same axis as sincerity — forever testing the purity or impurity, the tainted genealogy, of someone’s beliefs. But money hasn’t paved the way to Thomas’ positions. On the contrary, Thomas’ positions have paved the way for money. A close look at his jurisprudence makes clear that Thomas is openly, proudly committed to […]
Open Rights Group welcomes calls by WhatsApp, Signal and Element for a re-think of government proposals that could force them to undermine the encryption of their services. In a letter published today, seven tech companies say that the Bill, “poses an unprecedented threat to the privacy, safety and security of every UK citizen and the […]
This is hard to talk about, because we live in a debased period.
Government’s job, in a democracy, should be to increase the welfare of the people and represent their will.
Because people elect the government, they need to know what the government is doing and has done in order to choose who to elect.
This is fundamental.
When people do not know what the government is doing, they cannot make good decisions.
Further, elected representatives (in principle, not in current practice) are the employees of the population. As employers, the population has a right to know what the representatives are doing. (Or if you prefer another metaphor, perhaps better, they are trustees.) They don’t have the right to know everything, but anything related to the job, including corruption and double dealing, they do.