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Thu, 18/05/2023 - 07:00
The Mifepristone case was argued before the 5th Circuit today and it went exactly as predicted: A panel of 5th Circuit Court of Appeals judges — all Republican appointees — unapologetically carried water for the anti-abortion litigants Wednesday during oral arguments in a case where those litigants are trying to get an abortion pill, mifepristone, yanked from the market.  “When we celebrated Mother’s Day, did we celebrate an illness?” Judge James Ho, a Donald Trump appointee, snarked, regurgitating a false argument by the anti-abortion doctor plaintiffs that the Food and Drug Administration classified pregnancy as an illness to rush mifepristone through the approval process.  But perhaps the comedic peak of the arguments came when George W. Bush appointee Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod took time out to scold the lawyer for Danco, a manufacturer of mifepristone, for criticizing Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, the anti-abortion district court judge that handed down the first ruling in the case.
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Thu, 18/05/2023 - 05:30
Who could have predicted? What a lovely couple: Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) has filed to divorce her husband of two decades, according to court records obtained Tuesday by The Daily Beast. The April 25 filing seeks to dissolve her marriage to Jayson Boebert, with whom she shares four sons. An affidavit of service, also obtained by The Daily Beast, indicate that Jayson Boebert appeared to be caught off guard by the court proceedings. He chased away a process server with an expletive-laden tirade and let his dogs loose when he was served with the divorce papers, the affidavit said. “Once he learned that he was being served with Dissolution of Marriage papers he was extremely angry,” the process server wrote. “I tried to hand him the documents but [he] did not take them. He started yelling and using profanities, and told me that I was trespassing, and that he was calling the Sheriff’s Office. I told him I was leaving the documents on the chair outside of the door, he closed the door then let the dogs out.” The document noted that Jayson was cleaning a gun and drinking a “tall glass of beer” when he was served.
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Thu, 18/05/2023 - 04:58
Speaking at the American Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday, deputy prime minister and defence minister Richard Marles opened with an anecdote praising a former PricewaterhouseCoopers partner. It was an interesting choice given the tax leaks scandal engulfing PwC, which is making headlines globally, and last week forced the resignation of its Australian CEO. But Marles was amongst Continue reading »
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Thu, 18/05/2023 - 04:57
Interrogating the public record provides a fundamental challenge to the integrity of the Defence Strategic Review (DSR). It comes in the form of a reality which few wish to acknowledge: the captive Australian strategic imagination – a phenomenon of which Peter Dean, Head of the United States Study Centre at the University of Sydney and Continue reading »
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Thu, 18/05/2023 - 04:56
Many contributors have exposed the blatant ethical corruption of recent journalism that presages combat with a rampaging China.  Just as before, now again, there are ‘interested’ parties more than happy to be the beneficiaries of the click-bait journalism on display. Eisenhower cautioned against complacency towards the military-industrial complex. To this we can nowadays add too Continue reading »
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Thu, 18/05/2023 - 04:54
Rupert Murdoch has done incalculable harm to the democratic experiment throughout the AUKUS nations and beyond. In Victoria, his propaganda campaigns have made him the magnate who cried wolf. The state’s integrity infrastructure is in perilous condition but Newscorp’s constant invective against Labor governments, and Premier Dan Andrew’s government in particular, has made it more Continue reading »
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Thu, 18/05/2023 - 04:53
Last Monday, Minister for the Environment Tanya Plibersek and Minister for Emergency Management Murray Watt announced an intended spending of $236 million to upgrade the nation’s flood warning gauge networks. This is welcome news, but it must also be recognised that for flood warning to be truly effective we will need to pay more attention Continue reading »
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Thu, 18/05/2023 - 04:51
More Indonesians than Americans are likely to vote in key presidential elections next year. But Australia is focusing on distant North America, not adjacent Southeast Asia, the zone where the Titans could clash. India is the world’s largest democracy – population 1.3 billion. It’s growing so fast that it will soon overtake one-party China. Far Continue reading »
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Thu, 18/05/2023 - 04:50
In a recent Guardian advert pleading for readers to hand over money to the paper, leading columnist Marina Hyde declared: ‘My absolute favourite thing about the Guardian is not being told what to write.’ Hyde – or Marina Elizabeth Catherine Dudley-Williams, as she prefers not to be known – was, in fact, making ‘the most Continue reading »
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Thu, 18/05/2023 - 04:00
Florida’s economy is already paying the price @gilbertoalvolante May 16th update. No workers in Florida. ♬ original sound – gilbertoalvolante In a time of full employment, chasing immigrants out of your state may not be the smartest move: The videos from Florida aren’t hard to find: Dozens of clips of empty fields, abandoned construction sites, and scores of truck drivers calling for boycotts of the state have racked up hundreds of thousands of views on TikTok and Twitter over the last month. The common thread? Fear and frustration over the state’s newest anti-immigrant law, signed a week ago by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, which mandates that businesses with 25 or more employees verify the citizenship status of workers through the federal online portal E-Verify or face stronger penalties, among other new restrictions. The new law, which goes into effect on July 1, is the latest move by DeSantis to capitalize on immigration politics as he prepares for a likely but as-yet-unannounced 2024 presidential campaign.
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Thu, 18/05/2023 - 03:00

At college graduations, the faculty wear dark flowing robes, satiny hoods, and puffy hats. Look closely, and you’ll notice little variations—they are not arbitrary. Each detail tells a rich story about the professor wearing the regalia.

Robe Color
Indicates the professor’s approach to dressing for class:

  • Black: Funky vintage
  • Red: Four-season surf vibe
  • Dark blue: Frump
  • Any other color: Whatever the fuck I want; I have tenure

The Velvet Bands on the Robe’s Sleeves
Indicates the professor’s approach to grading papers:

Created
Thu, 18/05/2023 - 02:30
It’s going to be a long campaign The long awaited Durham Report about his “investigation of the investigation” of the origins of the Russia probe was finally released on Monday after four long years. And just like everything that touches Donald Trump these days, the right insists that it says something completely at odds with reality — Durham’s report simply does not say what they say it says. But what else is new? Every nonsensical charge made by Donald Trump is deemed by his supporters to automatically be true and every charge against him is a hoax or a witch hunt. In this case Trump and his media enablers have been touting this investigation for years as “The Big One” that finally prove that “Russia, Russia, Russia” was a witch hunt, set-up by Hillary Clinton and the Democrats. It fails on every count to prove that case. All Durham concluded was that the FBI should not have opened a full investigation but rather a preliminary investigation based on what it knew at the time.
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Thu, 18/05/2023 - 00:30
“We have to go gutteral” on freedom Democrats made a “catastrophic mistake” by ceding freedom as an issue to Republicans, Anand Giridharadas told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell Tuesday night. From Ronald Reagan on they added “freedom” like sugary sprinkles to everything from busting unions to French fries. Republicans came to “own” freedom through relentless branding, Giridharadas said, until Donald Trump came along with “American carnage.” In his wake, Republicans have abandoned freedom for control. Control of womens’ bodies.Control of what we can read.Control of what we can learn.Control of whom we can marry. Control of our health care.Control of the country itself. Especially that. Republicans have abandoned freedom for control, for authoritarians like Trump, Putin, Orbán, DeSantis, and (OMFG) Tommy Tuberville. (“He should just move to Russia. Suits him better,” tweeted Paul Rosenberg.) “All of these fights are fights for freedom,” Giridharadas adds. “And often, they are reframed in these wonky policy terms by folks on the left.