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Big public universities, historically at the forefront of catalyzing activist movements, are now using legal action, disciplinary efforts, and rule changes to chill speech and dissent.

The post How Universities Are Trying to Stop Another Year of Anti-War Activism appeared first on The Intercept.

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Terminology, take care. Take care Pearls & Irritations that you don’t fall into the trap – fall into the trap that is being carefully set. What is the trap? Why, the use of words. What words? Well, words such as ‘Gaza’, ‘Hamas’, ‘Hezbollah’, ‘terrorist’. What can be wrong with using the word ‘Gaza’ – you Continue reading »

The wave of enemy destabilisation ploys jumped from Lebanon to Syria this week, with a swarm of foreign-backed extremists breaking into Aleppo. Israel warned that Syria was next, but can the militants do today what they couldn’t achieve for almost a decade? Republished from The Cradle In his speech announcing Israel’s agreement to a ceasefire Continue reading »

There were many people, apparently, who voted for Trump who justified it with plain vanilla...

Hunter Biden was set to be sentenced and probably put in jail this week on a trumped up charge that was brought solely because he was Joe Biden’s son. He lied on a form about being on drugs and he paid his taxes late. He entered into a plea deal in which he would admit guilt and get probation, a fair sentence, and the prosecution blew it up in court. He could have faced years in jail for crimes that no one who hadn’t also committed much more serious crimes would have ever been prosecuted. Biden pardoned Hunter tonight and he did the right thing. There is a lot of discussion over on BlueSky decrying this saying that Biden has destroyed the argument that presidents shouldn’t use abuse the pardon power and Trump will now be able to say he can pardon all the J6ers. First of all, Trump doesn’t need any excuse to pardon his henchmen. He already pardoned Steve Bannon, Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, Roger Stone and Jared Kushner’s father whom he just named to be the Ambassador to France! Even Dinesh D’Souza and Joe Arpaio! Roger Stone is his best friend. The others are close political allies and in laws.

A rule of law turned inside out The whole world will watch Donald Trump and his gang of thieves defenestrate the “rule of law” in Putinesque style. Michael Tomasky considers the implications of Trump nominating Kash Patel to run the FBI inside what Trump likes to call the Department of Injustice. Trump 2.0 aims to make the name a reality. Patel’s only real qualification is that he is a “one-thousand-percent Trump loyalist,” Tomasky writes: Etc., etc. For all the raising of alarms, the punditry is short on countermeasures. I’m reminded of the anti-nuclear movement’s Helen Caldicott and her rapid-fire, scare-them-straight speech about the horrifying effects of nuclear weapons. Even her allies grew weary of the scare tactics: “We knew it was past when someone interrupted the speech one evening, actually interrupted it, and said, ‘We know all that, but what can we do?’” From his remove in England, Brian Beutler recommends Democrats find some actual leaders, stat, while they still have time to define the incoming Trump regime.

Let’s state the obvious bits and get them out of the way:

• The rebels are basically Al-Qaeda;
• They are supported by Turkey, Israel and the US;
• The Syrian army barely fought during the initial attacks and it was very embarrassing;
• Aleppo fell in a couple days. It may take a couple years to take it back;
• The timing is intended to take advantage of Hezbollah’s being weakened and tied down by Israel.

Syria was losing the previous war until Hezbollah and Russia intervened. It may well lose this war if Hezbollah and/or Russia don’t send troops, but both of them have other enemies they need to worry about.

If Syria falls, Russia loses its Mediterranean naval and air bases and thus a great deal of its military reach. Hezbollah loses its main supply line to Iran.

Now you see it, now you don’t Before the 2024 election itself disappears down the memory hole, take a moment to consider the disappearance of voter fraud as a campaign issue. Democrats would cheat. There would be massive corruption in the election. Migrants Democrats were importing through Joe Biden’s open southern borders would tip the scales for Kamala Harris. Nearly 9 in 10 Trump voters believed voter fraud would play a major role in 2024. Etc. Then Donald Trump won. Voter fraud vanished like ground fog at sunrise. It was morning in MAGAstan. Politico and Morning Consult ran a poll: In polling just days before the election, Trump supporters expressed little confidence in the election outcome, with a whopping 87 percent substantially or somewhat agreeing with the statement that voter fraud was a “serious issue” that could determine the outcome of the election. Among Harris supporters, roughly half expressed similar worries. That partisan divide disappeared after Election Day. Shocked? Views on the economy flipped as well, considered a “very important” issue ahead of Nov.

Not taking seriously political figures we find undesirable will not change their potential impact or ambitions – Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Steve Bannon, and Nigel Farage only benefit from being underestimated, writes Hardeep Matharu 

Dear Sir or Madam:

It has come to the attention of our firm that your preschool is in violation of dozens of federal registration laws surrounding the intellectual property owned and operated by the estate of Frère Jacques, also known as Brother John.

Our findings show that classrooms within your organization are willfully using the “Frère Jacques” melody, ad nauseam, without approval or designation, to generate teaching mnemonics on subjects ranging from:

• Hand-washing techniques
• Alphabet memorization
• Line leader responsibilities
• Shoe-tying and knapsack maintenance
• Color and shape coordination

The reports also include allegations that our intellectual property has been “tortured beyond recognition” in the form of “gross and unnatural” adaptations that burrow into the mind like “an Alabama deer tick.”

As such, we are asking you to cease and desist all bastardizations of the “Frère Jacques” nursery rhyme, including but not limited to the following variants:

If the US president-elect’s efforts to eliminate America’s trade deficit succeed, real-estate prices in Miami and Manhattan will crash, the cost of servicing government debt will skyrocket and the Dow Jones will plummet. Perhaps he should be reminded that the most vengeful of deities is one that grants him his sincerest wish. ATHENS – Donald […]

The post America’s Trade Deficit Is Not Afraid of Donald Trump – Project Syndicate op-ed appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.

When I was first invited to Manifesta, the annual conference of the Workers’ Party of Belgium (PTB), I had no idea what to expect. I had never heard of the PTB, and I knew very little about Belgium — still less about Ostend, the coastal city where the conference took place. Arriving at my hotel, […]

"In many ways, this COP was a deep disappointment", those feeling the full force of catastrophic climate change tell the Byline Podcast

When he saw colours, Kandinsky heard music. Exploring the role of synaesthesia in his increasing move towards abstraction

- by Aeon Video

Watch at Aeon

Why did Julian S Huxley, first director of the UN agency, think eugenics held the key to a more evolved, harmonious world?

- by Stefan Bernhardt-Radu

Read at Aeon

Time pressure and the limitations of memory compel you and your listener to engage in a fascinating linguistic trade-off

- by Julie Sedivy

Read at Psyche