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In journalism and politics there are beat ups every day of the week. But some are so outrageous that they make a zephyr breeze look like a tornado. The ABC and others recently reported that Labor was losing support in the Calwell seat due to what they see as Labor’s support for Israel. The evidence Continue reading »

The dire state of truth in Australia’s civic space crystallised in 2023. We had seen the waning influence of News Corp’s impact on our elections and assumed it meant that enough of us were becoming inoculated against the propaganda. The defeat of the notoriously mendacious Coalition government might have signalled a ceasefire, a moment for Continue reading »

Housing inequality has put Australia on a destructive trajectory, how the Coalition blocks economic reform, Australia’s changing politics played out in Tasmania. Read on for the weekly roundup of links to articles, podcasts, reports and other media on current economic and political issues. Our road to destructive inequality Inequality is manifest in many domains, and Continue reading »

Janet Yellen came, she pontificated and postulated, ate some nice Chinese food, drank a beer with Nicholas Burns, a man that Chinese people loathe and hold little respect for; then she left. This tells the world all about her trip, what she ate and drank was more important than what she said and did. It Continue reading »

Iran has never had a nuclear bomb—why does Israel insist that it’s an imminent threat? It remains a classic moment in United Nations history. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used the dignified setting of a General Assembly speech in the fall of 2012 to raise the spectre of an Iranian nuclear bomb. He displayed a Continue reading »

The pharma giant previously received billions in federal funding and raked in huge profits, but owes nothing in 2023 income taxes thanks to legal loopholes and Trump-era tax cuts.

Boo-hoo-hoo There has been something of a brouhaha this past week over a new book by Paul Waldman and Thomas Schaller called White Rural Rage. Evidently some political science scholars in the field felt that it was unfair to the rural voters by characterizing them as feeling rage instead of righteous anger. We urban types are mean as always and need to be more understanding of some people’s racism, xenophobia, misogyny and fetishistic Trump worship because well … they’re unhappy. Waldman and Schaller responded. Here are some extended excerpts. You can read the whole thing here and you should. When we wrote White Rural Rage, we knew that our provocative argument and book title would arouse ire on the far right. We were not disappointed. But we have been surprised by the ferocity of the criticism we have received from scholars of rural politics. Their response has made clear that there are unspoken rules about criticizing certain Americans—rules that get to the heart of the very case we have tried to make about the deep geographic divisions in our politics at this fragile moment in our nation’s history. Pillorying Donald Trump is fine.

“Meet the ‘pursuer of nubile young females’ who helped pass Arizona’s 1864 abortion law.” — Washington Post

We here at the GOP take values very seriously. We try to project a certain image to the public so that they’ll associate us with morality. So, it’s time for us to ask an important question. Is reinstating this misogynist 1864 law written by a child rapist bad for our brand?

Anywhere else he’d be a chump… If there’s one thing that characterizes this election season so far it’s the fact that the country remains as polarized as it’s been these last few years and both sides are very upset. But nobody seems to be able to figure out exactly why. Is it inflation or the media or the pandemic or too much doomscrolling or something else? There are plenty of theories but no consensus, at least not yet. The most common explanation is that the economy is bringing everyone down. It’s hard to explain why people are so negative about it since the numbers are actually quite robust with the job market being the best it’s been since the 1960s and wages rising rapidly, especially for the people in the middle and working classes. For the first time in decades the gains in this economy are flowing to them instead of the upper 1%. Here’s Sen. J.D.

I dessa tider — när ljudrummet dränks i den kommersiella radions pubertalflams — har man nästan gett upp. Men det finns ljus i mörkret. I programmet Text och musik med Eric Schüldt — som sänds på söndagsförmiddagarna i P2 — kan man lyssna på seriös musik och en programledare som verkligen har något att säga […]

Just stop it Democrats regularly say three things that set my teeth on edge. It’s an ingrained cultural tic, I guess, and they recite them like the catechism without thinking. First, they complain that conservative voters, particularly rural ones, vote against their best interests. See “Thank you for not voting your best interests” for what I think about that. Second, they insist that every election is the most important of our lifetime. They seem to think this alarmist message is somehow motivating for their base. But is it? Really? When every damned election is the most important election of our lifetime, what happens instead is Democrats go into a defensive crouch. Innovation is off the table. They take no chances. Find another gear? Hell, no. For most campaigns, their idea of finding another gear is to do what they’ve always done, the way they’ve always done it, just more of it. That’s a dinosaur’s recipe for losing. Finally — and I heard this again at an event last night — Democrats of a certain age love to joke that you should vote early and vote often. IN THIS POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT, they still say that.

Mai Tran began catsitting in 2021 while Tran was on pandemic unemployment, often staying overnight in people’s homes. Tran has now cared for twenty-two cats and traveled to ten apartments all over New York City, observing the interior lives of cat owners and appeasing their neuroses. From home vet visits to black eyes to refugee cats, Chronicles of a Catsitter documents the most memorable days on the job.

Same old, same old ain’t working “If you smell what the Rock is cooking,” so to speak, it’s long been clear that MAGAstan is more about posturing than policy. It’s about Trumpish attitude aided and abetted by his fans’ poor short-term memory. Donald Trump can say one thing on Monday and the opposite on Friday and fans couldn’t care less. Just as long as whatever he says is delivered loudly and proudly with the same shameless, in-your-face insincerity. Wrestling fans eat that shit up. They pay good money for it week after week. It’s not Sondheim or Shakespeare, but it’s theater. Digby yesterday mentioned the “stale sameness” of the Trump rally and “the weird hypnotic nature of his speeches.” But it’s that sameness that mesmerizes, like endless Grateful Dead improvs, like the old Latin mass and Gregorian chants. People can lose themselves for a while in the rhythms and harmonies before returning to the real world. The attraction of sameness, of pithy catchphrases, of the anticipation of the all-too-familiar you know is coming, is something the left, with its demand for novelty, has never appreciated.

Last year, I received an email asking if I would write an introductory essay for the Tor Essentials reissue of Kim Stanley Robinson’s novel Icehenge. It took me approximately thirty seconds to convince myself that this was not some kind of hallucination, and another three or four to type YES! OF COURSE!!! and hit reply. It […]

“The Arizona Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a 160-year-old near-total abortion ban still on the books in the state is enforceable, a bombshell decision that adds the state to the growing lists of places where abortion care is effectively banned.” — NBC

1. Property Statue 32: Successions of power must follow equal primogeniture, meaning the firstborn, regardless of gender, inherits the kingdom.

2. Section 42: If any person shall willingly and knowingly be present at the fighting of any duel or aid or give countenance thereto, such person shall be punished by imprisonment in the Territorial prison for any term not exceeding three years nor less than one year.

3. Marriage Decree Law: The Eldar, an immortal Elvish race, may only marry once.

4. Section 3: All marriages of white persons with negroes or mulattoes are declared to be illegal and void.

Israel's key defence is that it is not intending to destroy Gazans, but to destroy Hamas - so whatever happens is therefore not intentional