by Aaron Major* I was first introduced to Richard Lachmann’s work as a graduate student and then had the privilege of calling him a colleague when I joined the faculty at the University at Albany in 2008. His sudden passing two years ago, on 19th September 2021, was a great personal loss to me and […]
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I just posted this on the echo chamber that is FB,
Hey Australia, at the very least read the Uluru Statement before the 14th of October.
Before you …
By Daniel Hurst in Canberra: The Guardian
More than 60 Australian federal politicians have explicitly called on the US to drop the prosecution of Julian Assange, warning of “a sharp and sustained outcry in Australia” if the WikiLeaks founder is extradited.
With a small cross-party delegation due to fly to Washington next week, the Guardian can reveal the lobbying trip has won the open support of 63 members of Australia’s House of Representatives and Senate.
Trump has been systematically ensuring that the GOP delegate rules benefit him in the primaries. I’m not saying it’s cheating exactly. But he’s using every lever of his power to make sure nobody else can come even close to him. It’s shady to say the least: Massachusetts Republicans just handed Donald Trump another win in his quest to tilt state delegate-selection rules in his favor. Republican state committee members in this Super Tuesday state voted unanimously on Thursday night to pass a primary delegate plan that keeps a winner-take-all threshold likely to benefit Trump. “It’s obviously a good thing,” Tom Hodgson, a former county sheriff running Trump’s campaign in Massachusetts, said in an interview. Trump, he said, “is in a very good position” here. The vote on the delegate plan comes as Trump’s campaign has aggressively worked to overhaul state party rules to benefit the former president’s bid for the White House. Their behind-the-scenes work so far has paid off, with states across the country revising state delegate selection rules.
Defend science There was nobody to defend Galileo back in the day. There’s no excuse for that sort of thing now. Dr. Peter Hotez wrote this: Nearly a century ago, when global dominance in scientific research began shifting to the United States from Europe, our nation built an empire firmly grounded in the natural sciences. America’s research universities and institutes flourished and provided the discoveries leading to the Manhattan Project, Silicon Valley’s tech industry, NASA and space exploration, vaccines to fight polio and other global infections, and new treatments for cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes and depression. As a science envoy for the State Department, I saw first-hand how global leaders and technocrats admired the U.S. for its higher education system of scientific training and support. They spoke to me with pride about their time spent at U.S. universities or their hopes and aspirations that one day their sons and daughters might study here. I have devoted my life to vaccine science.
It’s unprecedented: His decision to stand alongside the striking workers represents perhaps the most significant display of union solidarity ever by a sitting president. Biden’s announcement comes a week after he expressed solidarity with the UAW and said he “understand[s] the workers’ frustration.” The announcement of his trip was seen as a seismic moment within certain segments of the labor community. “Pretty hard-core,” said one union adviser, who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Biden had earlier attempted to send acting Labor Secretary Julie Su and senior adviser Gene Sperling, who has been the White House’s point person throughout the negotiations, to Detroit to assist with negotiations. However, the administration subsequently stood down following conversations with the union. Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said earlier Friday it was a “mutually agreed upon decision.” The president’s plans come as some Democrats have begun to question his response to the strike, recognizing that he needs the full backing of union workers in his presidential reelection bid.
African leaders and communities call for action to tackle the social and economic damage done by climate change. Warmer oceans lead to warmer conditions over land. UNESCO still looking for more government action to protect the Great Barrier Reef. African leaders call for phase down of coal In early September, leaders of African nations gathered Continue reading »
Strategic ambiguity is the greatest oral weapon of mass destruction that the Western world has ever invented. The Cambridge Dictionary defines “ambiguity” as “…the fact of something having more than one possible meaning and therefore possibly causing confusion…” The fact that the West’s strategic ambiguity has such a large following among its members is that, Continue reading »
The official position of the church on the Voice referendum is curious, because, despite overwhelming support for a YES vote from an extraordinary range of Catholic agencies, religious orders and congregations, and voluntary Catholic organisations, the highest national church authority, the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, has not followed suit. This is surprising because the whole Continue reading »
What do you think of when you think of Vienna? Probably not a model for affordable housing in Australia. More likely cafes, waltzes, music, art, the Ringstrasse, Lipizzaner stallions, spies and Harry Lime or the brilliance of post-war Austrian foreign policy in convincing the world that Hitler was a German and Beethoven an Austrian? Yet, Continue reading »
Rupert Murdoch is addicted to media and politics. He will be continually looking over Lachlan’s shoulder. In his resignation letter to staff Rupert Murdoch said-‘I can guarantee that I will be involved every day in the contest of ideas…I will be watching our broadcasts with a critical eye, reading our newspapers and websites and books Continue reading »
“It will be the workers, with their courage, resolution, and self-sacrifice, who will be chiefly responsible for achieving victory. The petty bourgeoisie will hesitate as long as possible and remain fearful, irresolute and inactive; but when victory is certain it will claim it for itself and will call upon the workers to behave in an Continue reading »
President Ranil Wickremesinghe also derided the term ‘Indo-Pacific’ as an artificial framework with an inconsistent definition. He also countered recent claims by New Delhi that Beijing was sending ships to Sri Lanka to spy on India. Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe on Monday declared the Aukus security pact between Australia, Britain and the US “a mistake” Continue reading »
A key function of state-corporate media is to keep the public pacified, ignorant and ill-equipped to disrupt establishment power. Knowledge that sheds light on how the world operates politically and economically is kept to a minimum by the ‘mainstream’ media. George Orwell’s famous ‘memory hole’ from ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ signifies the phenomenon brilliantly. Winston Smith’s work Continue reading »
I’m sure you’ve read all about the potential impeachment of Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz in Wisconsin despite her recent massive electoral win because of her promise to revisit the gerrymander laws in the state which have given Republicans a huge majority.I had not heard that there was a precedent for this back in 2018. Bolts magazine has the story: Margaret Workman is watching Wisconsin Republicans threaten Justice Janet Protasiewicz with impeachment from several states away. But she can relate to Protasiewicz like very few can. Workman sat on West Virginia’s supreme court in 2018—one of the three Democratic justices in the court’s majority—when Republican lawmakers decided to impeach that entire court.
There's a lot to unpack in BBC, Disney+, and Showrunner Russell T. Davies's three-episode Doctor Who 60th anniversary special event trailer.
The FBI visits took on a new urgency after Canada alleged Indian government involvement in the assassination of a Sikh separatist on Canadian soil.
The post FBI Warned Sikhs in the U.S. About Death Threats After Killing of Canadian Activist appeared first on The Intercept.
I blame Trump. And Newt Gingrich Pew has a new survey. America is a culture in distress. After what we’ve been through how could it be any other way? The rightwingers have been brainwashed by Fox, Trump and the erstwhile conservative movement to believe that liberals are destroying their way of life and must be stopped at all costs and the rest of us can see that the right has gone batshit crazy because of it. A comprehensive new Pew Research Center study of the state of the nation’s politics finds no single focal point for the public’s dissatisfaction. There is widespread criticism of the three branches of government, both political parties, as well as political leaders and candidates for office. Notably, Americans’ unhappiness with politics comes at a time of historically high levels of voter turnout in national elections. The elections of 2018, 2020 and 2022 were three of the highest-turnout U.S. elections of their respective types in decades. But voting in elections is very different from being satisfied with the state of politics – and the public is deeply dissatisfied. Just 4% of U.S.
Anders och Jens Johansson är söner till legendaren Jan Johansson. För några år sedan bestämde sig bröderna för att ge sig ut på turné där de tolkar Jans låtar från Jazz på svenska. I torsdags kom de till Malmö och gav en oförglömlig konsert på Palladium.
2024 Laboratories of Autocracy competition David Pepper, former Ohio Democrats’ state chair, calls GOP-led legislatures such as in Wisconsin, Ohio, and North Carolina laboratories of autocracy. But really, must they be so competitive about which is worst? Here in N.C., Democrats are trying to organize for 2024 beginning with the March primary. But since rules and the district lines keep moving, how to do it? Voters will need photo IDs this time. Do they know? And which type? Under Covid, use of voting by mail skyrocketed. His Indictedness disapproved. Now N.C. Republicans mean to make voting by mail more unwiedly and mailed ballots less likely to be counted. So Democrats over the next year will advise voters against their use. State and federal districts will be different in 2024. Again. (I’ve lost count of how many times over the last dozen years.) The N.C. GOP will hold a couple of public hearings about new N.C. districts that are already predetermined. The meetings are meant to be pro forma and unattended. Ask Pepper. This is what his looked like the other day in Ohio: The Ohio state Supreme Court declared Republicans’ gerrymandered maps illegal too.
Biden announces a youth climate corps, while California makes it easier to fix your gadgets and the government comes for Amazon.
Brace for “both sides” on steroids Some musings on the Menendez case and more. ICYMI (ABC News): A federal grand jury in New York has returned a sweeping indictment against United States Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., chairman of the powerful Foreign Relations Committee, in connection with improper foreign relations and business dealings. The investigation focused on a luxury car, gold bars and an apartment allegedly received by Menendez and his wife, Nadine Arslanian. His wife was also indicted. This is the second time Menendez has been charged with corruption. “A 2015 indictment ended in a mistrial in 2018 after a jury failed to reach a verdict on all counts and a judge acquitted him on some charges.” This time he stands accused of accepting bribes in exchange for using his foreign affairs clout to help Egypt. He says he will not resign. I joked online Friday that all Menendez need do now is switch parties. The GOP will welcome him openly (see NC state Rep. Tricia Cotham), fundraise for his defense, and claim the indictment is a politically motivated act against a Republican by a “weaponized” Biden Department of Justice.
Companions leaving Doctor Who are sad farewells we sometimes take for granted, expressions of the evolving state of television storytelling.