I’m voting “Yes” as a proud Australian of Aboriginal, European and Middle-eastern ancestry. Australia’s Constitution needs to catch up with the nation we are today. We’re a multicultural superpower and Asia-Pacific democracy, founded on 65,000 years of heritage and culture. Our Constitution needs to reflect that. But there’s another very important reason not to Vote Continue reading »
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This week sees the 30th anniversary of the shameful, ill-advised Oslo Accord between Israel and Palestine. In the game of life, like a game of cards you can only play the hand you are dealt and not the hand you wish you could have. In any card game a seasoned, accomplished player plays the people Continue reading »
Gratifying it may be to see three of our top performing universities outranking Columbia and Johns Hopkins (with Melbourne even outranking Caltech and Yale (QS World University Rankings)), but as a sector our universities are in crisis. And such a crisis has dangerous implications for our democracy. The model democracy in ancient Athens may have Continue reading »
When Labor and the Liberals share similar strategies regarding China and national defence, why should Chinese-Australian voters stay loyal? Any news pointing to an improvement in Australia-China relations — such as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese accepting an invitation to visit China later this year — is likely to be welcomed by Labor MPs whose seats have Continue reading »
The primary site of the authoritarian cancer is the embrace of abusive power as the way to govern. Nelson Chamisa, leader of the Zimbabwean opposition, insists that the recent election which returned the government party ZanuPF and incumbent President Emerson Mnangagwa to power, was a gigantic fraud. Five years earlier, Mnangagwa succeeded Robert Mugabe, the Continue reading »
Greg Sargent calls it the “MAGA doom loop” : For almost three years now, Republicans have defended or embraced Donald Trump’s authoritarianism — from lies about his 2020 loss to inciting an insurrection — which backfired as Americans proved unexpectedly eager to vote in defense of democracy in the 2022 elections as well as in contests this year. But Republicans aren’t giving up — they’re going even further. To an unappreciated degree, they have responded to these electoral losses with even more flagrantly anti-democratic maneuvers all around the country. The pattern is becoming clear: Even as voters are mobilizing to protect democracy at the ballot box, Republicans are redoubling their commitment to the former president’s anti-majoritarian mode of politics. And this, in turn, is motivating voters even more. Call it the “MAGA doom loop.” It’s playing out in state after state.
Son, you’re eight years old now, and you’ll probably hear this soon enough from the other kids on the playground anyway, so I might as well tell you. Santa isn’t real, the Tooth Fairy is imaginary, and there’s no such thing as the “invisible hand of the market.”
Why did your mother and I lie to you? Well, we didn’t so much lie to you as tell you stories that were untrue, stories that we hoped would add magic to your childhood and also reassure you that capitalism is a good and fair system for everyone, instead of one in which some people can’t afford insulin while other people are Jeff Bezos.
And the thing is, back when Mom and I first told you about the invisible hand, we actually believed in it ourselves—not as a real hand, of course, but as a metaphor for a fundamental principle of economics. The principle I naively thought would save us when I got laid off, but then our mortgage went underwater, and it turned out that not one of Mom’s 223 Facebook friends wanted to get in on that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity she was pursuing at LuLaRoe.
On Thursday morning NBC News reported that the FBI has created a stand-alone unit to investigate all the threats being made against FBI agents and Federal Prosecutors investigating Hunter Biden. You will be forgive for thinking that this must mean there has been a spate of left wing terrorism we haven’t heard about but, in fact, the threats are coming from right wingers who are convinced that these federal officials have been too soft on the younger Biden. Apparently, there has been “a dramatic uptick in threats against FBI agents that has coincided with attacks on the FBI and the Justice Department by congressional Republicans and former President Donald Trump.” And let’s not forget the right wing media which has been hammering this for months, and in the process encouraging their febrile audience to believe that everything coming out of the FBI and the Justice Department is being manipulated by the White House and the career FBI officials and prosecutors are all Democratic operatives.
Some 13,000 members of the United Auto Workers are participating in what they’re calling their Stand Up Strike.
The post UAW Temporarily Loses Twitter Verification as Union Strikes Against Big Three appeared first on The Intercept.
Doctor Who Showrunner Russell T. Davies had some interesting clues/teases to drop about the 60th-anniversary episode "The Star Beast."
Just what are voters buying? “Repetition is really important. And so is repetition.” Donald Trump knows the value of repetition. Debunking his lies has no stopping power on his relentless repeating of them. It’s a habit that the press has come to accept from Trump and from Republicans when they repeat lies, but sees as futile, even pathetic, when Democrats repeat facts. USA Today: Linda Muñoz is scared about the economy. She dipped into her emergency savings this year. And she doesn’t believe President Joe Biden feels her pain. The retired teacher from Channelview, Texas, worries about paying $4 for cereal and $3.38 for gasoline in her state. “According to him, everything’s perfect,” said Muñoz, a Republican. “He just doesn’t live in reality.” As Biden tries to sell Americans on an economic rebound, most Americans aren’t buying it, according to an exclusive poll from the Suffolk University Sawyer Business School and USA TODAY that reveals major concerns about the state of the economy and little hope of people’s outlook improving.
The post Don’t be a Statistic appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
Sabotuers of Democracy unite A friend with roots in the theater once told a Netroots audience about his journey from the closet to being authentically himself. When finally he came out to actress Bea Arthur, she replied, “Joel, are you the last to know?” Joel died of pancreatic cancer several years ago. “Are you the last to know?” comes to mind because spread across the internet today is a quote from retiring Utah Sen. Mitt Romney that may wind up on his tombstone: “A very large portion of my party really doesn’t believe in the Constitution.” Commenting on Romney’s remarks to The Atlantic‘s McKay Coppins, Jamelle Bouie writes, “Faced with a conflict between partisan loyalty and ideological ambition on one hand and basic principles of self-government and political equality on the other, much of the Republican Party has jettisoned any commitment to America’s democratic values in favor of narrow self-interest.” Republican commitment to the Constitution is highly situational.
If you care about climate change, it’s time to start thinking about nickel.
Exclusive new poll finds the public is far more tolerant of diversity and cultural change than the Government appears to believe, Adam Bienkov reports
1. Agravain!
2. Aglovale!
3. Bagdemagus!
4. Chuffachoo!
5. Lancelot!
6. Galahad!
7. Sagramore!
8. Oompazaz!
9. Dinadan!
10. Esclabor!
11. Caradoc!
12. Ungtchypow!
13. Lamorak!
14. Huggadog!
15. Gingalain!
16. Segwarides!
- - -
Knight: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15
Noise: 4, 8, 12
Both: 16
Reflecting on a decade of court reporting, James Doleman explains how the apparent formality helps take the emotion out of awful events and focus on the evidence
In today's BCTV Daily Dispatch: Alan Moore, One Piece, Frasier, Doctor Who, Kite Man, The Orville, Bill Maher, Justin Roiland, and more!
The world’s largest arms fair promises peace in the world
Thirty years after the Oslo Accords, Palestinians question whether the pseudo-government born from the peace process can — and should — survive.
The post Mahmoud Abbas Holocaust Controversy Spotlights Deep Disillusion With Palestinian Authority appeared first on The Intercept.
The fiftieth anniversary of the military coup in Chile this past 11 September occasioned a chain of commemorative events throughout the UK. Chilean political exiles, Chile Solidarity Campaign veterans, and other supporters came together to reflect on the violent counterrevolution against Salvador Allende’s democratic-socialist Popular Unity government in 1973, and its legacies — painful and […]
- by Psyche Film