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If billionaires’ largesse was designed to keep the justice on the high court, experts say the money could be considered a taxable payment.

And that could be a good thing.

The post We’re Biased Against AI-Made Art appeared first on Nautilus.

Semafor reports on a recent meeting by some pretty heavy hitters to strategizde how to stop this sabotage campaign by No Labels: A coalition of Democratic and Republican anti-Trump groups are organizing an aggressive, multi-front campaign to stop the independent group No Labels from injecting a third major candidate in the upcoming 2024 election. Their plans, laid out in a private, roughly 80-minute call obtained by Semafor, include legal attacks, opposition research and warnings to potential candidates and donors that involvement with No Labels could make them politically toxic. No Labels, founded in 2010 by a top Washington political fundraiser, Nancy Jacobson, bills itself as an answer to America’s divisive partisan politics, and has sought to present a poll-tested centrist platform. Democrats believe any such effort is far likelier to pull votes from Biden than from Trump, whose support The call, organized by the center-left Democratic group Third Way with the help of the progressive Move On, also included representatives of End Citizens United, the Lincoln Project, American Bridge, Public Citizen, and Reproductive Freedom for All.

. Forget devilry and malice Forget everything I’ve done out of spite I love you so deeply … Soon the angels will land Soon the morning is ablaze Do I dare say that we have each other Do you dare lay your cheek in my hand

With apologies to Charles Dickens and a Christmas Carol. Christmas is an idea, a very large idea, it is captured in stories that shape our imagination and in consequence – the way we live. Sadly, the original idea is proving too big for the reductionist world most of us inhabit. Yes, we live reduced lives. Continue reading »

Despite the limitations of the recent COP28 climate meeting in Dubai, there was a positive aspect skipped over too quickly by its critics. At the closing plenary (time stamp 2:24:50), the Zambian representative described his delight at the ‘climate love’ he experienced – the extraordinary goodwill among most participants. Goodwill, moral sensibility, and the empathetic Continue reading »

Peace should be one of our ultimate goals as we seek a better society. Nothing is more important. But what can anyone say about peace that doesn’t sound too preachy or self-righteous? I hesitate to say anything for this reason. Yet one thing I do know, as a starting point, is that peace is an Continue reading »

A central question the Joint Committee on Public Accountability and Audit is pursuing in its inquiry into probity and ethics in the Commonwealth public sector is how to hold individual public servants to account for the failures so often being found in ANAO reports and those of other inquiries. Must we have a Royal Commission Continue reading »

“The fact that one of the least populated countries on Earth contains the world’s second most expensive housing is a national calamity, and a stunning failure of public policy,” writes Alan Kohler, in the latest Quarterly Essay. He doesn’t mince words. We are in a housing crisis – and it is a public policy failure Continue reading »

Usman Khawaja played an important batting role in Australia’s recently finished demolition of Pakistan in the first Test in Perth. The ongoing controversy, however, around his writings on his cricket boots and black armband as a protest display have raised questions about the relations of sport and politics and the role of sporting and other Continue reading »

The victimisation by Israel of Palestinian children is so profound that Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkain, a Hebrew University of Jerusalem law professor, has described it as “Unchilding,” that is, in order to “eliminate the next generation of Palestinians, Israel treats Palestinian children as both nobodies who are unworthy of global children’s rights and as dangerous and killable Continue reading »

After the birth of Jesus, there was the flight into Egypt. Benjamin Netanyahu’s 1st Century predecessor, Herod, had decreed the slaughter of all the male children under the age of two – not Gaza this time, but West Bank Bethlehem. You don’t say “No’ to God – nor to God’s messenger, the angel Gabriel. To Continue reading »

I don’t know about you, but my relationship to dentistry is somewhat infantile. I went this week. I go every six months (hygienist too) but though I brush twice a day with an expensive electric toothbrush, I’m very bad at all that interdental work you’re supposed to do. But then when I notice that the […]

I remember applying to work at the Royal Society of Arts. It seemed perfect — a historic social change organisation that shared my progressive values and strived to build a more equal society for all. I was proud to be joining a community built up by fellows like Nelson Mandela, who stood up against injustice […]

It’s a real contest but if I had to choose Donald Trump’s most fatuous claim it would have to be that until he became president “nobody could say Merry Christmas anymore.” He said it again just the other day and his ecstatic followers practically went into a collective fugue state and began speaking in tongues they were so thrilled. This war on Christmas has been a theme on the right for many, many years but Trump is the first politician to say that he “won” it. It was smart. After all, the war didn’t exist in the first place so every time anyone says “Merry Christmas” he gets the credit. Boom! I have no doubt that his right wing evangelical fans are thrilled by all this. This is one of Christianity’s most important holidays after all. On the other hand, most of them are also fine with Trump evoking Adolph Hitler’s rhetoric so their alleged reverence for Christmas as a religious holiday may be beside the point.

Trump caught in another recording Motown’s Berry Gordy might have set the recording to music but Detroit News got there first: Then-President Donald Trump personally pressured two Republican members of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers not to sign the certification of the 2020 presidential election, according to recordings reviewed by The Detroit News and revealed publicly for the first time. On a Nov. 17, 2020, phone call, which also involved Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, Trump told Monica Palmer and William Hartmann, the two GOP Wayne County canvassers, they’d look “terrible” if they signed the documents after they first voted in opposition and then later in the same meeting voted to approve certification of the county’s election results, according to the recordings. “We’ve got to fight for our country,” said Trump on the recordings, made by a person who was present for the call with Palmer and Hartmann. “We can’t let these people take our country away from us.” Trump didn’t insist they “find 11,780 votes,” but you get the idea.

Doctor Who star Ncuti Gatwa talks TARDIS (and why Beyoncé needs to be in it) - plus, we have new Christmas Special footage & images.

Until [2008], when the banking industry came crashing down and depression loomed for the first time in my lifetime, I had never thought to read The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, despite my interest in economics … I had heard that it was a very difficult book and that the book had been […]

Churchill just got the color wrong What better reason to invoke the famous Churchill quote: “Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last.” Happy Hollandaise!

Former Defense Minister Ben Wallace wrote about the Hamas charter without mentioning its revision in 2017. We need the people in charge to understand the facts.

The post A Top U.K. Official Displayed the Terrifying Ignorance of the World’s Leaders on Gaza appeared first on The Intercept.

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The miracle of birth is so incredibly beautiful to behold. Do you know the only thing that could make it better? Percussion. Nothing calms one’s stress and eases the pain of delivering a baby than a little boy standing nearby absolutely shredding on his drum. That’s why it’s so lucky that I just so happened to be passing by this barn, where I discovered a woman having a baby. What better audience?

Now, to be fair, I did ask permission before I started drumming. And she nodded—at least I thought it was a nod; she could have just been recoiling or looking down to make sure the donkeys weren’t in the baby’s landing zone. Nonetheless, I took that as a go-ahead to play my drum throughout the labor and delivery. Newborns love loud banging, right?