There is a clear story in the way Americans perceive our country. We assume there are far fewer white Christians than there actually are, and that there are far more of everyone else – people of color, immigrants, non-Christians, non-straight people and non-binary people. To be fair, Americans also overestimated the number of left-handed people …
“Following the disaster that was Jan. 6, an already-partisan Congress has grown almost entirely untenable, as working Republican and Democratic partnerships — particularly in the House — crumble in the face of the most serious attack on the U.S. Capitol since 1812. “In interviews with more than four dozen lawmakers and congressional staffers, “people of …
Back in October Benito Mussolini’s granddaughter won the highest number of votes in elections for Rome’s city council. Rachele Mussolini, who won over 8,200 votes, belongs to the far-right party Brothers of Italy. (The Guardian 7 Oct 2021) My comment: Extremists are popping up in greater numbers, but pose the most immediate danger in the …
$25 billion. That’s the cost — as Public Citizen has calculated — of producing enough coronavirus vaccine to end the pandemic *worldwide*. And with the emerging Omicron variant, ending the pandemic remains humanity’s most immediate need. As it happens, $25 billion is also how much Congress could allocate for the military next year over and …
A school-district official in Southlake, Texas was recorded advising staff to offer students “opposing views” and “other perspectives” on the Holocaust. Administrator, Gina Peddy, was responding to a new state law requiring schools to offer “diverse and contending perspectives” on “controversial issues”. A district spokeswomen said the law has left “all Texas teachers in a …
The University of Florida has barred three professors from providing expert testimony in a lawsuit that restricts voting rights. The university said in a statement that testimony by professors Dan Smith, Michael McDonald, and Sharon Austin, as paid experts for the plaintiffs, would be “adverse to the university’s interests as a state of Florida institution.” …
Continue reading ‘If you can’t win on policy and care for fellow humans…….’ »
Benito Mussolini’s granddaughter has won the highest number of votes in elections for Rome’s city council. Rachele Mussolini, who won over 8,200 votes, belongs to the far-right party Brothers of Italy. (The Guardian 7 Oct 2o21). My comment: In several countries we can see a resurgence of extremism and a disillusionment with democracy. Yes, democracy …
The University of Florida is barring three professors from providing expert testimony in a lawsuit concerning a new state law that restricts voting rights, The Associated Press reports. The university said in a statement that testimony by professors Dan Smith, Michael McDonald, and Sharon Austin as paid experts for the plaintiffs would be “adverse to …
And now the Audubon Society is changing its name because Audubon owned slaves and took skulls from Indian graves. If we have to work through every prominent, deceased American and his or her sins then it is high time George Washington and all the bigwigs of the American Revolution should be erased from our memories …
The US Supreme Court has been hearing the first in-person arguments since the March 2020 coronavirus lockdown. The high court, with a newly expanded 6-3 conservative majority, has a politically charged docket. The court will consider: – trimming or eliminating the constitutional right to an abortion, established in the landmark Roe v. Wade case. -cases …
Continue reading ‘Supreme Court starts new term with abortion, guns on the docket’ »
Governments gave 20% more in overseas aid funding to fossil fuel projects over the last two years than to programmes to cut the air pollution they cause, according to an analysis from the Clean Air Fund. Air pollution kills more people than HIV/Aids, malaria, and tuberculosis combined, but just 1% of global development aid is …
Some things are almost beyond parody. Lord Frost says the government will hire an external adviser to identify post-Brexit opportunities. We have high hopes of outside input into this process,” he says. The government of the United Kingdom, almost five years after the Brexit referendum, wants help on identifying post-Brexit opportunities! The natural response to …
Continue reading ‘Verdict on Brexit – and the current British government’ »
From 1937 to 1998 church membership in the US remained relatively constant, hovering at about 70%. But over the past two decades, that percentage has dropped to less than 50%, the sharpest recorded decline in American history. Meanwhile the atheists, agnostics and those claiming no religion, have grown to represent a quarter of the population. …
The American Right has discovered a new bogeyman,“Critical Race Theory” (CRT). A set of concepts first developed by legal scholars in the 1970s, CRT essentially holds that US racism is systemic, that key institutions are rooted in white supremacy, and that racial dynamics are the outcome of complex social systems. It’s a toxic theory, say …
“Instead of a cabinet, there is a potentate. The traditional structures still exist, but as tributes to an obsolescent way of governing.” There are still secretaries of state, but they now have “little bearing on real power, which swirls in an unstable vortex of advisers and officials vying for proximity to Boris Johnson’s throne”. Behr …
Continue reading ‘Verdict on the current British government. (Part 1)’ »
