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Each political note has its own anchor in case you want to link to it.
My intention is to make links only to publicly accessible, stable URLs. If you find a link to a page that requires subscription, please report that as you would report any other broken link.
Islamic States terrorists may be sneaking into Europe by posing as wounded Libyan soldiers .
Brazilians Sick of Corrupt Politicians Hit the Streets to Protest Austerity Measures.
Plutocratist politicians speak of "reforms" when what they mean is to eliminate workers' rights and reduce their pay.
Erdo�an has underligned his repressive vision for Turkey by blocking access to Wikipedia.
The Three Hot Trends in Silicon Valley Horseshit.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: call on the senate to pass SJRes 40, which would call on the troll to certify that Salafi Arabia is not arming al-Qa'ida before selling the former any more arms.
I would go further. The US should refrain from meddling in Yemen. By doing so, it has prolonged the civil war there which has since led to famine.
More fundamentally, Salafi Arabia is responsible for the spread of virulent, jihadi forms of Islam, that have reached the point of murdering the believers in civil, neighborly Muslims. It has funded this for decades.
The US has done plenty to inspire Muslims' hostility: first supporting Israel's occupation of Palestine, and since 15 years ago fighting wars of aggression in the Middle East. However, these work together with the spread of Salafism.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter at (202) 224-3121 and say, "I urge you to invoke the War Powers Resolution to force a debate and vote before the U.S. helps Saudi Arabia push Yemen into famine by bombing the port of Hodeida."
More info is in this petition, which I suggest signing.
How to solve the problem of troll armies?
Restrictions on abortion perpetuate economic inequality, as well as being fundamentally unjust.
Nonetheless, I won't say it is wrong for Sanders to support an anti-abortion progressive Democrat against an anti-abortion bankster-subservient Republican.
100 Days of Gibberish — Trump Has Weaponised Nonsense.
The State Department was promoting the troll's private business, the Mar-a-Lago club, but it stopped when people named and shamed it.
In a few decades, Mar-a-Lago will become simply Mar due to sea level rise. But that's likely to be after the troll's lifetime.
Natanyahu gave the German foreign minister an ultimatum: "Cancel your meetings with Israeli human rights groups or I won't meet with you." The minister did not obey.
Ivanka Trump met with derision as she claimed that the troll is trying to help women.
It may be useful to let her speak occasionally before a live audience, so that she can't pass off bullshit as believed.
But not very often.
Putin persecutes Jehovah's Witnesses because they are pacifists, and calls them "violent extremists".
Due to Tory cuts in support for the poor, 3 million British children can't eat right at the times of year when school is not feeding them.
The Koch brothers spend 3 million dollars to press the troll's saboteur appointees thru the Senate.
Dmitry Bogatov is being prosecuted in Russia for messages that others sent through his Tor node.
In a free country, nobody would be prosecuted for those messages, not even those who sent them.
Two Supreme Court justices say the court has a tendency to take the side of violent thugs against their victims.
If you ever serve on a jury, keep in mind that thugs have lots of practice in lying in court. They have practiced presenting lies smoothly to make them sound plausible. One thug's testimony supports another's because the system ensures they have a chance to coordinate their stories. This should raise a reasonable doubt about whatever they say.
With South Florida including Miami facing inundation due to global heating, the wiser property owners are starting to sell. Property values could collapse to near zero once the public realizes the land will cease to be land.
In effect, coastal land is a bubble, and the sooner these bubbles burst, the less harm they do.
It's more or less the same for coasts around the world, though the local rate of sea level rise varies. (It is faster in Florida because the land is sinking.) The inundation of ancient ports around the Mediterranean will be a terrible loss for all humanity, not just for the people who live in them.
I propose that the US government should buy out non-rich homeowners who bought before a certain cutoff date, but only up to a certain limit. That would save the poor from being wiped out, while not wasting money on wealthy people who don't face being wiped out, and avoid creating a "moral hazard" of encouraging people to buy properties at risk.
Those who bought their homes after the cut-off date could receive a buy-out reduced by 4% for each year between the cut-off date and when they purchased the property.
That would be the sensible thing to do, but I'd be surprised if it were done.
The Tories' intentional delay in welfare support has driven the need for food banks to a record level.
The Tories are lower than vermin — Aneurin Bevan.
Most of the people granted asylum in the UK are promptly made homeless and destitute, because the government won't support or help them.
The Tories fight to the last drop of oil combustion against renewable electricity generation.
The International Criminal Court has received a complaint about the mass murder of President Do-dirty of the Philippines.
Privatizing state assets generally means the new owners make a killing at state expense. Here's how it happened to the UK's military housing.
If the private financier that wants to buy is in favor of the deal, that's enough to show the state should reject the deal.
The US bail system regularly ruins the lives of poor people whenever they are accused of a crime. If they make bail, they go away with debts they cannot pay. If they don't make bail, they lose their careers and their homes. That's regardless of whether they are ultimately convicted of the charges.
Many people make false confessions just to get out of jail.
Obama's campaign against PISSI has been advancing slowly but surely. "Only Trump can save ISIS now."
Almost 90,000 jobs have been lost in US retail stores since last October — and this could be just the beginning of a disaster that affects millions of jobs.
In a physical store, you can buy anonymously. Internet purchases are a surveillance system. That is why I have never bought anything over the internet. Please buy in physical stores by preference.
Calling on Disney, Pepsico, and the Gap to quit the US Chamber of Commerce.
Al-Sisi's military regime is shooting prisoners, and losing the war in the Sinai that it provoked by the bloody coup against the elected president, Morsi. Once Islamists in Egypt saw they would not be allowed to win democratically, they were motivated to join an armed uprising.
Islamists do not respect human rights either, but under a system of free elections it would have been possible to vote them out of power. Al-Sisi does not allow opposition at all.
US citizens: call on Congress not to let the troll kill funds for protecting Americans from toxic pollution.
The petition's author lived in near toxic industry, and both her children got peculiar diseases from that.
Everyone: call on Amazon to stop advertising on the right-wing bigotry site Breitbart.
Amazon does a lot of worse things, which is why I urge people not to do buy from Amazon at all.
"Public Goods" Made America Great And Can Do So Again.
Among public goods, we should count free software and free educational resources.
The US government is prosecuting 200 protesters for the "felony" of participating in a protest where someone broke windows.
Even for those who broke the windows, 10 years in prison is repressive in the extreme.
Most of the troll's executive orders don't really change anything. They only start a procedure that might possibly change something.
That doesn't make them harmless. The agencies that will carry out these procedures are run by saboteurs appointed by the troll, and they will do their utmost to take advantage of these opportunities for sabotage.
Three journalists have been murdered, one by one, in the Maldive Islands.
It goes with the tyranny that was set up after the overthrow of the only elected president, Nasheed. I suspect that oil interests played a role in the coup that overthrew Nasheed, because he campaigned at the global level to curb the greenhouse gas emissions that will eliminate the Maldive Islands.
Trumponomics: Neocon Neoliberalism (and unilateralism) Camouflaged with Anti-Globalization Circus.
Houston's newly elected prosecutor has decided to stop prosecuting possession of marijuana, and to stop keeping people in jail for months for being poor.
New Orleans is taking down monuments that support the pro-slavery side in the US Civil War.
Nazi lawyers studied the US race laws that were designed to keep
blacks and Chinese down, as a
guide for designing laws
to keep Jews down.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
Cornel West: give up on the corporate-friendly Democratic Party and start a new one.
I am not sure whether we have a better chance of a progressive victory with or without the Democratic Party.
Japan is failing to abide by an agreement to protect the survival of bluefin tuna.
Unroll.me Head 'Heartbroken' That Users Found Out it Sells Their Inbox Data.
Three women explain why they needed late-term abortions.
Banning them is terrible cruelty, based on many cases on willful denial of reality. That's faith for you.
What "tax reform" means to SCROTUS, and to the cheater.
Likeliest Outcome of Tax Reform is a Deficit-Financed Tax Cut for the Rich That Will Expire in a Decade.
In the UK, unauthorized immigrants are afraid to see a doctor lest it lead to deportation.
People living in precarious circumstances should ask themselves, before they make a child, whether it is right to make a child live in precarious circumstances. However, it may be that they can't get reliable birth control or abortions because they fear seeing a doctor.
"We scapegoat and impoverish young people while destroying the world we older, luckier ones inherited. As abdications of duty go, this one is absolute."
Consigning most young people to a precarious and painful life results from the callous political plutocracy squeezing on one side while growing global population, global heating, and overusing the world's resources squeeze on the other size.
Humanity can't continue its profligate resource use. But it could, if it tried to, enlist everyone in reducing resource use and reducing the birth rate, while treating everyone as worthy of a decent life.
The troll is planning to prosecute parents that pay to smuggle their children into the US.
Human rights don't include the right to move to the US, or bring someone else to the US. So I have no objection to this plan, in the abstract, as long as it isn't implemented in a cruel way or used to stir up hatred towards immigrants. I expect the troll and his saboteurs to do those things, though.
This issue is completely separate from the issue of how to treat unauthorized immigrants that were brought to the US as children, many years ago. We should offer them citizenship.
Canadian Oil Firm Pulls Out of National Park in Peru's Amazon.
When the troll says, "America First", it means "Hungry People Last."
Killer Gorsuch voted on the Supreme Court for executing a man immediately rather than examining DNA evidence which could have proved he was innocent.
The Massachusetts Democratic Party is considering a resolution to criticize Israel's colonies in Palestine as an obstacle to peace between Israel and Palestine. There is a lot of opposition to acknowledging this basic fact.
Trump's Bombings May Elicit the 'Mother of All Blowback'.
Should we endorse an anti-abortion Democrat as a replacement for a right-wing Republican?
I probably would not, because I think that abortion rights are very important.
The US Treasury denied Exxon's request for permission to operate oil wells in Russia.
The troll has given Wall Street a big handout with three executive orders.
British colonists captured Australia in a long slow series of battles, massacres, and hunting aboriginals for sport.
I read in The Other Side of the Frontier, by Henry Reynolds, that colonists would often take the most fertile land in an area for farming or stock raising, and demand the aboriginals live on the rest of the area; but that fertile part was the biggest part of their food supply, so this condemned them to fight or die.
US 'Deep State' Sold Out Counter-Terrorism to Keep Itself in Business. Basically, weakening al-Qa'ida was subordinated to other interests such as supporting Salafi Arabia.
This is ironic given that the harsh Salafi approach to Islam is what built today's jihadi movement.
The troll has pushed for a new attack against the guerrilla group al-Shabaab. Humanitarian aid organizations warn that this is likely to block aid to the region controlled by al-Shabaab, which is suffering from famine.
Activists in Uganda are campaigning for the state to provide menstrual pads to the nation's schoolgirls, many of whom miss school because they can't afford to buy the pads.
One of them has been imprisoned for insulting the president for his refusal. To punish people for insults is a sign of tyranny. (Are you listening, France, Turkey, Russia and others?
Science has already been politicized, by those who want to disregard knowledge in favor of fantasy. We who want to pay attention to knowledge must not hold back from campaigning for that.
Prosecuting female genital mutilation in the US.
An arms merchant who supplied arms to Liberian tyrant Charles Taylor has been sentenced to prison.
Chris Packham made a video recording of hunters in Malta shooting migrating birds, and hunters falsely accused him of physically attacking them.
The hunt in Malta is authorized, but since it endangers some species of birds, Malta must change its policy.
Practical advice for how to talk with relatives and friends that support Trump, so that they might start to listen.
The Saboteur of the FCC, Ajit Pai, has authorized ISPs with no competitors to gouge on prices.
Instead of the incoherent war on painkillers, the US should aim for harm reduction.
Untreated pain is part of the harm that we should aim to reduce. And an addiction to pain killers, kept in check by medical attention, is not as bad as continuing agony.
The US denied reporters access to the zone in Afghanistan where it dropped the large conventional bomb. No one can verify any claims about what was or wasn't destroyed.
Even people whose families lived in the area can't get information.
Specific reports covered almost 300 civilians killed by US bombs in Iraq and Syria in one week in April. The actual figure is probably several times that.
Orwell's point is valid: we are morally obliged to judge the killing of civilians by the same standards no matter which side does it. Zinn's point about inevitable casualties is also valid, but that doesn't mean that all civilian casualties constitute war crimes. No army can completely avoid killing or wounding civilians; every army has an obligation to make a real effort.
There are reports that the troll has more or less countermanded Obama's precautions in the US military. Perhaps the casualties in April occurred at a higher level than was normal for the past few years.
It may be anachronistic to apply today's standards to use of chemical weapons during and shortly after World War I. While there was a treaty that prohibited them, all the main combatants used them or tried to, and all were targeted with them.
Why not probe Israel's influence in the US government? There's plenty of evidence of it.
Everyone: call on the US media to stop glorifying war and weapons.
US citizens: oppose the misnamed "right to work" bill, intended weaken unions and pave the way for cuts in wages and workers' benefits.
44 million Americans have student loans, and almost half have fallen behind on payments.
One way to fix this problem is to allow people to get rid of those debts through bankruptcy — an option that Republicans eliminated around 15 years ago.
Saboteur Pruit has turned the EPA into the Environmental Persecution Agency.
Welfare for a single mother in Mississippi is a swindle: get $200 of aid, and pay back $2500 a few years later if the father doesn't pay for it. The slide into the trap is made smooth with lies.
Part of the state's job is to help people avoid the situation of having a baby and no money for food. The first step is to teach everyone what that is like, and offer reliable birth control to all.
A Republican businessman was so sleazy that he squeezed money out of the Republican party.
The troll's "Buy American" policy has loopholes to protect Wall Street's profits from manufacturing in other countries.
Bhikkhu Bodhi: in Buddhist terms, global heating denial shows the combined effect of ignorance and craving.
Two groups of Republicans have agreed on a compromise plan for how to cut off medical coverage for millions of Americans.
Users are suing Bose for distributing an app, to set parameters in its headphones, which also snooped on the users' activities.
The suit accuses that this was done without the users' consent. If the fine print of the app said that users gave consent for this, would that make it acceptable? No way! It should be flat-out illegal to design the app to snoop at all.
Dow Chemical is lobbying the US government to discard its own study which showed certain pesticides endanger wildlife.
Nuclear power companies are making taxpayers pay to keep dirty nuclear plants running.
The longer a nuclear power plant keeps running, the more dangerous it gets. The environment inside the reactor is corrosive; things change their shape and move, and it is hard to tell what's going on inside. Instead of paying extra to keep these plants running, we pay to build storage and renewable energy capacity.
Companies used donations for the troll's inauguration as a way to obtain changes in laws and regulations.
Gordon Sondland wanted to donate a million dollars to the troll's inauguration, but when people saw his name on the donor list, he said he had changed his mind for ethical reasons. But actually he funnelled the money through four front corporations.
Washington DC thugs illegally infiltrated inauguration protests.
As US Prepares to Gut Net Neutrality Rules, Canada Strengthens Them.
We are at the edge of having antibiotic resistance make surgery dangerous.
The UN Security Council has threatened North Korea with sanctions if it continues nuclear testing.
This warning has the support of China, so Mr Kim will find it difficult to defy. It has a chance of succeeding as a diplomatic solution to the problem of North Korea's nuclear weapons.
The [US] Government's Own Data Shows Country of Origin Is a Poor Predictor of Terrorist Threat.
The FBI is now eagerly protecting Americans from unstable fantasy supporters of PISSI.
There must be hundreds of these. They are not totally harmless; a few of them might someday commit solo terrorist attacks with cars, but the chance any particular one would do so is small.
Although the FBI says it is protecting us from very dangerous people, it does not seem to consider them very dangerous when they are released from prison.
Russia has banned the Jehovah's Witnesses church, labeling it as "extremist".
The sect has peculiar, unfounded beliefs, and strictly shuns anyone that leaves or is kicked out, but it does not do anything to outsiders that goes beyond minor annoyance. Its members deserve freedom of speech and freedom in religion just as the rest of us do.
Don't Underestimate the Harm 'Brittle Masculinity' Can Do to the World.
Somehow I never learned that I was supposed to appear strong because I'm male. At least one bad thing I escaped!
The Tories are moving UK step by small step closer to a one-party state.
Organized public revulsion against Bill O'Reilly struck home and compelled Faux News to stop giving him a platform.
The boycott was about his odious conduct towards women he personally met, perhaps dozens, but the main harm he has done to America and the world was through right-wing bullying and falsehood. We need to organize boycotts based on that, without waiting for personal wrongs to emerge.
SCROTUS are selling access to congressional staff.
The town of Washington Court House, Ohio, prosecutes people for trumped up crimes when they have a drug overdose.
Somalia's children today are starving for the debts of the former dictator Siad Barre.
This kind of injustice has happened in many countries. The tendency to insist that dictators' victims pay the dictators' debts is why banksters encourage dictators. Thus, we need to replace it with the principle that loans to dictators are never repaid.
The Australian prime minister trusts the "wisdom and judgment" of America's racist bully president.
This should demonstrate to Australia that their prime minister has no wisdom or judgment.
With Corbyn, Britain has a chance to decide that it is wrong for some people to be so rich, and to demand they give the rest a bigger share.
Many prisoners in Pennsylvania state prisons come from Philadelphia, and many of them are held far away from there. The result is that nobody in their families can afford to visit them.
That makes them less likely to find a way to stay out of prison once they are released.
Forbidding anyone who was ever in prison from visiting a prisoner has the same effect of directing prisoners to become career criminals. It is a reflection of the attitudes that make the US #1 in imprisonment. The US asks, "What might that ex-con do if he visits a prisoner," and not, "What might that prisoner do, after spending the prison term out of contact with family?"
The policy of excluding former prisoners from all but menial work, and from most educational opportunity, also pressures them into a life of crime.
If you see something, it's often better not to say anything. How to decide?
Persecuting people who drug themselves into insensibility is not a solution for the factors that make them look for a way to do that.
But some of them might die because their friends have learned that taking such people to a hospital is dangerous for them.
Palestinian prisoner Marwan Barghouti explains the hunger strike he is participating in.
Gush Shalom comments on the trial of Marwan Barghouti.
How Israel punishes prisoners who are sick for participating in the hunger strike.
One effect of expensive rents is that people are invited to pay the rent in sex.
Agreeing to sex as rent is a solution for one person, in the sense that person obtains lodgings for less money. However, when you look at society as a whole, this doesn't make the situation any better. If X obtains lodging this way, some Y becomes homeless.
To improve the housing situation for everyone in the short term, we need either rent control or a lot of new housing construction. A lot of new housing construction will drive rents down while making space for more people. Rent control won't increase the amount of space available, but it will enable all the renters to get food as well as housing.
In the long term, having fewer children will help tremendously.
Because Kemal Hawwash has endorsed a boycott of Israeli products, Israel will never again allow him to visit his relatives in Palestine.
The Palestinian campaign for BDS is a nonviolent, political response to the violence of the occupation. Israel's refusal to let its supporters visit Palestine, just like its refusal to let them visit Israel, is a violation of their human rights.
The absurd trial of Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour.
Arabs in Israel are prosecuted for "incitement" under very loose criteria, while Israelis are never prosecuted, not even for specific death threats.
Reanalysis of old diet studies casts doubt on the idea that saturated fats lead to heart disease.
This supports the idea that the cause of the increase in heart disease is sugar.
A pundit says that the new political division in France is "for globalization" or "against globalization".
I think the crucial point is not to allow globalization to occur in a way that gives business more power over states and people's. That's the kind of globalization we have had.
US banking sanctions against Iran, which were never entirely lifted, are causing UK banks to close the bank accounts of Iranian students in the UK, putting them in financial trouble.
ACLU: the PAT RIOT Act was designed to vacuum up Americans' communications so the FBI can find them and read them.
Then the government pretends that only foreign terrorists are being searched.
Apple forbids recyclers of Apple computers from extracting any usable spare parts from them, by imposing nasty contracts.
Apple's conduct should be forbidden by law so that no company can ever do this.
US citizens: phone your senators to protect the regulation to
limit
leaking or frivolously burning natural gas.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
Fresno Shooting Decried as Anti-White Hate Crime, But Truth Is Complicated.
It seems that many hate crimes are the outgrowth of "mental health issues that were never properly treated". Most of the culprits choose blacks or women as victims.
Trump to Erdogan: Congrats On Your Dictatorship!
Terrorist groups will exploit disasters, and food and water shortages, caused by global heating.
The article calls the disasters "natural", but that is incorrect.
The Pentagon denies the facts in order to refuse to acknowledge that it bombed a mosque in Syria.
The troll's business partners in Indonesia are trying to overthrow President Widodo.
The US should change its institutions to avoid further "wars of choice", since they are likely to destroy other countries and could conceivably destroy the US.
The troll is doing exactly what is likely to start another war in the Middle East, exactly what will make it a disaster, and exactly what will make peace impossible.
Is it possible that that is not a coincidence? That some influential interests in the US desire exactly that?
The War on Painkillers: Florida has sentenced thousands of old people to long prison terms (basically, life in prison) for selling a handful of painkiller pills.
When thugs lead businesses such as United Airlines to expect the their help in confrontations with the public, they encourage companies to treat the public harshly.
United's policy decision to order Dr Dao off the plane to make room for a pilot was wrong, but it was the thugs that started the violence on that day.
However, at a deeper level, it is the political influence businesses have gained over what should be democracy is the reason that thugs are there encouraging businesses to use thugs to intimidate the public.
Puerto Rico is covering up the birth defects caused by Zika by piecemeal denial.
The military rulers of Thailand have declared that mocking them is a crime.
Freedom of speech includes the right to criticize, offend, insult, even mock anyone (and any group, organization, practice or belief).
Please don't visit Thailand for tourism.
AIs that work by trained neural nets, rather than full understanding, take on bias embodied by the connotations of words that they use.
The only known way to avoid this effect is via human-level intelligence.
Hundreds of thousands of people have installed spyware on the phones of other people they know, to track their movements and actions.
I think it is wrong to do this to your own children. It is like putting them in a prison.
Palestinians in prisons in Israel have started a hunger strike to demand that Israel allow them family visits according to its laws.
Holding Palestinians from the West Bank prisoner outside the West Bank (for instance, in Israel) violates the Geneva Conventions.
Right-wing Democratic Senator Feinstein is meeting lots of criticism from progressive constituents for the floppiness of her resistance to SCROTUS.
It's true that one senator can't overcome SCROTUS. All the Democratic senators together sometimes can't stop SCROTUS. But they can stop SCROTUS from passing legislation — and they can contribute to the swell of opinion that will elect a progressive Congress.
The Democratic Party Must Finally Abandon Centrism.
When you threaten to transfer back a substantial part of what the rich have taken from the poor, the rich scream as if they were dying. And they claim that we will lose gigantic amounts of (nonexistent) trickledown from them.
Thus, if we fail to make the rich scream, it means we are not trying hard enough to make them share the gains with the rest of us.
Islamists in Jakarta succeeded in stirring up religious vote to defeat the governor of Jakarta.
Even worse, they did this by accusing him of "blasphemy". That was unjust at two levels, since (1) it was false and (2) it is an injustice to make that a crime at all.
We are making great progress towards eliminating various tropical diseases that infect large numbers of poor people.
Along with this, we need to make great progress in reducing the birth rate, or we will increase other replacement afflictions.
ACLU: Teens Who Engage in 'Sexting' Should Not Be Prosecuted as Sex Offenders.
Detroit Needs Affordable Water, Not More Shutoffs.
US citizens: Tell Democrats: Stand strong. No cuts to Planned Parenthood.
US citizens: call on Congress to make Wall Street pay its fair share of taxes.
US citizens: tell Democrats in the Senate not to surrender our rights if Republicans take the budget hostage.
US citizens: call on senators to tell Salafi Arabia not to attack the Yemenite port of Hodeida. That bombardment is causing famine in Yemen.
Democrats that serve Wall Street use Russia as a smokescreen.
Could a Tax on Meat Help Us Save the Planet?
Even if a tax on fossil fuels solves most of the problem, there ought to be a special tax on cows because of their methane emissions.
Uri Avnery: Palestine's Nelson Mandela.
The article mentions Menachem Begin, leader of the Irgun. It also mentions that Palestinians that fight to end the Israeli occupation say they should be treated as prisoners of war.
Ironically, that's what the Irgun said the same thing to the British, who treated them as terrorists.
The troll's men now say they want to prosecute Wikileaks and maybe Julian Assange too.
Prosecuting Wikileaks would endanger journalism in the US.
With the influence of unpredictable warmonger Bannon gone, watch out for the influence of the predictable warmongers, the neocons.
The IMF is trying to pressure India into "labor market reforms" that would probably, as such things typically do, make for increases in production for the benefit of the rich, together with reduction in income for the poor.
In some states, irate people have got rid of robots that give out traffic tickets.
Other robots that snoop on people on the street can do much nastier things than give you a fine.
Democrats that serve Wall Street use Russia as a smokescreen.
US citizens: call on Saboteur of Homeland Security Kelly to bring Juan Manuel Montes back from Mexico, since he was deported unjustly.
Exxon is asking the State Department (run by a former Exxon CEO) for a waiver to permit it to drill for oil in Russia in despite of US sanctions against that.
DNC chair Tom Perez is holding back from criticizing Wall Street even while touring with Sanders.
Arkansas Fights to Execute Two Men Without Testing DNA Evidence That Could Exonerate Them.
This is standard practice for cruel systems of "justice": they don't want anyone even to imagine doubting their decisions.
The UN Security Council has threatened North Korea with sanctions if it continuous nuclear testing.
This warning has the support of China, so Mr Kim will find it difficult to defy. It has a chance of succeeding as a diplomatic solution to the problem of North Korea's nuclear weapons.
For the Israeli army, shooting a Palestinian teen in the back is "professional error".
Apparently "error" covers lying about the events, too.
Beyond apartheid to ethnic cleansing: the rabbi that leads a significant Israeli electoral party calls for expelling all non-Jews from Israel.
US citizens: call on the Labor Department to proceed with rule to require retirement investment advisers to act in their clients' best interest.
US citizens: call on senators not to fund the troll's anti-immigrant plans.
In the US: join the People's Climate March on April 29.
US citizens: call on Congress to reject any proposal to undermine the funding for Social Security.
Several leaders of the Hindu theocratic party BJP will face trial for participating in the destruction of a famous historic mosque.
The mosque was built hundreds of years ago by Muslim conquerors on a sacred Hindu site and destroyed an old Hindu temple. By modern standards, that was a crime too. However, there was no need to respond to an ancient crime with a new crime. The former, destroyed Hindu temple cannot be brought back. The site is nothing special for Muslims; moving the mosque to another site, if necessary taking it apart stone by stone and rebuilding it elsewhere, would have restored the site to Hindus without destroying the mosque.
In restitution, the mosque could have been moved to another site.
Mélenchon aims to save the European Union by correcting its great wrong: subservience to business and banksters.
The EU and the IMF have imposed austerity on France, barring the French state from doing anything to reduce the unemployment and inequality that feed both right-wing extremism and Islamism.
The paramilitary youth auxiliary of Burundi's dictator chants to murder and rape people opposed to the dictator.
Facebook Wants [its useds] You to Stare Even More at the Real World Through Your Phone Camera.
A "cashless" economy is one where the banks have power over everything.
US border thugs arrested Juan Manuel Montes when he didn't have his wallet on him, and deported him without allowing him to get his wallet and show he was protected from deportation.
Those agents spit on the law they were supposed to enforce, just as they spit on Montes's rights. "We can take away your rights by closing our eyes to them and saying we don't see them." These little not-sees deserve a sharp punishment.
When the troll negotiates with China, he asks for advantages for Ivanka's business.
The troll has backed off cancelling the nuclear agreement with Iran. That is a relief, since this agreement is the best chance of avoiding Iran's getting nuclear weapons.
Brain scans give a concrete and measurable meaning to the "higher state of consciousness" produced by psychedelic drugs.
In some parts of the US, global heating will mean that a wildfire burns your house.
Sanders, with DNC chair Tom Perez, are campaigning to elect progressive Democrats.
The tax on sugary drinks in Berkeley, California, reduced sales by 15% compared with nearby towns.
It's a shame that people are buying more water, rather than drinking more water from the faucet.
Jail for a Joke: Student's Case Puts Free Speech under Spotlight in Spain.
What could be wrong about assassinating a high official of a dictatorship?
Criminal groups are moving in on the areas of Colombia which the FARC used to control.
On the idea of shooting down North Korean test missiles.
As the Indian government ramps up hostility and threats towards Muslims, few Hindus support their rights. Christians and Dalits face repression there too.
Modi supports bigotry by doing nothing to discourage it.
Alex Jones' lawyer claimed in court that what Jones says in his radio shows is just an act designed to manipulate the public. In other words, it's all dishonesty.
The European Union favors multinational giants in agriculture — no wonder over 1/3 of the farms have disappeared since 2003.
Americans need to be educated about what science means and why we need it for understanding how the world is.
Students, sometimes supported by faculty, are imposing censorship on some US universities.
Precisely because the troll uses bullying and censors those who oppose him, we need to reject censorship.
US thugs have a long history of teaching children to report on their parents.
Resistance to this recruitment is important, but I hope young people will see the difference between snitching on your parents for using pot and reporting theft.
We should not let sports teams extort public money for their stadiums.
It would be useful to have state laws that prohibit city governments from directly contributing in any way to the construction of stadiums.
Virginia legislator Mike Mullin proposes to narrow the intake of the school-to-prison pipeline.
Groups of right-wing fanatics are circulating lies to justify a future campaign to massacre progressives.
Multinational corporations are lobbying all around the world to pay less in taxes.
The result is that (1) we pay their share, or (2) our governments are impoverished and can't carry out their responsibilities, or (3) a combination of the two.
United's bloody removal of Dr. Dao should not be blamed on the algorithm that selected him rather than some other passenger as the one to remove. It was the fault of United executives and managers that chose the policy of pulling passengers off planes by force.
What US national parks will look like in 2050 if we don't stop global heating.
The UK plans to cancel the citizenship of Assad's wife.
She is clearly supporting a tyrant, and may be guilty of some crimes. But it is always wrong to strip people of their citizenship for crimes.
Greenland's Zachariae Isstrom glacier is breaking up. Over time, this will raise sea level by half a meter.
That is in addition to the sea level rise from other sources, which is predicted to be up to meter by 2100.
Of course, other unpredicted melting could occur too.
The enemies of Assad are in many cases just as bloodthirsty as he.
"Leaders such as Turkish president look at Trump and Putin and conclude democracy can be made to be what you want it to be."
The referendum was not held in a free and fair way.
A shrinking glacier in Canada caused the Slims river to disappear completely in just four days.
Why poor Americans use check cashing services and payday lenders. It's not that they are unaware of the costs.
Overall, it seems that they are living so close to the edge of being broke that they are constantly pushed around by short term necessity. They can't afford to deposit checks in a bank that won't charge a fee.
The solution to this is to make things better for the poor.
When the CIA threatens to destroy Wikileaks, it threatens freedom of the press in general.
How Google, Facebook and Amazon subverted the internet and converted it into a platform for massive surveillance monopolies.
At the practical level, the "war on drugs" is implemented in a racist way. When Sessions says he wants to "bring it back", it means he wants to accentuate the racist repression of it.
It's easier to understand what white privilege means if we recognize that there are other dimensions of privilege and they all operate simultaneously.
"Most of the world's nuclear warheads are now in the hands of men who are prepared to use them."
Human-caused global heating is on the verge of going faster than all natural events in the entire 420-million-year record of past climate.
Canada says all the right things about global heating, but in its actions it continues extractivist policies.
Erdoğan seems to have has succeeded in changing Turkey's constitution to give the president power to do what he likes.
The vote was close, and the opposition says it will challenge a large fraction of the votes.
Everyone: join the March for Science on April 22.
Everyone: demand justice for the anti-Trump protester that was mauled by thugs while handcuffed and pinned down.
US citizens: call on the Senate to block gay-hating Mark Green as Saboteur of the Army.
Analyzing bureaucratic rhetoric: the tricks used by United Airlines and thug departments everywhere to evade culpability for mistreating people.
This form of rhetoric is designed to create the impression that the abuse was the inevitable action of a system for which no one is responsible, so the victim did the abuse to perself.
Rigidly idiotic US consular staff demanded an interview with a baby to see if it was a terrorist. The baby was unable, however, to answer their questions.
The callous practices of consulates, including unlimited delays, often ruins people's travel even when there is no particular suspicion.
Combining this with the practice of making airline tickets nonrefundable shafts people doubly. Most people cannot afford to buy new tickets if a visa delay stops them from traveling.
Activist nuns are pressuring for an investigation of the root causes of Wells Fargo bank's practice of cheating customers.
The acting saboteur of civil rights in education is opposed to civil rights.
The problem US blacks confront goes deeper than the poverty that increasing numbers of them grow up in and spend their lives in. (After all, that's happening to whites, too.) They still experience the aftereffects of discriminatory law (first slavery, then segregation), which propagate from generation to generation. The US and various states owe compensation to the descendants of people who were victimized in that way, and the compensation has to be enough to undo the lasting harm.
As for education, ideally we would provide every child with a good education and a safe, unstressful environment to learn in. We don't have to use race as a rough approximation for having a disadvantage. What this requires is money, but we could get it easily if we defeat dooH niboR.
This 2013 article by Richard Falk has been cited as an example of "antisemitism".
There is nothing antisemitic in that article. It criticizes US policy towards the Muslim world and towards Israel, and it mentions the extent of political influence that Israel exercises on US politics (through its lobbying arm, AIPAC, whose conference was recently protested by many American Jews). But there is nothing in Falk's article that expresses any attitude about Jews.
Falk points out that various Israeli officials have also described the occupation as a policy of apartheid.
Falk condemns Palestinian war crimes, too, to the extent that the Palestinian Authority asked him to resign from his UN post.
Notwithstanding these facts, an organization called "UN Watch" cited Falk's article as supposed proof that Falk is antisemitic while calling for the UK to expel him.
Republicans have eliminated the retirement funds set up by some cities.
Drone assassinations killed lots of civilians when they were run by Obama with restraint. Because we didn't take that power away from him, it has now been inherited by the new inhumane bully as president.
Maryland will locally replace the funding for Planned Parenthood that the US government has cut off.
SCROTUS and the troll have attacked women's health care 6 ways.
Philosophy in India treats Dr Ambedkar's ideas as untouchable.
Today's right-wing, including the Republicans, demonizes George Soros and attributes to him almost magical powers to defend free elections and freedom of speech.
The FCC proposes an absurd definition of competition between ISPs, designed to allow them to gouge customers.
That reflects the general policy of Republicans to help business against Americans.
In the US, cities with more immigrants show increases in wages.
It is possible that immigrants increase wages in a way that would work for everyone if everyone did it. But it is also possible that immigrants increase wages in a city by pulling good jobs away from other cities.
Labour pledges to make large companies show full tax returns.
The troll is quietly planning to reopen US coasts to oil drilling, in cahoots with oil company lobbyists.
The cheater has cancelled his pledge to reduce US interventionism.
US citizens have strong and pressing reasons to care what is in the troll's tax returns.
[Proposed] Censorship at the [US] Border Threatens Free Speech Everywhere.
A moment of carelessness reveals Iran's strict TV censorship.
In general, the way to keep your children safe from the occasional adult that might want to do them harm is to let your children learn how to handle doing things alone.
Age 9 seems rather late for a child to start walking around the city alone. The children in my elementary school walked to and from school at age 6. This was not in some quiet rural village — it was in the center of the world's largest city, in Manhattan.
Hungarians protested in Budapest against the law to shut the Central European University.
The Hungarian right-wing regime has a strategy of undermining democratic government and human rights in ways that hold short of stirring up strong opposition.
A clever ad-blocker can now detect ads semantically, and even distinguish Facebook ads from the rest of Facebook. Is this useful? Not for me.
I'm not interested in blocking ads from appearing on my screen. I object to most internet ads because they are surveillance systems and I resent being tracked.
Ironically, it seems that this clever ad-blocker allows ads to surveil in the process of detecting them. From my point of view, this defeats the purpose.
As for distinguishing ads from other material on Facebook, why even think about it? Facebook is a surveillance system, pure and simple. The ads do surveillance and everything else does surveillance. To avoid being tracked by Facebook is simple: don't have an account, and block its other surveillance methods.
The aspect of Facebook that does require blocking in a browser is the Like button, which does surveillance even on users that don't have Facebook accounts. But it's not an ad.
The Bahrain Grand Prix car race brings reporters that give repressive state a pretty image. The reporters will be deported if they cover anything but the race.
US citizens: support the Electronic Privacy Act.
US citizens: Call for requiring the troll to consult congress before attacking Syria.
Massachusetts citizens: call on Massachusetts to fund family planning activities.
Stanford University is trying to censor a conference about sexual assault whose organizer wants to use a picture of the troll.
The conference is to consider the Title IX requirements that cover how schools handle accusations of sexual assault.
Everyone: call on advertisers to drop Bill O'Reilly's TV show.
Being used by Facebook tends to be bad for your mental health.
Saboteur of Education DeVos has come to the aid of student loan companies that have been caught taking advantage of the students that borrowed from them.
After Yahoo gave China information about users that were dissidents, it set up a charitable fund supposedly to aid Chinese dissidents. A lawsuit accuses Yahoo of diverting that money to other uses.
The reporting on United's bloody ejection of a doctor seated in his assigned seat has got many issues wrong, often in ways that help diminish United's responsibility.
Indeed Americans tend to grasp at excuses to let companies get away with abuses — including the abuse of making software proprietary.
The Heatland Institute is sending disinformation packets to high school science teachers, trying to encourage doubt about global heating.
The cheater wants to give multinational banks a tax cut even on top of all the tax dodging they do.
Manafort is accused of getting lots of money from pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine while serving as the troll's campaign chairman.
I don't think this by itself constitutes a crime or a treason on the troll's part, but it adds to suspicion there was one.
Christian theocrats in the US have learned to support politicians whose conduct they consider totally un-Christian, if it helps them impose their strictures on the rest of us.
I would not call Bentley a "pervert". I don't think having an affair with someone is wrong, but they say they do. However, using public funds for it is a violation of public ethics.
Uri Avnery doubts that Assad used sarin recently, because he had nothing to gain from doing so.
A progressive humanist student in Pakistan was lynched by a mob of religious fanatics.
Syrian rebels and Assad are mutually allowing besieged villages to evacuate.
This is a step towards stabilizing their fronts and calming down the war.
The troll has enabled Republican-controlled states to deny funding to Planned Parenthood for women's health care because it does abortions.
A "spiritual festival" in India took place in an area next to and on the Yamuna river, and wrecked the area so badly that environmental remediation will take 10 years and cost around ten million dollars.
Massachusetts citizens: support the campaign for ranked choice voting in Massachusetts.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Protecting Data at the Border Act.
US citizens: visit your congresscritter to stand for net neutrality.
US citizens: call on congress to demand that the troll get permission before any further escalation in Syria.
US citizens: meet with Congresscritters to support net neutrality.
Please explain that network neutrality should be even stronger: ISPs should not be allowed to take any notice of what is inside your packets.
US citizens: participate in a Spring Break Resistance event.
The troll approved use of a very large bomb to attack PISSI's tunnels in Afghanistan. The bomb's blast is destructive up to a mile away.
Previously, the US had refrained from using this bomb out of concern for casualties to civilians.
The likely quantity of civilian casualties would depend on how many civilians are to be found in the area. One extreme is that the area is deserted with no reason for concern. The other extreme is that it is a city with thousands of civilians within a mile. Does anyone know how it was this time?
Aside from that, I don't think the size of this bomb makes any ethical difference.
Here's what to show Christians that support the troll.
Uber hacked Lyft's ride-management server with phony accounts in order to identify people that were driving for Lyft.
The Republican "budget director" admitted, using Republican code, that he wants to attack progressive taxation, Social Security, Medicare, and other government services.
The troll's "America first" turns out to mean "US military first".
The troll plans to shut down Obama's medical care program by eliminating the subsidy part. Many Americans will be unable to afford it.
One of the few good things that the troll said he would do was to eliminate the Export-Import Bank, which provides public subsidy to businesses. Not surprising he changed his mind.
Chechnya is imprisoning gay men and torturing them — murdering some of them.
If you have a meeting with the troll at Mar-a-Lago, don't eat anything!
Assad has attacked foreign journalists that tried to cover Syria.
US ISPs gave thousands of dollars to a few legislators that have served them well. But that's a tiny fraction of the millions the ISPs will make by mistreating their customers. The legislators should say they were cheated.
California's central valley is attracting commuters who work in the San Francisco Bay area, with the result that local people are becoming homeless.
The Thai military government has banned people in Thailand from communicating by internet with three exiled dissidents.
A California thug that beat up a man for jaywalking is facing a criminal investigation.
Tory underfunding is driving the National Health Service to collapse.
For instance, doctors are quitting because the shortage of doctors has increased their workload. In the struggle to cope with acute illness, prevention has been cut.
Tories hope to destroy the NHS as an excuse to replace it with a US-style system where only those who can pay get care.
Keeping British medical care functioning requires making businesses pay their taxes.
Years of Tory contempt for disabled people has taught a segment of the British public to regard disabled people as nuisances.
Under Title IX, US college students accused of any level of sexual misconduct can be expelled with no chance to defend themselves.
One, who maintained he was harassed by the other, killed himself after he was declared guilty.
Eritrean agents are pressuring Eritrean exiles in the Netherlands.
US citizens: call on Congress not to let the troll weaken the funding system for Social Security.
United Airlines has a systematic practice of ordering passengers off the plane and threatening them with violence.
It's not a matter of a few "bad apples", it's the way the barrel was built that makes all the apples in it go bad.
And it's not just this one company. Big companies tend to have rules that forbid staff to act humanely, because their policy is that the customer is always wrong.
Why are the companies so big? Because the US and other countries make it too easy for companies to merge. We need to keep them small so as to preserve competition. In addition, the "efficiency" they achieve by merging is a nice way of saying "fewer good jobs".
Some states are prohibiting marijuana stores from keeping records of who their customers are.
This should be extended to all stores!
An internet controlled cooking device was working fine, then the manufacturer sabotaged it remotely so as to require communication through a remote server.
US citizens: call on Congress to use the War Powers Act to prohibit escalation in Syria and Yemen.
The Tories have run out of ways to impoverish people who are unable to work or excluded from work, so now they are impoverishing hard-working people too.
Both kinds of cuts are wrong. The Tories tried justify the former by demonizing people who can't work. Now they have to demonize people who work but get low pay.
The overall aim of Tory policy is to enrich the rich as much as possible and damn the harm done. They don't admit this, but the facts show it is true.
Uganda spits on freedom of speech with the arrest of someone for insulting the president.
Lead bullets don't have to hit you to hurt you — or animals.
San Francisco thugs that shot Amilcar Perez-Lopez in the back and killed him will not be prosecuted.
Sadly, Sean Spicer's Hitler Comments Serve as a Useful Distraction for Trump.
The ACLU explains what is unjust about "extreme vetting" for people visiting the US.
Anthony McDaniels of Chicago was arrested by thugs and imprisoned on their testimony, but it seems they were lying and just wanted to harass him and take his money.
Poisonous snakes kill hundreds of thousands of people a year, but no one keeps track.
This is a lot more casualties than terrorists cause.
The NAACP proposes that electricity should be a basic human right, and thus people should not be disconnected from it.
SCROTUS propose to make the office of Registrar of Copyright a political office so that businesses can have more control over copyright policy.
A series of Republican deregulation proposals: how they would benefit shady businesses (including giant ones) and hurt Americans in general.
This is normal because regulations generally protect the public from being shafted by businesses.
We need to regulate business or it will screw us.
The troll supports a tax break that would enable giant US companies to avoid $300bn in taxes.
The troll has proposed a sneaky way to create an excuse to reduce Social Security, a few years from now.
The existing Social Security tax is regressive, and we could make a better system, but SCROTUS will only want to make it worse.
Hamas is changing to accept coexistence with Israel.
As Palestinians remove the remaining excuses for Israel's occupation of Palestine's territory in the West Bank, will Israel end the occupation?
What it's like for Palestinian families to be raided by Israeli thugs, their tools stolen, and their workshops closed.
Facebook tolerates incitement to violence, when it is from an Israeli and is directed at Palestinians.
Florida thugs beat up anti-war protesters.
Will they be prosecuted for their vicious way of "serving" the public?
Everyone: call on Faux News to fire Bill O'Reilly and stop tolerating sexual harassment.
United Airlines had thugs brutally pull a passenger off a plane so it could it seat one of its pilots instead.
This was not a case of overbooking, and pulling a passenger out of per confirmed assigned seat is legally not equivalent to denying boarding.
The CEO of United responded with typical corporate PR manipulation, even telling lies about the poor 69-year-old doctor, until public condemnation made him back down.
Many media outlets publicized the passenger's irrelevant previous criminal history, nothing really horrible, to smear him.
The incident illustrates the point that companies shouldn't be allowed to decide their own "terms and conditions".
If United had kept offering higher and higher rewards for someone to switch to another flight, it would probably have found a willing taker eventually.
There was no reason, under the circumstances, why the thugs should have done what United asked. But I would guess that they didn't give it a second thought. The airlines have the principle that "the passenger is always wrong", and the thugs tend to be people who put a high value on authority and making people obey any sort of authority.
United's high-handedness follows on from the TSA's high-handedness.
Pairs of Android apps can collude to transmit personal data to servers. A study found tens of thousands of pairs that collude.
The troll made lots of promises to voters, and has gone back on lots of them already.
In the US: protest on April 15 to demand that the troll release his tax returns.
The troll and his men have no idea what their policy is regarding Assad and Syria.
US Navy maneuvers near Alaska kill fish and whales with toxins and unbearably loud sound.
The navy avoids recognizing the extent of the problem by not trying to estimate how many fish are killed.
Destruction of coral reefs could cost humanity a trillion dollars, not to mention hundreds of millions of dead people, and thousands of extinct species.
Noel Conway, dying of motor neuron disease, will have a chance to plead in court to arrange to die when he chooses.
Instead of growth, economics should aim for a world in which everyone thrives.
A UK undercover thug has been accused in court of planting weapons to frame people.
Sessions is trying to escalate the War on Drugs.
Sessions is going to abolish the Commission on Forensic Science so that the US can keep jailing people based on junk science.
US citizens: call on the Senate to block arms for Salafi Arabia until it cooperates with aid for civilians in Yemen.
I'd rather cut off arms for Salafi Arabia entirely, but this is a step in the right direction.
50 American women a month are shot dead by men that they were in relationships with. All in all, this is a considerably bigger danger than terrorism, though not as big as cars or tobacco.
(I use the word "partner" only to refer to business ventures.)
Evidence from blood of the deceased, and from the empty warehouse that Assad's air force attacked, shows that the former were poisoned by sarin and that it didn't come from supplies stored there.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act and the Corporate EXIT Fairness Act.
US citizens: Call on Democrats in Congress to cosponsor the Social Security 2100 Act.
Philippine Death Squad Whistleblower Arturo Lascanas Flees to Singapore.
Too bad the US also makes its whistleblowers flee into exile.
UK politicians foment hatred towards refugees and the state makes them live with rats. Despised for not speaking English, they have to beg for English lessons.
The brutality of shari'a law manifests itself in a part of Indonesia where the state has given extremist Muslims permission to impose that on the population.
Leaked emails show Shell's CEO knew he was approving a large bribe for Nigerian high officials.
An Irish judge had the good sense not to hold a school liable after children fell down while running in a school yard and one broke her arm.
Attempts to find institutions at fault for accidents are driven in the US by the fact that poor people have no medical coverage to pay the cost of treatment. In Ireland, they don't need to sue to pay for their medical care. The US should follow Ireland (and every European country, and Canada) and set up Medicare for All.
The troll is escalating various US wars, bombing more often in several countries, and killing a lot more civilians.
ACLU explains how the troll's bombardment of Syria was illegal under US law without Congress's approval.
It should be noted that Obama's initial stated motive for intervening in Libya was to protect civilians — but this morphed into a campaign to depose Qadhafi. The troll's initial stated motive was to punish (and could morphed into a campaign to depose Assad).
A punishment, even if deserved, is not as pressing as protecting civilians.
"Global Britain", the right-wing plan for getting out of the European Union, means a bank and arms merchant for global dictators.
China conceals the number of people that it executes.
Disguised lobbying groups connected with big pharma are publishing astroturf ads against laws to reduce drug prices.
Food service workers in the US now feel compelled to hide their union organization activities.
Activists have launched a series of protests in banks that fund oil pipelines, where they drop oil on one of the protesters.
They clean up the oil before leaving.
North Carolina plutocratist legislators propose to give agribusiness substantial immunity for damages done through polluting practices.
If they only have to pay for the physical the damage they cause, and only to the fraction of victims with the means and time to sue, they will intentionally continue the practices.
The European Parliament reproached the agreement that allows Europeans' personal data to be shipped to US companies even though they don't protect privacy according to EU law.
The cost of cancer treatment in the US is toxic — it kills patients.
The Justice Department reported that over half of the times that DEA thugs seized people's money, it had nothing to do with any criminal investigation. The thugs took money because they could.
New York State will no longer charge 17-year-olds as adults.
The article also points out that nowadays there are few decent jobs a person can get with a criminal record. In effect, the record destroys a person's life, and there is no way out except crime.
The troll is considering stationing nuclear weapons in South Korea, or assassinating North Korea's troll.
Storing nuclear weapons in South Korea would be a gesture, since the US can hit North Korea with nuclear weapons from the sea already. Whether the gesture is likely to do good or harm, I can't guess.
Assassinating the troll of North Korea would throw North Korea into total confusion. We can't predict what would happen then. Even if North Korea is not yet in position to retaliate with nuclear weapons, it would probably end the truce and resume actively fighting the Korean War.
New York State is planning to eliminate tuition fees in city and state colleges, for students whose families are not wealthy.
This is an important thing to do, but society must also provide a decent life for people who aren't able to graduate from college.
Australian wetlands have been contaminated by coal dust from a nearby coal export terminal.
This happened because of a powerful storm. Storms happen normally, so one must expect it to happen again. One thing global heating tends to do is cause more powerful storms.
Protests often succeed in changing the general public mind, which is a crucial preparation for changing government policy.
The Taliban in parts of Afghanistan have authorized polio vaccination.
It was very dangerous of the US to hide its search for Osama bin Laden behind the mask of polio vaccination.
Utopian Thinking: Free Housing Should Be a Universal Right.
The article gives too much legitimacy to a supposed "free market" principle, but that is not a matter of principle at all. Markets are a useful system, and we should use them where they give good results. Where they are harmful, we should not let them cause suffering.
Moreover, it is a mistake to assert a privilege for the "free" market. every market is based on certain rules, and there are many legitimate ways that the rules could be chosen.
Global heating is killing the Great Barrier Reef right now. Scientists say the reef is at "terminal stage".
A $15 Tax Bill Nearly Cost a Family Their Home. If the Republicans get their way, that will happen to many families. But not wealthy ones.
Gibraltar the tax haven and smuggling hub harms the UK and continental Europe alike.
A major Bolivian environmental protection NGO received an order to remove its massive research library from the university in Cochabamba in 48 hours. When the organization said that was impossible, the rector demanded immediate removal and threatened to have students attack the organization (and destroy it, presumably).
It is apparently because the organization criticizes the state's oil extraction.
Why Tax Resistance Under Trump Needs Its Antiwar Edge.
An election was held in Kashmir, but hardly anyone voted. They protested instead.
Hungary is on the verge of adopting a law to make the Soros-funded Central European University move out of Hungary. Large protests opposed this.
The ruling right-wing party has undermined democracy to the point that it can do basically whatever it wishes. But it has mostly held back from doing things that arouse great opposition.
25 years ago, even right-wingers wanted to avoid global heating disaster. One who did so now reports that the world economy keeps growing even though human CO2 emissions are not increasing.
That point is important, but the article also repeats errors that right-wingers have always done for the benefit of the rich. For instance, he talks about how fast the "average Briton" is getting richer, when in fact most Britons are making ever less. Apparently he divides total income or total wealth of everyone in the UK by the number of people there, and gets a number which is rising because the rich are getting more.
The main US newspapers ran 18 articles praising the missile attack on Syria and none criticizing it.
UN Ambassador Haley asserted the US now intends to fight for regime change in Syria.
The troll criticized previous presidents for getting the US into such quagmires. It was one of the few good things he said. I guess we should not be surprised that he has abandoned it.
The troll is moving ships in a way that suggests a threat to attack North Korea.
This is potentially a dangerous game.
A study reports that one hour a day using social networks correlates with a 14% decrease in overall happiness, for children in the UK.
This does not prove the social networks make children unhappy. They could be turning to those networks because they are unhappy.
The UK is faced with preserving many historic church buildings that are no longer wanted as churches.
I suggest converting these churches into condos, preserving the outside structure and some particularly interesting parts of the inside. This has been done in Boston.
Dorit Rabinyan basks in the light of Israel's politically-based rejection of her book for the national school curriculum. Her book was alleged to promote a threat of encouraging mixed marriages.
Who should young Britons blame for exit from the UK? Old people, the many who voted for it? Or themselves, the many that did not vote?
Both, of course.
It is vital to recognize your own errors, to learn to do better. But that's no reason to let others off the hook.
America's Health Care System Forces Citizens To Turn To Crowdfunding To Survive.
As long as few people do it, it can work for many of them. However, I don't think millions of sick Americans are likely to find enough money this way to pay for their treatment.
Some US states continue to resist the US plan to turn drivers licenses into national ID cards.
The iPhone 7 has DRM specifically to brick it if anyone other than an authorized repair agent fixes it.
The term "lock" is inadequate to describe this sort of malware. Let's use other words that show what's really going on.
Endangered species protection has saved many species. Here are some new examples.
It can continue to do so, as long as we keep up doing it, and as long as the threats are what we have known in the past.
However, when global heating messes up nearly all the ecosystems on Earth, our protection measures will be unable to cope with that. And we won't have much attention to spare for that when we can barely keep most humans fed.
In the long term, California's aquifers keep draining. Wet years don't replenish as much as people take in dry years.
Driverless cars will have trouble dealing with many problems in the surrounding environment, which human drivers can recognize without difficulty.
Don't try using them in Iraq, for instance — they don't recognize shells exploding.
Young Americans increasingly long for a 1950s world in which the men work full time and earn enough to support the whole family, while the women stay at home.
I can understand the appeal of that, in comparison with today's world, in which a couple must both work full time, if they can find work, and even that barely supports a family.
Why have things got worse? Part of the responsibility lies with plutocracy and business-supremacy treaties, which have knocked down wages in real terms for most Americans. Part of it lies with the fact that we are taking from the Earth's ecosphere above its rate of regeneration. Global heating is going to reduce everyone's standard of living, except the rich if they can buy their way out of their fair share of the damage.
The ethical way to shield yourself partially from the effects of this is to avoid having children. The way to fix the problems for real is to defeat plutocracy.
It is becoming increasingly difficult for US states to find drugs to execute people with.
Since I think the death penalty is wrong regardless of how it is carried out, I am bemused by the focus on side issues, such as which people are fit for execution and which are not, or the method to be used.
An indigenous group in Canada rejected a billion dollar offer that involved accepting a natural gas export terminal. Their salmon run, and their global ecosphere, are worth far more than that.
Bravo!
President Maduro of Venezuela banned opposition leader Capriles from politics, nominally for 15 years.
This is the act of an arbitrary government, and can't be justified.
He continues arresting opposition politicians.
What makes me sad is that the opposition is right-wing, and its intention is to surrender the country to the multinationals. I can't see a good outcome in any direction.
On the issue, in Paraguay, of permitting reelection of presidents.
Allowing a president to be reelected is not necessarily bad in itself, but it can be part of a scheme to suppress democracy.
With highway blockades just about the only form of protest that the major media notice, Minnesota is moving to punish them prohibitively.
Australia cancelled the visit of Bassem Tamimi, Palestinian nonviolent protest leader and human rights defender.
Feed the Starving? Guns Are the True Cause of Famine.
Most farms could use a lot less pesticide and produce the same.
Pandas began eating bamboo 2 million years ago, but they still have not properly adapted to digesting it.
Apple is being sued in Australia for illegally bricking devices that had been given "unauthorized" repairs.
That practice is illegal in Australia, and in the US as well.
British Columbia has prohibited employers from requiring women to wear high heels.
I support this policy.
Democrats can't win in West Virginia as long as they keep pretending that self-described "job creators" will make it prosperous.
US citizens: call on Congress to vote on bombing Syria.
Michael Cox, on resigning from the EPA, says that Saboteur Pruitt arouses the derision of the staff.
Alas, that is probably what he wants to do.
Bombing Syria was the troll's "wag the dog" moment.
Others support my guess that his real motive was to distance himself from Putin in the public mind.
I think that a president who will launch missiles for political reasons is very dangerous.
The troll's bombardment of Syria was illegal because he did not ask Congress for permission.
Congress would probably have given permission, but that does not excuse him for not asking.
US citizens: call on the EPA to ban toxic paint-stripping chemicals and make manufacturers switch to the safer alternatives.
Everyone: call on Nebraska to block the Keystone XL pipeline.
Rich Americans have a much longer lifespan than poor Americans.
It is 14 years longer for men, and 10 years longer for women.
A big contributor to this is that poor people are denied necessary medical care in the US.
Republicans to American workers: If you can't make us richer, we are arranging for you to die.
Bombing does not make the troll "presidential".
The US has backed off from demanding Twitter identify anonymous dissidents that work in US immigration.
Bernie Sanders: Although Assad as a war criminal is not entitled to complain, bombing Syria can put others in danger.
California's long drought is over, but global heating will bring further droughts, even longer and worse than this one.
Scientists have figured out why global heating causes extreme weather in temperate zones.
The UK government appears to have cooperated with Rio Tinto mining to block a visit by a victim from Madagascar to the company's annual meeting in London.
I distrust on principle all "offsetting" schemes and all claims by companies that they protect the environment in some subtle way. Big companies have so much temptation to falsify these things, and so little scruple about doing so.
Nine-year-old Ridhima Pandey is suing the government of India for exposing her to future global heating that will result from the government's present policies.
There is a substantial chance those policies will kill her, so her lawsuit is quite justified.
US citizens: State your support for Sanders's planned Medicare for All.
Two former Israeli security chiefs warned that Israel is drifting into tyranny.
Readers of this site will have seen that Uri Avnery has chronicled Israel's advancing repression of its citizens for years.
The troll is strewing the government with officials that advocate torture and want to imprison people without trial until the US ends a war (i.e., forever).
If the US wants to call them prisoners of war, it should treat them according to the Geneva Conventions.
Gorsuch auditioned for the job of Supreme Court saboteur with a series of dissenting opinions showing plutocrats he was their man.
Most Americans have learned to reject the tiny threat of terrorism as an excuse for massive surveillance.
Employees in the US are surveilled intimately.
We need laws to protect employees privacy from their employers. If more employees had unions, they could stop this on their own.
Guber says it will leave Seattle if drivers there are allowed to unionize. The drivers say that would be victory.
They only work for Uber because they feel compelled to do so to compete with other drivers, so if Uber disappeared, they'd be safe.
How about passing laws requiring all transportation options to permit getting a ride anonymously and paying cash? That would drive Uber away for sure, and good riddance!
The market game worked tolerably well in the age when masses of workers' work was needed — with the addition of regulations and social welfare programs to take care of those who couldn't possibly work. In the age where millions of people can't do any work that gets paid, we have to change these rules.
However, it is a mistake to evaluate society in terms of people's chances of getting into the top 20%, or top 50%, or top 5%. No matter how we arrange the rules, only 1/5 of the people can get into the top 20%. The right criterion is how well the people in the bottom 20% live.
We all need freedom as well as material things. When the article uses the term "open source", it neglects that aspect of what software does to its users.
Google Play sends app developers the personal details of users that install the app.
Merely asking users' "consent" for this is not enough to legitimize it. We know that most users have given up on reading just what they are "consenting" to, and the reason is that they are accustomed to being told, "If you want to use this service, you must consent to blah blah blah."
To truly protect people's privacy, we must stop Google from getting this personal information in the first place!
Guber drivers are suing Guber, accusing it of programming its software to cheat them and passengers through misinformation.
Some US thug departments are making systematic efforts to avoid killing — and it works! Instead of shooting people dead, they arrest people alive. Even people who really are dangerous.
Who could possibly dislike this? Sessions can. More generally, Republicans with simmering anger against minority groups or poor people can resent not having the chance to kill someone.
A bill in Arkansas to allow parents to leave children unsupervised from time to time was defeated.
Any parent who doesn't act as if leashed permanently to per children is at risk of imprisonment.
The troll launched 60 cruise missiles against one of Assad's air bases.
The troll's pretense of caring about Syrian children is completely incredible.
This also raises the question of what his real reason is. Perhaps he is looking for a public way to give the impression he's not friends with Putin.
I am not sorry for Assad or his soldiers. There is some sense in sending Assad a message to "stop using chemical weapons", if it does not mean continuing to fight him (which would have the problem of whose victory one is fighting for).
The president should have to get permission from Congress for such attacks.
Mining magnate: "We all had slavery in our supply chains."
Some in Australia propose to deploy cooling systems to protect a few often-visited parts of the Great Barrier Reef.
Coral reefs are needed for more than just tourism. They are essential for many species to survive, including many that humans eat.
At least the discussion of the issue will remind the public that there is a serious problem. Australia must throw off the dominion of the planet-roasters, then cut down rapidly on its carbon emissions.
The US border thug agency has demanded Twitter identify the users of an account that makes critical posts and identify themselves as disaffected government employees.
The US owes its existence to anonymous pamphleteers who condemned the injustices of the (British) state. The right to anonymous publication is just as important today.
Republicans changed the Senate rules so that Supreme Court nominees cannot be blocked by filibuster.
Putting Gorsuch on the Supreme Court will do lasting harm to the US.
Democrats have gained something by trying their best to block Gorsuch. The Republicans will suffer the odium of having changed the rules to force him through.
The US border thugs, their impulse to cruelty now unleashed by the troll, are deporting unauthorized immigrants who were previously accepted and leaving their US citizen children behind alone.
Maribel's dilemma may become easier to resolve as Republicans continue changing the US to be more like Mexico.
It would be dishonorable for these children to legitimize the cruelty that has been visited on them. They should chant frequently, together, "Shame on Republicans. Down with Republicans."
Proper scientific study of medical or neurological differences between males and females must separate the variable of sex from others such as body weight and life experiences.
A one-day general strike in Argentina protests falling real wages.
Rep. Nunes, citing critics, has "temporarily" got out of the way of the investigation of ties between the troll's team and Russia.
A bipartisan bill in Congress proposes to curb "forfeiture", which is a deemotionalized term for "thugs take your property on some random accusation without ever trying to prove it."
Bills in Congress would take away loopholes that multinationals use for tax-dodging.
Do you think Republicans will support them?
The progressive candidate recommended by Correa narrowly won the Ecuadorian presidential election.
The Israeli state plans to make a list of people that advocate boycotting products of Israel's colonies in Palestinian territory. A thousand Israelis protested defiantly saying, "Add me to your list".
They showed real courage. It's safe for me to advocate this boycott in the US, though recent politically biased laws now penalize any company that follows the boycott. In Israel, its supporters face real repression. Under a law passed a few years ago, anyone advocating such a boycott in Israel is subject to essentially unlimited financial penalties — as much as any inhabitant of the colonies wishes to impose.
Israel designated Palestinians' land a "nature reserve" so they cannot grow anything. Just now it uprooted olive trees planted there.
Nature reserves are useful, but an occupation government has no right to impose such decisions on the occupied people.
An appeal court ruled that existing US nondiscrimination law is violated by workplace discrimination against homosexuals.
I suppose this will go to the Supreme Court, but the argument seems valid to me.
For many Americans, it's Medicare or death. Politicians take notice.
Left-wing criticism of Israel often seeps over into antisemitism. This article analyzes the border zone.
Interview with Diane Nash, leader of nonviolent protest against racist US laws.
The same day that Tom Price bought stock in pharma companies, he also called an official of a pertinent agency to lobby against changing the way Medicare reimburses them.
The official was at the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation.
The Thai military have imposed their new authoritarian constitution on Thailand.
It is designed to increase the power of the elite and reduce democracy.
Russia Bans Picture of Vladimir Putin in Drag.
US citizens: support Sanders's plan to extend Social Security.
How much damage will the Keystone XL pipeline be responsible for?
The pipeline, if built, will transfer around 30 million barrels of oil per year (83 thousand barrels per day). That is 0.086% of current oil consumption.
The pipeline is planned to operate for 50 years, long enough to reach visible disaster. Thus, its oil will be responsible for about .086% of the damage. The responsibility is shared by the mines where the oil is extracted and the plants that burn it, so let's say 1/3 of the responsibility falls on the pipeline.
The disaster is likely to destroy most of humanity and most of humanity's goods. We can estimate the size of this disaster as roughly equal to the economic value of all of humanity's possessions. That is around 360 trillion dollars.
.086% of that is around 310 billion dollars. 1/3 of that roughly 100 billion dollars. That is a rough estimate of the economic damage that the Keystone XL pipeline will be responsible for. It amounts to about 2 billion dollars a year, if they keep it running for 50 years, but breakdown of society may make that difficult before 50 years from now.
Thanks to Michael Hannon for finding these data.
Dutch Men Walk Hand in Hand for Solidarity After Gay Couple Attacked.
The UK is rationing glucose blood test strips. This puts diabetics in danger.
A tax increase can save their lives.
Smoking Causes One in Ten Deaths Globally, Major New Study Reveals.
In 2015 that amounted to over 6 million people killed.
New Brunswick Becomes First Canada Province to Offer Free Abortion Pill.
This is very wise — considering the costs of each additional human being.
Neighborhoods of poor people are often "food deserts", but non-rich people who remain in a gentrified neighborhood find it is a "food mirage" — the fancy stores no longer sell the staples that they can cook every day at home.
If the UK leaves the EU, it will in desperation allow the US EPA to regulate its food safety.
Even under Obama, the EPA had a tendency to surrender to business. Republicans are taking this to extremes. That's a danger to Americans, and if Britons don't cancel the decision, it will be a danger to them too.
"Robots & AI Will Likely Claim Your Job, Sooner Than You Think." The article predicts that 75% of Americans will lose their jobs by 2025.
The article mentions that 45% of working-age Americans are permanently out of work. That figure includes disabled people and people caring for family members; I don't think, however, that the fact that they don't have paid jobs reflects an economic failure. However, a substantial part of them have given up on finding work, and that is a real failure.
Republicans and Democrats are equally opposed to the government's elimination of the weak FCC rules for ISP privacy.
Hindu extremists in India murdered a man who was driving a truck containing cattle.
Such gang violence is spreading in India with encouraging from governments and the governing Hindu-nationalist party.
In the US, right-wing extremist movements they use immigrants and homeless people as the targets, and Muslims. In India they use Muslims and Christians as the targets, and sometimes Dalits. But it's the same tactic.
"I tried to represent an undocumented man rounded up by ICE. I couldn't even find him."
Why You Shouldn't Be Comforted by Internet Providers' Promises to Protect Your Privacy.
The right regulation for ISP's handling of data about customers' browsing is that they should forget it instantly, never showing or even keeping a copy.
Assad seems to have dropped sarin on a rebel-held Syrian town.
I would not put it past him to do that, but I have to wonder why he would do it. It makes little difference to the military situation, but spurs international condemnation of him. What does he think he has to gain?
I agree that it is important to punish a state that uses chemical weapons so as to discourage other states from adopting the practice. But what practical method is there to punish Assad? Only a big escalation of the war could do that, and that in itself would be a crime. And what force in Syria could deserve support in fighting Assad? The Arab rebels are Islamists, even when they are not al-Qa'ida or PISSI.
The only entity that deserves support is Rojava, but Syrian Arabs would not tolerate being part of a mainly Kurdish statelet. In the absence of an Arab force to ally with, there is no realistic way to punish Assad. There might perhaps be someone in his part of Syria to propose as his replacement, but that proposal would not be practically possible.
In the long term, perhaps Rojava could inspire a similar secular democratic movement among Syrian Arabs. But that would take years.
Erik Prince's new company is a sort of Blackwater for China.
The troll removed Bannon from the National Security Council.
That will hamper him from pushing the US into an unthinking war.
Russia wants to follow China in crushing the internet as a vehicle for dissent.
Russia proposes total surveillance of social networks.
The US government has disconnected its wars entirely from the people. It doesn't need public support for wars with few casualties, and it ignores public opinion entirely.
The low casualty figures are partly because most of the killing is done with drones.
Republicans promised they wouldn't repeal the legal requirement for insurance companies to cover preexisting conditions. So instead they propose to allow insurance companies to charge an arm and a leg for treatment for preexisting conditions.
It has the same result, but it's more deniable.
Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia are prosecuted as "extremists" because they are pacifists and decline to join state propaganda activities.
The Snyder-imposed government of Flint, Michigan, is hounding residents to pay old water bills that were charged for poisonous water.
Immigration thugs have a policy of capturing witnesses in courtrooms and deporting them. This undermines justice for everyone.
The Protecting Data at the Border Act would protect US citizens from arbitrary searches of their digital devices or service accounts as they enter the US.
Human rights apply to foreigners, too. I think foreigners should have a way to ask, before they buy tickets, whether the US would demand to investigate them in any of those intrusive ways. If the US says at that time that it has no wish to do search, then that foreigner would be treated at the border like a US citizen: searching per devices or accounts would require a warrant. If the US says at that time that it might search devices an accounts, it is not too late for that foreigner to decide to stay away.
US universities have been ordered to use unfair procedures to adjudicate accusations of rape, or unwelcome touching. They fall way short of our standards of criminal justice.
Historical precedent suggests we are propelling Earth to "palms in the Arctic" levels of heat.
British comedian Frankie Boyle skewers the troll. Example: "If the Queen ever has to shake Trump's hand, she will put on so many gloves she'll look like Mickey Mouse." I was laughing out loud all through it.
However, I had trouble understanding one sentence because of a confusing pronoun: "Admittedly, any expert psychologist will tell you that torture does work, but only if you first threaten them with bare electrical wires."
Who here are the people to be threatened? They could only be the victims — but that would seem to assert that torture works, and surely that wasn't what Boyle intended. Eventually I figured out that "them" was used confusingly as a singular pronoun, an ill-advised practice. Boyle should have written, "threaten per with bare electrical wires."
US citizens: Support the People's Budget.
US citizens:
tell
your senators to reject Gorsuch because of his complicity in
torture.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
Here is more information about what he did.
US citizens: stand for network neutrality.
Please do this even if you have done it before.
Mexican State's Drop in Crime Seemed Too Good To Be True. In fact, it was true, and it was caused by allowing drug traffic.
It seems the War on Drugs is as futile and destructive in Mexico as it is in the US.
Many homeless families in the UK are being housed in remote places from which it takes a long time to get to school, daycare, work, or even a supermarket.
This is the result of long-standing Tory policies, accepted by B'liar as well, that have reduced the supply of housing available for this purpose and encouraged speculation in apartments.
At least the UK still has a policy of giving homeless people housing. Except when it offers people housing that they can't live in, and then uses that worthless offer as an excuse to wash its hands of them.
The US, for the most part, tells people and even families they can live on the street and be harassed by bigots (some of whom are thugs).
Global heating and its effects are changing the genetics of species around the world, affecting their behaviors, their metabolism, and in some cases their shape.
In many cases this adaptation is due to loss of genetic diversity, since it takes much longer for new diversity to arise. Many of these species won't be able to keep adapting to further change at the same rate, let alone the faster changes we must expect a few decades from now.
The troll's "grab the pussy" tape won him support from people who felt powerless and took it to mean, "I'm so powerful I can get away with anything." They enjoyed the vicarious feeling of power. How pitiful.
I fear this is the Republicans' strategy to overcome the demographics that work against them.
The troll's business ally in India is also a right-wing extremist that threatens human rights.
A US high school won't let Bryce Maine choose his grandmother as prom date, because anyone over 20 is considered a threat to the graduating students' safety.
Remember when teenagers said not to trust anyone over 30? Now the school says not to trust anyone over 20.
Senior prom is one of those occasions on which people are pressured to waste their money on foolish luxuries. Do you actually need to spend that money to discover that it isn't important?
Iceland will require companies to prove their pay rates do not embody gender bias.
The FBI and various thug US departments are systematically using face recognition to recognize masses of people. In some cases, they match everyone they find.
New York City is preparing to match the faces of everyone that drives in and out of the city.
This creates a danger of total tyranny. I think Stalin is a better comparison than Hitler. The practice should be illegal.
No one (and that includes the FBI or any thug department) should be allowed to keep photos of everyone, or a large fraction of the population, neither alone nor in cooperation with others, nor allowed to take photos of everyone that passes a certain point or object except under a very specific court order.
Scott Gottlieb, nominated as Saboteur of the Food and Drug Administration, was paid by pharma companies while he condemned measures to stop companies from selling opioids.
The problem of opioid addiction seems to be the result of the harm done by dooH niboR and plutocracy in general, so the real solution is not in restricting availability of opioids but in changing the factors that lead so many people to want to drug themselves into insensibility. However, Gottlieb is evidently inclined to sell out and should not be an official.
The US plans to demand that travelers give access to their email accounts, meaning basically all their private communications.
This would apply even to people that don't need a visa.
It would be anxiety-provoking to plan a trip to the US and face the danger of being denied entry and losing what you've already spent on the tickets. Don't expose yourself to this — stay away from the US.
I fear that if the US does this, other countries will follow. The US introduced the nasty practice of demanding fingerprints from visitors, and already several other countries have adopted the practice, meaning that I will never go there again.
For the UK, leaving the EU implies sucking up to every tyrant with money, even Salafi Arabia.
UK's "Need" for trade deals will be an excuse to ignore human rights in other countries, as well as workers rights both there and in the UK itself.
The head of (renamed) Blackwater met with an associate of Putin to set up a secret communications channel between the troll and Putin.
Removing the UK from the EU is an
excuse
to give billionaires "freedom" from regulations that make them pay
decent wages and protect us from them.
The European Parliament
voted
to ban use of palm oil for biofuels.
Amir Taaki, British developer of Bitcoin software, went to Rojava to
help the Syrian Kurds. He wanted to help them technically but they
conscripted him as a soldier. Since he returned to Britain, the UK
treated
him as suspected terrorist, giving incoherent reasons, and refuses
to let him travel.
Maybe they want to stop him from contributing to Bitcoin software.
The troll
refuses
to tell the American people how many US troops are fighting in Iraq
and Syria. It states a number which is false.
Only whistleblowers will tell us how our government is fighting wars,
which reinforces the point that democracy depends on whistleblowers
and we must do away with any and all surveillance that threatens
whistleblowers.
Ethics Laws
Will
Sideline Jared and Ivanka (from giving the troll "advice" about
several important issues).
Gambling machines are so addictive that many
gamblers
feel frustrated when they win.
It is an absurd idea to prohibit gambling, but the modern practice in
which the state promotes gambling is an attempt to compensate for the
tax revenue that companies and the rich have learned ways not to pay
any more.
Painkillers are also addictive, and many Americans choose the one for
the same reason they choose the other:
loss
of hope for anything better.
That's because America does not create any good jobs. Plutocrats
won't let Americans have good jobs; they want all the income for
themselves.
In the next decade, soon
automation
(promoted by plutocrats) will get rid of many of the existing good
jobs.
We Americans had better set up a progressive government before
plutocrats kill us.
The troll's support for nearly all tyrannical regimes has
encouraged
repression and puts human rights defenders in greater danger.
In Europe, national governments will
tax
car manufacturers and use the money to pay for emissions testing.
The manufacturers will no longer pay for it.
We should do this with
testing
of medicines, too.
The cheater put his business into a trust, but he
can
secretly get any amount of money out of it whenever he wishes.
Carter Page, former advisor to the troll, is
accused
of giving documents to a Russian spy in 2013.
New York City thugs infiltrated Black Lives Matter protest groups
so as to
read
their communications, while making videos of them to intimidate
them.
We need to teach thugs that condemning their violence is a form of
defense of law and order.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
criticized
Muslim women who don't fight to free women living under sexist
Muslim regimes.
People have the right to practice a religion, but no religion
justifies denying human rights to anyone.
I don't agree with the position, attributed to her in the article,
that mosques and Muslim organizations in general are a "conveyor belt"
to terrorism. For instance, I don't think that those with a Sufi
alignment do that. I suspect that Salafi-aligned ones do that.
US immigration thugs held Rony Chavez Aguilar
in
immigration prison for three weeks, with no warrant, while denying
him the opportunity to show a judge that he can't be deported because
he is a US citizen.
The Tories have found an excuse to push some more children into
poverty:
cut
welfare support for children after the first two.
The world's population is still increasing, so it is important to
adopt policies that reduce the birth rate — but not this way.
Punishing parents after they have children is too late to influence
their decision, and taking it out on the children is totally unjust.
Children don't choose their parents, so they can hardly deserve
poverty because of anything thy did. Growing up in poverty can stunt
their mental and physical development permanently.
The first step should be to make sure all potential parents have
access to effective birth control, and to counteract the natalist
pressure they feel. Meanwhile, we can provide more support to people
that adopt existing children rather than making new ones.
Even in generally democratic Tunisia, disrespect towards Islam is
treated
as a crime.
The West's advice to the pieces of the Soviet Union, based on
neoliberal ideology, led most of them into great inequality and great
poverty, with a decrease in economic activity. It proves to have been
very
bad advice.
In reaction, Russians
turned
from democracy to a strongman. Not that he is really doing very
well in making ordinary Russians wealthier.
Best Buy management knew that its employees were collaborating with
the FBI to
search
customers' equipment.
Republicans seek to make Medicaid
require
a drug test, or even exclude people without jobs.
More and more Americans have no jobs, because the economy has no room
for them. They are not included in the official unemployment rate
because they have given up looking for work (usually because they know
full well they wouldn't find any).
More and more Americans turn to drugs to escape from despair. I can't
understand them — I felt plenty of despair, but the idea of
becoming an addict was never tempting. But it's a fact that they do.
There is never a justification for imposing drug tests, except when a
driver appears to be dangerously intoxicated.
This scheme amounts to a plan to kill many poor Americans, which will
be an increasing fraction of Americans as the plutocrats reduce the
share of income that goes to everyone else.
If your relative dies because the rich made per poor or denied per
medical care, think of it as murder. Indeed, why not hold the funeral
as a protest rally? Go out on the street chanting, "Republicans
murdered my ____".
This is not to claim that Democrats are necessarily better. We should
select the ones like Sanders that oppose plutocracy, and reject the
ones like Clinton that support it.
Russian
disinformation seems to be preparing for a possible invasion of
Lithuania.
US citizens:
call
on your senators to cosponsor the Improving Access to Affordable
Prescription Drugs Act.
US citizens:
call
on congressional Democrats to campaign for Medicare for All.
US citizens:
call on the
EPA to investigate collusion between EPA staff and Monsanto.
US citizens:
call for banning
trade in shark fins in the US.
Many species of shark are endangered by this practice.
New York City
insists
on treating Lisa Davis and Lisa S Davis as the same person, even
after they have both explained the problem.
One is white and one is black. The black one gets frequent fines from
the racist state for a variety of tiny offenses, which remain on the
other one's record and threaten to mess up her life.
This case joins many others to demonstrate that pleading guilty to try
to make trouble go away can blow up on you. They offer you a deal and
they don't tell you the fine print.
I wonder if Lisa Davis can get her name changed to Lisa Other Davis
while letting Lisa S Davis keep their own shared official identity.
The troll wants an
advocate
of mega-mergers as the saboteur in charge of anti-trust
enforcement.
Disney World seduces half its visitors to wearing trackers that
monitor
their every move.
Even nastier, they demand people's fingerprints. For that reason
alone, don't go!
The article says that nowadays many theme parks demand visitors'
fingerprints. Can anyone send me more information about that?
For instance, the names of some other parks that do that?
The US ambassador to the UN boasted of
making
other country's diplomats afraid to mention Israel's colonies in
Palestine's territory (the West Bank) and December's UN resolution
that the US didn't veto.
The troll's agents in the FCC are trying their best to
let
prison phone companies gouge inmates and their families
mercilessly.
The people that run those companies will exploit any loophole, even
one that doesn't exist (because it will work until a court says it
isn't valid). Prisons should not be allowed to charge prisoners for
their phone calls within the US — calls are so cheap that there
is no point in doing so.
Corporations Use End User License Agreements to Create a
Parallel
Legal System.
EULAs should be denied legal validity. More precisely, any contract
that companies say you agree to in order to use a product you have
bought should be automatically void.
Don't assume people can't live without accepting EULAs. I have never
accepted one — anything that has an EULA, I refuse to use. You
can, too!
Jewish Voice for Peace posted a smear article that was published by
the Israeli government.
Here's
what
JVP has to say about it.
Here's
the
smear itself.
Reading between the lines, we can see the usual Israeli practice of
saying its critics are "anti-semitic" (or even criminal), when really
what they are doing is criticizing Israel's occupation of Palestine.
Some are condemned for participating a Palestinian human rights
lawyers' group, Al Haq. Ms Wilkommerson was arrested for trespassing
in office of the Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces. By any
chance, was her presence there a nonviolent protest?
One point that is true is that various US states have passed laws
against any sort of boycott of Israel, even the boycott I support of
products made in Israeli colonies in Palestinian territory.
Israel has given up on convincing American Jews to support the
occupation, and now seeks rather to repress whoever wishes to oppose
it.
UK welfare cuts will
"will
push a quarter of a million children into poverty". For Tories,
that's considered a step forward.
It will also be a disaster for people whose relatives die. One man
with cancer needs to die by Wednesday or his family
will lose
around
$60,000 over a period of time.
Russia has
censored
the web to block calls for anti-corruption protests.
The Russian state considers corruption a vital industry and protects
it at the expense of human rights.
Outrage Makes You Feel Good, But
Doesn't
Change Minds.
Right-wing Christian congresscritters cite the bible to
argue
against giving food to the hungry.
Anyone who's poor doesn't deserve help, according to their kind of
Christianity. I wonder if it's same the perverse Christianity that
believes that
"good"
people get the divine reward of wealth.
US workers have been showing for years what causes them to die of
despair.
It's
the companies that have destroyed their jobs.
The "centrist" Democrats
failed
to offer them a serious hope, so they gave the troll a try. I
hope they are sane enough in two years to recognize how he betrayed
them.
It appears that the troll is
reneging
on federal support for students that were led into debt by private
colleges that cheated them.
Naturally he'd want to do this, since
he
ran such a "school".
Tom Price, Saboteur of Health and Human Services, seems to have
committed insider trading
when
he was a congresscritter.
The Tories are cutting welfare for
single
parents, disabled people, young adults, and
widows.
Meanwhile,
prices
of all sorts of products are rising.
Last-resort help for those at the edge of the abyss is
disappearing.
These cuts, to be followed by more cuts and more cuts, will force
millions of Britons into the
workhouses
that have already been approved.
This is to
reduce
taxes on those who inherit houses.
This prediction is a simple extrapolation from what the Tories have
been doing for the past 7 years. Step-by-step impoverishment of the
non-rich is the Tory way.
US citizens:
call on
Nunes to resign as chair of the House Committee on Intelligence.
US citizens:
call
on all Democrats running for office in 2018 to support Medicare
for All.
Israel formally authorized another colony
in
the West Bank.
All the colonies are illegal. An occupying power is not allowed to
take over land in an occupied territory
for
its own use.
The EPA disregarded its own scientists and
rejected
a petition to ban the brain-damaging pesticide chlorpyrifos.
The EPA did that sort of thing
under
Obama too, which reflects the fact that Obama was a right-wing
Democrat rather than a real liberal or progressive.
The troll
ordered
Department of Energy employees not to use the term "climate
change".
Ironically, the term was adopted because
Dubya's
officials ordered employees of some departments to stop saying "global
warming". The term "climate change" makes it easy to duck the
fact that the change, overall, is going in one specific direction.
Employees are still permitted to use the terms "global heating" and
"climate mayhem", which give a clearer idea of what is really
happening and what its results are likely to be.
8% of the adults in the UK
can't
afford to eat properly. That's
Tories at
work.
Here's a
list
of Republicans that voted to allow ISPs to sell information about
their customers' browsing.
The FCC's ISP privacy regulations were
inadequate
for real privacy, but that is no excuse for replacing them with
nothing.
Economists studying real-world data found that industrial automation
in the US is already
eliminating
jobs massively and driving wages down.
This particularly hits the white workers without college degrees, and
may explain the cause of their
epidemic
of suicide.
It is probably the reason why most of them
voted
for the cheater, giving him enough votes that Republican
voter-suppression could deliver a fraudulent "victory".
Gary,
Indiana, illustrates what happens after automation destroys the
good jobs in racist USA. The whites were able to leave; the blacks
were stuck there amidst the decay.
Now automation is
coming
for the whites as well.
Anonymous
internet payments using pay phones.
US citizens:
tell
Congress to preserve Title X funding for contraception and other
family planning.
Massachusetts citizens:
Tell
Massachusetts legislators not to launch a war on marijuana.
Everyone: call on Kitchenaid to
stop
sponsoring golf tournaments in the troll's golf course.
US citizens: 16 non-Republican senators have not committed themselves
to
filibustering
Gorsuch. Two of them are even thinking of voting for him.
If one of them is your senator, please phone per office now
to insist on a filibuster. Say that Gorsuch threats such gory
damage to Americans that it is their duty to fight to the end.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588.
US citizens:
call
on Congress to support the Pocan-Amash-Lieu-Jones letter, which
calls on the US to justify its support for Salafi Arabia's
intervention in Yemen.
An artist is facing condemnation for making a painting of murdered Emmett Till
while being white. This condemnation is in the name of a supposed "principle" that
certain topics are the property of certain groups, and that no one
else has the right to say anything about them. If they do, that is
called "cultural appropriation".
We must reject this "principle" in the name of intellectual freedom.
No topic belongs to a specific group; anyone has the right to comment
on any topic.
If you think a person lacks the understanding to comment intelligently
and wisely about on some topic, you can say so.
A lawsuit against the troll, for egging on his supporters to attack
some protesters, will proceed. The judge rejected his arguments for
dismissal.
Laura Kipnis wrote a book about her experience with the forces of
prudish censorship and repression in the university where she teaches.
Washington has loved military dictators for decades, but the troll
loves al-Sisi to an amazing degree.
President Do-dirty's murder campaign failed to make Davao safe from
other criminals. Nor for the former thug that testified he killed 200
people under Do-dirty's order.
Their standard practice was to kill witnesses too.
Tory tax cuts show that dooH niboR still rules Britain.
Right-wingers got clever in the 1980s. They make a tax cut that saves
lots of people a little bit, but mainly benefits the rich. Then they
make cuts that screw a fraction of the non-rich. Then they say, that
most poor people are better off &mdash just a little. But not enough
to compensate for the falling wages.
A law passed in 2016 makes torture illegal. Will the troll manage to make
the US a torturer again despite that law?
The troll plans to cut foreign aid, which will cause economic loss
as well as suffering around the world.
Laura Lee, Northern Ireland sex worker and law school graduate, is
suing to overturn the law that makes it a crime to hire her for sex.
It is ironic that one of the harmful effects of the law is that
clients don't call her from their personal phones, so she cannot
identify them. The danger of being arrested is hardly the only reason
not to have a call to hire a sex worker in your phone records. If I
were going to hire a sex worker, I wouldn't do it from my own phone.
I wouldn't want her to know my name, not unless we had a deeper
relationship than just sex.
The reason I have never hired a sex worker is that I look for an
affectionate relationship, not solely sex. I recognize "You'd have to
pay me to have sex with you" as a rejection, so I am not interested in
her.
There is a push to extend copyright power in the US.
This is dangerous, and totally false to the legitimate purpose of copyright
(to benefit the public with more works).
The troll's plans would pressure young Americans to join the army.
A Spanish woman was convicted of cheering for the assassination in 1973
of Franco the dictator's designated successor. The court ruled this was "glorification of terrorism"!
But the killing of tyrants is rebellion, not terrorism.
Franco committed massive terrorism. After the final success of his
military coup, when the Spanish Republic had surrendered, he had tens
of thousands of its supporters killed as prisoners.
ETA has committed terrorism on other occasions, but not that one.
Several European countries have raided the local offices of Credit Suisse,
as well as their own citizens, looking for the fruits of tax evasion.
The state of Georgia fights hard to keep the official version of its laws
copyrighted and unavailable to the public.
The rich are not wealth creators, they mooch off the people who do the
work.
US citizens:
call on
Congress to pass the Access to Legal Counsel Act.
US citizens:
oppose
two bills, one designed to provoke conflict with Iran, and the
other that would ban US companies from boycotting products made in
Israel's illegal colonies in Palestine.
US citizens:
call
on state legislators to stop ALEC from voiding cities' minimum
wage laws.
US citizens: phone your senators to
filibuster
to block Gorsuch.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588.
A study suggests that many white males, without college degrees, are
dying
of despair because they have no hopes of a good job.
If this is true, the fact that some of then die using opioids is a
secondary detail. It is plutocracy that is killing them.
US Jews
protested
at Israel's pro-occupation lobbying group's congress.
FBI agents who immigrated from some suspect Muslim countries are constantly
at risk of being
railroaded
out of the agency simply for following the rules.
Right-wing media campaigns are harassing nonpolitical US government
employees,
trying
to make them resign in favor of extremists.
The troll is putting more US troops in Syria, but we
don't
know how many or what they are doing. Neither does Congress.
The Koch brothers are
lobbying
for a chance to rewrite the whole US constitution.
To do this in an age of plutocratic power would surely result in a far
worse constitution.
Economists urge Ecuador
not
to go back to plutocratic government.
It's
impossible
to shift Colombian farmers from coca to some other crop as long as
subsidized crops from the US undercut them in everything else.
The Australian Automobile Association found that new cars on sale now
give
25%
worse fuel efficiency than they claim to give.
100 men in Papua New Guinea are on trial for
murdering
people they accused of being witches.
Americans stopped doing this around 300 years ago, but superstition
about witchcraft are
still
dangerous to people in many parts of the world.
Russia is putting Tatar dissidents in mental hospitals by force,
and
accusing
them of "terrorism" based on no evidence.
The troll's sabotage of our climate defense plans has now been
fully
launched.
Global heating is likely to kill billions of people. We have no way
to estimate more precisely than that, but it is clear that this
sabotage is likely to increase the death toll by hundreds of millions
if not more. It could make the difference between killing two billion
and killing nine billion. (The current population is around seven
billion, but humans, madly, are still increasing it.)
His saboteurs are steadily
deleting
scientific data collected by years of Arctic research, while also
planning
to stop the research itself.
Even if the research is resumed in 4 years, which won't be easy if the
equipment has been destroyed and the teams dispersed, the loss of the
past data would spoil some possible uses of the future data. Even the
interruption will make that difficult.
I can imagine denialists' arguing, "Your conclusions are wrong because
you tweaked the data from before 2017 when comparing them to the
post-2020 data", a step which will be necessary because the new
equipment constructed in 2021 won't be exactly identical to what the
saboteurs are tossing in the trash now.
If you are thinking about having children, meditate on the fact that
the troll's attack on our ecosphere is
likely
to kill them before they are old.
Tom Price, Saboteur of Health and Human Services, seems to have
committed insider trading when he was a congresscritter.
Venezuela reversed the ruling that stripped Congress of its powers.
A thug was sentenced to 40 years in prison for killing a 6-year-old.
The boy and his father were in a car and the father had his hands up.
Thugs in Paraguay raided the headquarters of the main opposition party
and killed one of its activists.
Pence's Vote Delivers Death Knell to Family Planning Safeguards (that
require states to fund Planned Parenthood).
Women will die from this, and babies will be born with birth defects.
A lot of military veterans become thugs, and some of them tend to be
violent toward the public.
Diversity Doesn't Make Racism Magically Disappear.
Some states are working on laws to replace the incomplete ISP privacy
rules that the Republicans just got rid of.
The Minnesota bill will change little; ISPs will simply arrange for
nearly all users to "consent". To institute real respect for privacy
at this level of internet use, one has to go further. For instance,
to forbid ISPs to make note of, or tell anyone, anything about a
user's internet traffic, except under the authority of a specific
court order.
See Surveillance
vs Democracy
for more about the issue.
Democrats ask Gorsuch to help them find out who is funding the
political ad campaign in favor of his nomination.
US cruelty towards immigrants now extends to arresting them when they
visit a government office to apply for permanent residency,
accompanied by their US-citizen spouses and children.
They say that they were included in the list by an algorithm. In
effect, by a killer robot.
Here's more info.
What this shows is that an "unbiased" algorithm does not necessarily
imply it is doing the right thing.
Uri Avnery: Terrorists are often made in prison.
We'd be safer if we put fewer people in prison. Perhaps it is impossible
to eliminate prisons, but we could make them smaller.
Some SCROTUS now say that years of campaigning based on repealing
Obama's medical insurance plan was a sham.
You can't assume they are telling the truth about anything, including
this. Maybe they seriously intended to repeal it, but never thought
it through; now perhaps they'd rather say they never meant it
than say they were defeated.
Those Indecipherable Medical Bills? They're One Reason Health Care
[in the US] Costs So Much.
Japan's pervasive racism measured: 40% of foreigners living in Japan
have faced housing discrimination.
The US has racism too, but has made stronger efforts to try to stop
discrimination.
Japan goes to great lengths and great expense to keep killing whales,
even sending naval patrols to keep Sea Shepherd away.
British young adults 18 to 21 are planning a large protest on Sunday
against the cuts that are likely to make them homeless, or dangerously
thin.
It's a Housing Class War as the Tories Set Their Sights on Young People.
Flynn asked for immunity from prosecution in exchange for full testimony
about the relationship between the cheater's team and Russia.
Depression Is Leading Cause of Disability Worldwide, Says WHO Study.
The amount of depression has increased 20% in the past decade.
It would be interesting to know what caused this.
The League of United Latin American Citizens, and OCA-Asian Pacific
American Advocates, were lured into attacking Americans' privacy
by Comcast's money.
It is impossible in practice for consumers to eliminate nasty EULAs by
"voting with their wallet". Only regulation can do the job.
Regulations create the opportunity for class-action lawsuits to enforce them.
North Carolina has repealed part of HB-2, the part that forced
transsexuals to use only bathrooms for their birth gender, but at the
same time it has reinforced the ban on antidiscrimination protection
for gay or queer people.
In 1970 America had many black-owned businesses, even banks; but most
of them disappeared after Republicans smashed anti-trust law.
Acosta as Saboteur of Labor would knock down minimum wages and subject workers
to unsafe conditions.
The troll is making Americans more insecure, regarding the big dangers
that most Americans face.
Prosecutors got evidence that Bannon committed voter fraud, then
decided not to prosecute him.
Perhaps Republicans are only really concerned about voter fraud by
hypothetical Democrats.
The Brazilian congresscritter that organized the impeachment of
President Rousseff has been sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Global heating is shifting the ranges of many species, while others
can't move; when pests, disease vectors and pollinators shift, that messes
up ecosystems.
Russia Investigation Heading Toward a Train Wreck Because Republicans Don't Care What Happened.
The troll is dragging the US into an inhumane war in Iraq and Syria.
The US must stop using bombs against PISSI fighters that are using
human shields. Bombs are too powerful. There are other weapons that
can be used, that won't destroy the whole building.
Venezuela has taken away the powers of the legislature (now controlled
by the opposition) and given them to the presidency. This means that democracy in Venezuela is openly at an end.
Ivanka Trump's role in his administration is to lead people to expect him
not to do his worst.
Gay rights activists say that the troll's officials are working to undermine
gay rights in many little ways.
South Australia will install an enormous solar power system together
with enormous batteries it can use solar energy at night.
The article describes the batteries as "100 megawatts", which is the
wrong dimension to measure the capacity of a battery. But this sort
of project is what the world needs — and not just in one place.
Taxing disposable cups could be an effective way to encourage reusable
cups.
Domestic Abuse Should Be Punished More Severely Than Non-Domestic,
[UK] Judges Told.
The argument seems valid to me.
The troll decided to ignore Bahrain's repression and sell it fighter
planes anyway.
Bahrain has no real need for fighter planes, but the sale will enrich
some of the troll's cronies. That seems to be his principle arms
policy goal.
The US claims to support human rights and democracy around the world.
This has been partly false for a long time, but there is a kernel of
truth in it. The troll is getting rid of that kernel of truth, and
doing it so blatantly that associating the US with human rights or
democracy will be seen as ludicrous.
That won't help global human rights, though. The rivals of the US
are no friends of democracy or human rights.
Noel Conway, dying slowly from motor neurone disease, may have to
commit suicide long before it is time, so that the UK will not imprison
his family for helping him.
I wonder if there is a technical solution in his case. If he hooks
up, while still able, a machine that will inject him with a lethal
dose if three days go by without his pushing a certain button, he will
be able to commit delayed suicide, but no one else will have triggered
it.
Perhaps his friends would be punished for helping him construct it.
There seems to be no limit to how far "authorities" will go in imposing
the torture that they have legislated.
The troll's deportation campaign has terrified immigrants, so that
they no longer dare complain when employers cheat them.
Perhaps that is the substantive motive for the crackdown:
to facilitate exploitation of workers.
Global heating has been relegated to a low profile in Europe's politics.
EL Salvador has banned mining for metals.
In El Salvador it is probably unfeasible to regulate mining adequately
to protect the environment. Even the US doesn't seem to be able to do
it.
Censorship in Russia is vague, with no clear rules, so artists generally
self-censor.
The Tories want to use exit from the EU as an opportunity to quietly
"tweak" lots of laws while bypassing Parliament.
We can all imagine what kinds of changes Tories will sneak in:
weakening human rights, deregulating business, and reducing taxes for
the rich.
Kansas Republican legislators have decided never to let a Democrat
get credit for bringing a bill to the floor of the house.
Who will pay for the troll's frivolous border wall? The troll wants
to make people around the world pay with their lives and health.
The UK will not prosecute the thugs that piled on Julian Cole and
broke his neck and ended his life as a person. (His body remains "alive".)
This is a common pattern, to let thugs get away with crimes.
Rep. Nunes cancelled any more hearings in his supposed "investigation"
of ties between the troll's team and Russia. There are signs this was
because Sally Yates, former attorney general, was going to testify.
Why does Yates need a public hearing in order to tell us what she knows?
I have not seen any explanation offered, but I am sure she could say it
to a reporter and reach the public just as well.
Amal Clooney reminds people to preserve evidence of PISSI's war crimes
for the sake of future prosecution.
Alia Ghandi arrived from Iran to visit her sister, a US citizen.
Border thugs put her in jail and won't let anyone talk to her. They
also refuse to say why.
As Trump Complains About Alleged Surveillance, Republicans Gut Internet
Privacy Rules.
That's a Republican for you. "Mistreat powerless people, not elites like us!"
Senator Wyden plans legislation to limit searches of phones and computers
at the US border.
Republicans in Vermont just banned fracking in that state.
Amazingly, Republicans can actually do a good thing once in a while.
The Dead Sea catchment basin had a megadrought 120,000 years ago,
coinciding with a period of temperatures considerably warmer than now.
Global heating may give us a repeat of that.
A Taiwanese human rights activist was disappeared while visiting China.
SCROTUS voted to let ISPs sell customers' browsing data, and did so
with no conceivable pretext, thus demonstrating the extent of plutocratic
corruption in the US government.
All the demand for this vote came from the ISPs that want to profit from it.
A student at Rollins college was suspended for saying he felt unsafe
in class after another student talked about beheadings under Shari'a
law. The suspended student was judged to have made the professor
feel unsafe by saying this.
The people that made covert videos and edited them to present false
accusations against Planned Parenthood face criminal charges for that.
Is it possible to reduce great inequality without a drastic war?
World War II was not very violent inside the US, but it did reduce
inequality in the US. Maybe this suggests a way to find a method
that doesn't involve violence somewhere else, either.
If the great inequality keeps growing, it will lead to violence
far worse than any world war.
Waikiki is forcing homeless people to move somewhere else by arresting
anyone that sits or lies down on the sidewalk.
The result is 83% fewer homeless people in Waikiki. That would be a
great achievement if it were achieved by helping people get housing —
but it's unexcusable to achieve such a "step forward" through punishing
those who are weakest and worst off.
If the homeless people organize, they could hold a sit-in and pack the
jails, as civil rights protesters did in the 1960s.
US immigration thugs selected for deportation immigrants who are
visible leaders in their communities.
Companies often use feminism the way they use environmentalism — lip
service only — and this includes female CEOs as well as males.
British anti-deportation activists chained themselves to a plane to stop
a quiet attempt to deport people who were refused asylum.
One says her ex-husband says he will murder her if she is deported.
The troll asked Carl Icahn for advice on eliminating regulations.
Icahn suggested ways to increase his own profits.
The thug that killed Eric Garner has a long history of unjustified
violence against the public. If the New York Thug Department cared
about that problem, it would have fired him long ago.
Better late than never.
Rape victim agrees with judge: warning women to avoid getting drunk
does not constitute putting the blame on victims rather than on rapists.
This is a crucial distinction. Making oneself vulnerable doesn't excuse
a serious crime, but it is good to avoid.
An Israeli thug beat up a Palestinian truck driver apparently over an
issue concerning parking. It is reportedly common practice, but this
time it was caught on video.
Sounds like the way blacks in the US are treated.
Mnuchin showed contempt for ethics requirements by plugging his
company's product during official business. Compounding the offense, he shows no sign of starting to divest from
that company, and his other companies.
Researchers are suing to reject the stretched interpretation of the CFAA
that was used to hound Aaron Swartz to death. It could be used to imprison
them for their research, too.
New York thugs are being sued for systematically making false charges
against gay men who go to the toilet.
UK "charities" for the homeless make them work 40 hours a week for
very little money. In effect, they are like a workhouse.
As more Britons become homeless, these low-wage businesses will
increasingly undermine full-wage employment, decreasing the number of
full-wage jobs. That will make more Britons homeless. The result
will be a great success for British employers.
The troll ordered the EPA to "review" (i.e., sabotage) Obama's climate
protection regulations.
Japan will restart some unsafe nuclear power reactors.
The troll plans to escalate the war in Yemen, for no other reason than
to make Iran unhappy.
Many lone terrorists, both Islamist and Christian, have a background
in domestic violence.
This may offer a practical opportunity to identify potential terrorists
and take action. It's true that only a small fraction of those who
commit domestic violence will be terrorists, but they all call for some
sort of action anyway.
"We pay our elected officials to take care of our communities and our
planet. Since Trump took office, the GOP has set out only to destroy."
After 12 Rejections, Apple Accepts App That Tracks U.S. Drone Strikes.
Apple should not control what application programs users can install.
That censorship is a malware functionality, but it's not the only
one that iThings have.
Erdo?an asked Germany to spy on 300 supporters of G�len, but one German
state warned the supporters instead.
Paris thugs killed a Chinese man who answered the door without putting down
his scissors. He couldn't speak French and surely had no idea who was
banging on the door.
Nearly all the European countries are failing to carry out the weak
commitments they made in the Paris conference.
Amnesty International says that the US
failed
to take proper precautions to avoid killing civilians in its
recent bombing in Mosul.
"All terrorists are politely reminded that THIS IS LONDON and whatever
you do to us, we will
drink
tea and jolly well carry on. Thank you."
That is the courageous response to a campaign to make a people panic
and do stupid things: help each other refuse to panic.
The troll repeatedly fails to oppose right-wing terrorism and bigotry
against blacks. Now he has said nothing about the
terrorist
murder of a black in New York.
More confirmation that the US crime wave from 1960 to 1995 was
caused
by mass lead poisoning.
The troll's attacks on journalism are
giving
aid and comfort to attacks around the world.
Since SCROTUS couldn't repeal Obama's medical insurance plan, the next step
is for Saboteur of Health Tom Price to
mess
up the system quietly.
Immigrant domestic workers in Jordan are effectively slaves. If they
leave their employers, they are supposed to be deported, but they are
often
imprisoned
instead.
The situation in the UK is almost as bad. The UK generally just
deports
them.
Suggestions for
how to
talk with your children about your abortions.
Some women — apparently a substantial fraction — are so
traumatized by giving birth, and subsequent social and state
pressures, that they
feel
they went mad for several years afterward.
You can avoid this if you stop at zero children. An abortion is, in
general,
far
less traumatic than giving birth.
Gangs kidnap street children in Vietnam and bring them into the UK
where they are
forced
to work indoors growing marijuana.
A specific solution for this particular problem is to legalize
marijuana. However, enslavement of workers happens in
many
areas of work, so no area-specific solution can get tackle the
whole problem.
An experiment will study
injecting
aerosol into the stratosphere to see whether that can reduce
global heating somewhat.
This is not the best way to try to do it. I would do nothing about the
other big effect of CO2:
ocean
acidification, which is likely to wipe out all coral and
shellfish.
Another method of geoengineering that could address both problems
is to strew minerals in the sea so as to stimulate growth of sea life.
Giant
icebergs do this to a substantial extent, but we don't need
icebergs to dump minerals: ships can do it.
Putting Gorsuch on the Supreme Court is an explicit part of a
right-wing campaign to destroy the regulations that protect Americans
from being crushed by corporations.
Banks are monitoring account records, purporting to identify those who
enslave prostitutes through patterns of ordinary activities such as
purchases at drug stores and restaurants. These patterns could just as easily show up in many kinds of life and
business activities, one of which noncoerced prostitution. If one of them
appears in your account, it could cause you substantial trouble.
This is one more of many reasons to pay cash.
Some US states threaten people with years in prison for covering their
faces in public. This was intended to stop Ku Klux Klan mobs from terrorizing blacks,
but the law applies to solitary individuals too.
Nowadays, the effect of this is to bar people from protecting themselves
from pervasive face recognition cameras. We cannot stand for it.
The troll's energy policies are bad for US employment as well as for
the climate.
They are great for fossil fool plutocrats, though.
Workers at Santander Bank, from all around the US, are protesting at
the headquarters against its bad treatment of the workers and the public.
The latter includes pressuring staff to sell financial instruments
that aren't really in the customers' interests, as well as breaking
various laws.
Activists are aware of the danger of scarcity of fresh water, but the
measures they propose to stop this are totally inadequate.
We need to curb global heating (which makes arid regions drier),
and curb population growth (whic increases the demand for water).
The troll's attack on the poor is not over.
The Knight First Amendment Institute is suing to get information about
US practices in forcing arriving travelers to show what is in their
computers, in the absence of probable cause or a warrant.
Just getting more information would not make the state respect our
rights, but might aid subsequent efforts to do so.
Theresa "Snooper" May took up the demand to deny Britons strong
encryption.
Thousands of people protested against corruption in Moscow and other
Russian cities. Thugs arrested them violently on absurd charges.
Those arrested included opposition politician Alexei Navalny.
The EU has permitted the dangerous merger of Dow and DuPont.
Mass protests may not win a fight on their own, but they create power
that can change politics.
The worst mass extinction in history was due to global heating that
reached an average temperature 14C above current temperatures.
Erdo?an is threatening military confrontation with Greece, to get more
votes in the referendum to declare him a dictator.
Protesters Target Connecticut's Uber-Wealthy with 'Tax Bills' in Bid to End
Loophole.
The FBI's facial recognition database is "out of control".
I would not criticize it for being wrong 15% of the time. On the
contrary, it is dangerous because it is wrong only 15% of the
time. If it were wrong more, it would threaten us less. If it were
wrong 99% of the time, it would be a lot safer.
Likewise, the way to defend blacks' rights is not by making the system
recognize them more accurately, but by making it recognize both blacks
and whites much less often.
Hong Kong will prosecute leaders of previous street protests.
I suppose when Lam talks about "reuniting" the population, that means
in prison.
I've been told that there are people who are trying to analyze
treatment of personal data in terms of toxic waste. The idea seems
good to me. Can anyone put me in touch with people who propose that
idea? Please write to me at rms@gnu.org.
Finland has conquered homelessness through the "housing first" policy
where anyone that becomes homeless is immediately provided with
permanent housing.
It turns out that this facilitates helping with whatever other
problems person may have.
US farmers are installing cracked firmware in their tractors because that
is the only way to fix them.
This is a perfect illustration of the tyranny of proprietary software.
When a White Republican Gets Spied On, Privacy Suddenly Matters.
Technological change is not just technology — it drives political
change. Thus, technological advances can make most people worse off.
See also gnu.org/philosophy/stallmans-law.html.
Corbyn insists that Parliament make the detailed decisions about how
to change UK law when it exits the EU.
All the nuclear states that signed the non-proliferation treaty
are violating the requirement to pursue nuclear disarmament.
The pause in fighting in Mosul is enabling some civilians to get out. They couldn't get out before, because PISSI threatens to kill those
who try to leave.
The house that the US bombed may have been an example of a war crime
by PISSI, in setting up their gun position on top of civilians. But that
was not an excuse for the US to drop a bomb that would destroy the
whole house. There were other ways to attack those PISSI fighters;
there always are.
Reject the Cruelty of a Me-First Age That Renders the Lonely Invisible.
Muslims condemn Islamist terrorism, over and over and over.
The article's analogy between Muslims and inhabitants of Kent is
flawed. No one commits terrorism in the name of Kent. If someone
from Kent commits terrorism, that person's connection with Kent is an
insignificant detail. However, some Muslims commit terrorism in the
name of Islam, so the fact that they are Muslims is crucial.
Likewise, some Christians commit terrorism in the name of
Christianity, so the fact that they are Christians is crucial.
There is no reason for most Muslims to apologize for Islamist
terrorism, since they are not responsible for it. However, it is very
important for them to condemn Islamist terrorism, and
political Islamism, because that will help steer confused and
alienated Muslims away from Islamism and terrorism. It behooves us to
highlight their frequently expressed condemnation rather than to deny
its existence.
The same applies to Christians in regard to right-wing Christian
terrorists. And if some people in Kent start to commit terrorism in
the name of Kent, it will be imperative for everyone in Kent to
denounce such terrorism.
The troll's intensified bombing of Mosul and Raqqa is consistent with
the idea of "non-interventionism" which he said he believed in. He
said he would make that war more savage, and he seems to be doing so.
The troll's bullying of the press follows on from Dubya's bullying of
the press.
Israel and the US use their clout to impose the pretense that Israel
is not practising apartheid.
Nearly 15% of Female Undergraduates at UT Austin Report Being Raped.
The Government Is "Incidentally" Sucking up Tens of Millions of
Americans' Communications a Year, And It's a Privacy Nightmare.
The NSA uses misleading language to misrepresent its practices.
A UK minister proposed to ban companies from offering solid encryption,
but the plan was quickly quashed.
Bravo to those that opposed this. The casualties of the small recent
terrorist attack on Parliament were insignificant compared to those of
the accidents that happen in Britain every day, but those who advocate
total surveillance will seize on them as an opportunity.
Nigel Lang's life was damaged irrevocably when thugs accused him of
possession of "child pornography" based on making a typo in a search.
It is wrong to prosecute people for "possession" of copies of any sort of
works, no matter how bad the making of those works may be.
Riot Police in Belarus Attack Protesters Calling for End to "Dictatorship".
Iraq Suspends Mosul Offensive after Coalition Airstrike Atrocity.
We can't tell whether the troll has made this happen by relaxing rules
of engagement.
A Chinese who is a professor at an Australian university was arrested in China
when about to return to Australia.
One must suspect this is because something he taught or wrote is
officially disapproved of.
China has once again imposed its own agent as chief official of Hong
Kong.
The loss of Arctic sea ice could wipe out beluga whales along with
polar bears.
The head of the congressional committee that is supposed to be
investigating links between the troll's campaign team and Russia snuck
off to tell the White House about evidence that he hadn't shown to
the committee.
In effect, he betrayed the committee's mission.
Gorsuch helped design legal excuses for Guantanamo imprisonment
without trial.
This demonstrates his unfitness to be any sort of judge.
Gorsuch resembles the troll in lacking an aspect of compassion.
One of SCROTUS's last-minute changes to its plan to cut off poor
Americans from medical care was requiring mothers to go back to work
within two months after giving birth, or else lose coverage.
US law today is so lax on state surveillance that it would permit the
president (any president) to arbitrarily spy on political opponents.
We must change the law to restore the rights that the constitution is supposed
to give us.
PISSI says that US bombing has damaged a dam near Raqqa, and the dam
may now collapse. Civilians are evacuating some part of Raqqa.
Nobody should bomb dams. The US should not bomb dams.
Gorsuch is a judicial extremist — his extremely weak interpretation
of the law that offers support for education of disabled children
was just overturned unanimously by the Supreme Court.
SCROTUS offer multinational corporations a giant tax cut
in two different variations.
Digital interruption devices have taught people to multitask,
and now many find it difficult to focus on any one thing.
Progressives have the support of the majority of Americans.
We can aim to be much stronger than the Tea Party astroturf campaign.
Many US Christians will stick with the troll no matter how many of
them he kills, because he appeals to their prejudices.
The Fossil Fuel Industry's Invisible Colonization of Academia.
Energy researchers at Harvard, MIT, Stanford and other universities
are funded by fossil fuel companies.
The West's Throwaway Culture Has Spread Waste Worldwide.
The Top 10 Threats to the Most Biodiverse Place on Earth.
A Louisiana thug has been convicted of manslaughter for killing a
6-year-old boy.
His father, the driver of a car, had his hands up, but they shot at
him anyway, killing his son.
Singaporean blogger Amos Yee has been granted asylum in the US. He
was jailed in Singapore for criticizing former ruler Lee Kuan Yew, but
ostensibly for "hurting the religious feelings" of people of some
religions.
"Hurting the religious feelings" of people in some group is part of
freedom of speech. So is criticizing a current or previous official.
What's the worst that could happen in the US with existing massive
surveillance? Terrifying repression.
The Keystone XL pipeline has been "approved" by the State Department,
but construction is not really approved. We still have many
opportunities to stop it.
Democrats should go beyond defending Obama's incomplete socialized
medicine and advocate Medicare for all.
An appeals court in Colorado ruled that fracking must not be allowed
except when it protects public health and the environment.
Since the Colorado legislature is pro-fracking, I fear it will repeal
the law which the court decision is based on.
RAND study: Russia has a military advantage because it's not fighting
as many wars as the US and doesn't maintain 800 foreign bases.
Farm work in the US pays so little that only unauthorized immigrants
want to do it.
The US population is growing because of immigration, so we need to
reduce either the birth rate (already around replacement level) or
immigration.
If these immigrants could not come, the farms would be unable to find
workers for the pay and working conditions they now offer. They would
have to pay more and offer benefits. The US would have to set up a
system that enables citizens and authorized residents to make a living
from doing various such jobs.
That is a change we need. But it would make dairy products more
expensive — so we would need to provide more money for poor people to
buy food. (These changes are needed anyway, and we should fight for
them anyway.)
It is a mistake to argue, therefore, that the current economic role of
unauthorized immigrants implies they are inherently necessary and that
all immigrants should be welcomed.
However, this article does show why reducing immigration is a more
complicated matter than simply deportating more people.
Eric Trump contradicted himself in one speech, saying that he will keep
the troll out of family business interests and that he will brief the troll
on them regularly.
Unfortunately, the only way to make the troll stop violating the US
Constitution is to impeach him, and SCROTUS won't permit that.
Tasmania's extractionist government plans to remove protection from most
of its forests and encourage cutting them down, even though local wood
processors say they will refuse to buy the wood.
Several US states have passed laws punishing companies and
organizations that support boycotts targeted at the Israeli occupation
of Palestine.
A preschool in Illinois suspended a boy as punishment for bringing a
used shell casing to school, and for playing pretend that toys were
guns. (No word on whether the other children were playing the same
game at the same time.)
A racist terrorist visited New York City to murder blacks from sheer
racist hatred.
A US or Iraqi plane bombed a house in Mosul, and over a hundred
civilians were buried in the rubble. It appears that PISSI fighters were firing from the roof.
Was it a wrong decision to bomb that house? I don't know enough to judge.
In war, mistakes happen; there is no way to avoid them all, but there are
ways to make them happen less often.
It appears that rescuers could not approach the house until the buried
civilians had died, but I think this wasn't their fault. The house
was in the middle of a battle.
Putin, while meddling in the French presidential election, says he
wouldn't ever do such a thing.
A study estimates that 10 million jobs in the UK could be replaced by
automation by 15 years from now. That's roughly one third of all jobs.
I suppose the situation in the US is roughly similar.
Under a plutocratic state, this will be a disaster for all working
people, an opportunity to drive wages and working conditions down, and
destroy what remains of unions. If roughly one third of all people
die from this, the plutocrats won't mind. Meanwhile, technocrats will
admire the deadly efficiency of it all.
In a democratic society, we can choose which kinds of automation to
permit. We need to restore democracy, urgently, for this reason among
many others.
Advice from Turks about how to resist tyranny.
The Toronto school system will no longer arrange student or staff trips
to the US, in response to the uncertainties created by the troll's
harassment of visitors.
Climate scientists disagree about whether there is a danger of a rapid
release of Arctic methane that would cause fast global heating.
How much should the world bet on the theory that this can't happen?
US citizens:
oppose
making Jay Clayton head of the Securities and Exchange Commission. We
don't want another crony to pretend to regulate corporations.
US citizens:
state your
opposition to proposed laws that undermine funding for unions (and
thus tend to eliminate unions).
US citizens: phone 202-688-0631 to talk with your congresscritter
and
support funding for contraception,
in the US and outside.
US citizens:
stand
for the National Environmental Policy Act.
Everyone:
Call on banks not to fund
the Keystone XL pipeline.
The wife of an exiled Rwandan opposition leader was
arrested
secretly, and has been charged with crimes such as "revealing
state secrets".
The government of Rwanda has operated in a
tyrannical
manner for many years.
Wikileaks revealed that the CIA has been putting malicious hardware
systematically into iPhones
since
2008.
The people suing about getting cancer from Roundup are mostly
agricultural workers, but
home
gardeners may be affected too.
The Senate voted to let ISPs sell users' data to advertisers,
even
sabotage their browsing.
We have lost this battle, but the Obama-era regulations were
inadequate anyway. An ethical ISP should not keep any record
of your internet contacts except when ordered to by a court.
A general roadmap to avoid global heating disaster:
cut
greenhouse emissions in half each decade.
Keeping mind what is adequate will help us avoid distraction with
inadequate measures.
Belarus arrested authors, publishers and journalists
at
a literary festival. Some were tortured.
The UK is
sending
more Afghans back to Afghanistan even as violence there increases.
The US spreads the idea that violence is
ok
as long as it is done dispassionately.
Capitol thugs arrested disabled protesters
in
their wheelchairs.
A man in the US has been ordered to decrypt some disk drives and
faces
imprisonment for the rest of his life unless he does so.
The mere possession of a copy of any publication should not be a
crime.
Two parents in Texas face criminal charges for
forgetting
their baby on the sidewalk and driving away.
The baby has been taken away from them and will be given to strangers
if no suitable relatives are found to care for it.
The UK captured two men in Iraq and handed them over to the US in
Afghanistan to be tortured for 10 years. They are suing for damages,
and the UK state will defend itself with secret evidence that the
victims
and their lawyers are not allowed to see.
That's not justice. They can basically get away with making up
anything at all.
Anti-vaxers in Italy
led
to an increase in cases of measles.
Everyone ought to be vaccinated.
The Tories are being investigated for
illegal
campaign spending which might have been crucial in "winning" the
2015 election.
El Salvador is considering a bill to legalize abortion
in
limited circumstances.
It is not enough, but it is at least a step forward.
Imprisoned Turkish journalists report
abuses
and solitary confinement.
1000 refugees have
walked
from the US to Canada seeking a chance to apply for asylum there.
Gorsuch showed his pro-business, anti-human approach to law
in the
case
of the (about to be) frozen trucker.
He's so bad that the
US
Chamber of Commerce loves him.
Thousands of bulges have appeared in the tundra of Siberia, each based
on a gas pocket which contains
lots
of methane.
US immigration thugs
targeted
Austin for raids to punish the city for its sanctuary policy.
Unauthorized immigrants are already being
scared
away from reporting crimes committed against them, and they will
avoid testifying about crimes.
They will be even more reluctant to report crimes committed against
other people, or testifying about such crimes.
The UK threatens to turn into more of a tax haven. Tax havens are
bad
for their non-rich inhabitants.
The ACLU accuses a US border thug of
raping
two Guatemalan women at the border.
The Westminster [terrorist] Attack is a Tragedy, but It's
Not
a Threat to Democracy.
Tories are the threat to democracy.
Neil Gorsuch Is Not Another Scalia. He's the
Next
John Roberts.
(The first one reinterpreted the Voting Rights Act into vacuity
after leading people to think he wouldn't.)
The troll had lawyers
threaten
to sue a woman for making a web site that made fun of him.
As I understand it, he hasn't got a leg to stand on, but he's trying
to intimidate her.
Anne Frank Center
Calls
For Resignation of Trump Adviser Sebastian Gorka.
Five Creepy Things Your ISP Could Do
if
Congress Repeals the FCC's Privacy Protections. US ISPs did these
things until they were prohibited.
Former Trump Campaign Chief
'Offered
to Help Putin Advance Interests.'
Arctic Ice Falls to Record Winter Low After
Polar
"Heatwaves".
The troll intends to cut EPA funding so we will be in the dark about
how things get worse.
Gunshots in the US cause an average of
$700
million dollars per year in medical costs. But it is hard to get
data to study this, because the gun lobby has persuaded Congress to
ban funding the research.
The National Rifle Association says it campaigns to implement the 2nd
Amendment, but in practice it operates as a lobbying campaign for gun
manufacturers.
David Ben Gurion warned in 1967 that prolonged occupation of newly
conquered Palestine was likely to convert Israel into an apartheid
state. Other subsequent prime ministers recognized that this was
happening, and so did Desmond Tutu.
Today's
Israeli politicians say that recognizing this constitutes
"Israel-bashing" and "antisemitism."
US citizens:
call
on Congress to protect funding for arts and humanities.
Kansas Supreme Court Rules That a Reclined Car Seat Is Suspicious
Behavior &
Can
Be Used by Police as a Justification for Warrantless Searches.
A part of Australia has mostly eliminated its restrictions on abortion,
but abortion
still
requires a doctor's approval.
It makes no sense to make it harder to have an abortion than to have a
baby, when the baby is more dangerous in every way. It is more likely
to cause the woman injury, illness or death. It is more likely to
cause depression. It is more likely to ruin a couple's relationship,
over time. It is also almost certain to exacerbate the world's
ecological problems.
It is more likely to compel parents to demolish their consciences in
order to make as much money as possible "for the baby". If you want
to keep your self-respect without the need for strained excuses,
above all
don't have a baby.
Why Denying Refugees the Right to Work Is a
Catastrophic
Error.
Putin
used
the seizure of Crimea for a PR campaign by saying, in effect, that
he was making Russia great again.
Global heating is increasing the amount of rain in many parts of the
world. In Minnesota
"thousand-year"
floods have become five-year floods.
The US bombed a school in Raqqa where refugee families were living
and
killed
over 30 people.
Europe's Treatment of Child Refugees
"Risks
Increasing Radicalisation Threat."
Honduras, Where
Defending
Nature Is a Deadly Business.
This violence was unleashed by the coup, which Clinton at least winked
at. After the coup, she supported the coup-installed government in
several ways.
I expect the troll to continue this support.
Bike-hires become even more intrusive with a system of rental that
tracks
all the bikes all the time.
The troll is
filling
key government departments with military lobbyists.
UK thugs
cracked
the email accounts of Greenpeace protesters.
Since they had no legal authorization to do this, they could get in
big trouble. However, I am confident the Tories will find some excuse
to protect them. In their view, laws are tools to maintain their
power.
US representatives did not attend a meeting of the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights, which was going to question about them
about some
US
human rights issues.
The troll is showing his contempt for human rights.
SCROTUS have made the bill to repeal Obama's medical insurance system
even
nastier, to satisfy extreme right-wingers, and the troll is
threatening to punish congresscritters that don't vote for it.
Those that do vote for it will be punished by their constituents,
when the see how it kills their relatives.
The troll's example of disregard for ethics rules has
percolated
down through cabinet secretaries and officials.
White House officials
plan
to meet with a leader in anti-Muslim bigotry.
More
information about the electronics ban on some flights to the US.
The rule would
increase
the danger that a plane could be destroyed by a fire in the hold.
The lithium batteries that power laptops are normally permitted only
in the cabin.
Others join me in suspecting this policy has
commercial
motives.
A big Dutch bank, ING, has
sold
its share of the Dakota Access pipeline. This comes too late to
block construction of that pipeline, but it shows a method we may be
able to use against other fossil fuel companies.
New Pun: President has
no heart.
1.5C of heating
will
start the permafrost in Siberia melting.
That probably means global disaster, eventually.
Many land-rights campaigners in Brazil are being
murdered
by landgrabbers.
The UK
threatens
to punish lawyers if they accused a deceased former minister of
lying about repression in Kenya before its independence.
US tax accountant companies lobby to
stop
the IRS from offering a simple alternative.
Suppliers of
Lowe's
in the US and Walmart in Brazil Linked to Slave Labor in the
Amazon.
Faux News
fired
a commentator for claiming that GCHQ might have snooped on the
troll.
If he indeed said "might", then we know it was true.
We know that GCHQ snoops on Americans and gives the data to the NSA
and CIA, to circumvent the law that says the latter can't snoop on
Americans.
(The
NSA returns the favor by snooping on Britons for GCHQ.) They must
have done this to the troll, because they do this to
everyone.
I have no knowledge about whether Obama specifically ordered snooping
on the troll.
India is starting the final stage of
forcing
everyone to submit to biometric identification, excluding people
from many activities as well as many kinds of welfare benefits unless
they have been identified.
While the people quoted in the article are most concerned for the harm
done to those who reject biometric identification, I am most concerned
with the harm of the biometric identification system itself. It is
tyranny, pure and simple.
A Thousand Miles from Moscow:
how
Putin Forged his Russian Heartland.
Some US media are rushing to the conclusion that the troll conspired
with Russia — and
presenting
no proof of this.
I think the question needs to be investigated, but really it is a side
issue. We know that he "won" the election through
cheating.
We know he violates the constitution through foreign conflicts of
interest and is making decisions to enrich himself. We know he wants
to incarnate dooH niboR, and kill many thousands of Americans each
year (far more than Islamist and right-wing terrorists put together).
We don't need any more than this to conclude he should be impeached.
The US now
requires
all laptops to be in checked baggage on flights to the US from certain
countries or airports.
Experts can't see how this could make sense for security of the
flights. I wonder if the motive is to disadvantage Emirates airline
— because it will have that effect.
It's clear that putting your laptop in checked baggage is a risk to
your own security. I'd recommend you make a connection in Europe if
you are going to any of those countries, rather than check your
laptop.
I recommend avoiding Egypt, Turkey, Salafi Arabia, Qatar, and the
United Arab Emirates, simply to protect yourself from their
governments. It is dangerous even to make a flight connection in the
airport of Qatar or
the
UAE.
Bangladeshi leather workers have
no
protection from toxic chemicals; almost everyone that lives in the
leather production district dies before age 50.
The practice is protected by
business-supremacy
treaties, which forbid the richer countries from banning the
importation of leather made without safety gear.
The article dwells on the fact that child laborers are among those
being poisoned in this way, but I think that is a side issue; it is no
more acceptable to do this to adults than to children.
News reporting
should
stop reporting so much on what the troll says.
That will reduce the effectiveness of his
distraction
tactics.
The distraction game is played at multiple levels. Some of the issues
listed in that article as things the troll tries to distract us
from are themselves secondary, distracting us from issues of
primary importance.
At present the main issue is to keep Gorsuch off the Supreme Court.
Don't
wait to start resisting the troll's measures for consolidating
permanent power.
The troll has put unofficial political commissars into various
government departments. The political commissar's job is to
monitor
what the department does and report back to the troll.
No Africans were present at the African Global Economic and
Development Summit, because the US
denied
visas to everyone that applied.
The FBI was investigating possible collusion between the cheater's
campaign and Russia,
3
months before the election.
That the FBI said nothing about this before the election, while
casting
suspicion on Clinton based on nothing but having another file of mail
to look at, adds up to partisan meddling.
We need an investigation of possible collusion between the
cheater's campaign and the FBI.
The Pentagon has not been audited for 21 years, and part of the reason
is that
contractors
struggle to prevent the audit.
Could it be that those contractors have something to hide?
How the arms industry
stirs
up fear of terrorism in order to sell more arms.
19 Republican congresscritters have
signed
a statement calling for action to curb global heating.
They called it
"climate
change", a term I avoid because it fails to do justice to the
magnitude of the problem.
Pregnant asylum seekers in the UK shun prenatal care,
afraid
that the NHS will charge them a lot of money.
Asylum seekers in the UK live
essentially
in penury.
Plutocracy creates an air of legitimacy by
disguising
itself as a fictitious meritocracy. But even a real meritocracy
is not good if it increases inequality.
It does make sense to promote capable people to positions of greater
responsibility, because we all depend on having those jobs done well.
But this presupposes that they do those jobs honestly.
Atlantic City and Miami Beach look at the future of being destroyed by
the rising ocean (global heating) working against the
sinking
land.
You can preserve any place if you keep raising it, but we can't afford
to raise all of America's coast by several feet. The only strategy we
can afford is decarbonization.
Ivanka Trump is Complicit in Her Dad's Mission to
Get
Rich at the US's Expense.
The Sami ("lapps") in Norway have
persuaded a large pension fund to
divest from the companies building the Dakota Access pipeline.
The Washington DC thugs violently attacked a protest, and threaten
protesters and reporters with ten years' imprisonment.
The state is now
collecting protesters' data from Apple and Facebook.
(To cloud your mind, those companies like to say that your data is
"in the cloud". In fact, it is in their servers.)
It seems that thugs have already looked through the accounts of some
of the protesters, through their own phones.
In Russia,
people who criticize the state are threatened with
exile, seizure of all their property, as well as false charges.
The US isn't as bad as Russia yet, but it is heading in that
direction.
Giving workers the right to refuse some imposition is
of little
benefit to desperate workers who can't afford to refuse anything.
And increasingly that's what workers' life is like.
What we need, therefore, are employment rules that put all workers in
the position where they can afford to refuse impositions, or where
they must at least be paid for their impositions.
If Guber had to pay drivers for all the time they are on call, for
instance, they would have the means to be on call less of the time.
Some Republicans now propose an
increasing carbon tax to replace
specific federal regulations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
I'm in favor of this — but in order to achieve the goal, the tax will
have to be big enough to affect most spending decisions. 15 years
ago, mostly painless measures could have saved the ecosphere. Now we
need to act quickly.
The troll's proposed ambassador to the EU
dares to recogize
that the Euro is responsible for Greece's suffering.
This is one of the troll's few good sides: refusing to abide by the
established neoliberal globalization consensus.
A large protest, mostly peaceful but with some violence, shut down
a
talk by Yiannopoulos at UC Berkeley. The troll responded with a
vague
threat to cut off federal funding for the university.
I am in favor of protesting that extremist, but against using violence
to stop a speech.
The most significant point here is that the troll has stated support
for Yiannopoulos personally. He and his associates can no longer deny
their ties to his extremism.
US citizens:
call on
Congress to protect Medicare and Medicaid.
US citizens:
call on
the Senate to reject the bills to abolish many regulations that
protect our health and rights from businesses.
The troll's son, Donald Trump, Jr.,
was
a patent troll.
The US joined with Salafi Arabia to
make
this year's G20 statement about global heating weaker than
previously
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
The fanatical colonists of Ariel, in Palestine, tried to launch a prosecution of Gush Shalom for informing international scholars that Ariel is not in Israel. But no prosecution occurred because, it seems, Israel has no law against informing people of this fact.
As repression increases around the world, I accumulate a list of countries I choose not to visit. In some cases, it is just a matter of comfort — they tend to be hotter than I like, and since I have no particular reason to go there, staying away is the cheap and easy method to avoid the heat.
In some countries, I fear repression. Pakistan might persecute me for blasphemy; Turkey might persecute me for condemning would-be tyrant Erdoğan; Thailand might persecute me for recounting an episode in the life of the former king. Egypt's repression forces might imprison anyone, based on a whim or a confusion; they don't need a rational reason. I recommend everyone stay away from Egypt.
Then there are the countries that I would be happy to visit if I could do so without having my fingerprints taken.
But the only country I have reason to expect would refuse to let me in is Israel. I support the boycott of products made in Israel's colonies in Palestinian territory, the boycott that Gush Shalom led until Israeli law was changed to reduce to penury anyone advocating that boycott. I would not be allowed entry.
I have visited Israel three times, but now I know there will not be a fourth visit unless Israeli policies change.
I hope that Israel will agree to end the occupation/siege of Palestine, and cease to maintain colonies on its territory. Then the reason for the boycott would no longer exist, so I would no longer support it. Perhaps then I could visit Israel again.
This satire about the troll's budget was recommended seriously by the White House.
The Miami prison thugs who cooked Darren Rainey to death across two hours in a shower will not be punished. The prosecutor decided not to charge them.
Most prosecutors systematically let thugs get away with murder. Shame on the thugs and the prosecutors!
US laws about sex with minors, and sexual images of minors, are inconsistent and make no sense. The purported justifications for them are absurd exaggerations.
Supreme Court rulings allowed rich people to exert tremendous influence in congressional elections.
Gorsuch is likely to push this even further.
The UK government's surveillance camera commissioner warns that a regime of total surveillance and tracking is developing.
To avoid that result will require far more than insisting on the weak limits of current law.
To win back the support of the working class, Democrats have to do more than criticize Republican sabotage. They must support programs to restore democracy and redistribute wealth, as Sanders does.
The Saboteur of Homeland Security demonstrated his total contempt for Democratic legislators, meeting with them only to refuse to answer any of their questions.
The troll's education budget offers lots of funds for privatizing public schools.
Officials refuse to recognize that providing breakfast in school helps children learn. Being hungry all day is quite a distraction from studying.
If we had a proper social support system, it would give children food at home.
Just when the US has been taken over by planet roasters, China is becoming the world leader in cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
In the US, the big corporations control the state. In China, the state controls the big corporations. It seems this makes an important difference.
The troll and his agents are already preparing "emergency" attacks against civil liberties, to take advantage of the next opportunity provided by a terrorist attack whose perpetrator isn't a right-wing bigot.
The party of political Hinduism won the election in India's largest state (Uttar Pradesh), and its state leader calls for repression of Muslims.
That party, the BJP, was associated with a massacre of Muslims in the state of Gujarat. Indeed, Prime Minister Modi was directly associated with that. I fear we will see repression and massacre in Uttar Pradesh.
The Republican Party is the party of Scrooge: the poor deserve whatever harm the rich do to them, because it's their own fault for being left standing in the endless game of musical chairs.
Roy Schestowitz reports being censored ("shadowbanned") by Twitter for posting about Twitter censorship.
This kind of censorship is not obvious to the one being censored.
Technology and business are ready to eliminate fossil fuels, more or less. The main obstacle is the power of the carbon lobby, which operates through manufacture of doubt based on the power of plutocracy.
We must destroy the falsehood-industrial complex before it destroys civilization and most species on Earth.
When the carbon bubble bursts, it will cause a financial crash. But the longer that waits, the bigger the crash will be. Putting this off is much worse than postponing the visit to the dentist, which is only likely to make you lose a tooth or two. It's like postponing the checkup for cancer.
A rather unfriendly article is forced to admit that Minnesota's progressive governor has made things a lot better there.
The tobacco industry developed a strategy to overcome damning facts: a system for provoking doubt about firmly established conclusions. It worked so well that many other businesses adopted it, and last year it enabled brash liars to take over the US government.
The troll continues packing federal agencies with corruption agents. He's turning all Washington into a swamp.
Each week that the troll delays the retirement savings fiduciary rule enables banksters to take roughly half a billion dollars from American savers.
This is an estimate, not an exact figure. Perhaps the real amount is only a quarter of a billion. Or perhaps it is three quarters.
Millions of old or disabled Americans can remain in their homes because of the government's meal delivery service, Meals on Wheels. The troll would like to eliminate this because the military-industrial complex needs more profits.
Simply eliminating the requirement for insurance to cover IUDs will put some women's lives in danger, while driving many more women and children into poverty. It is foolish for any state to fail to subsidize birth control for the poor.
Put together, Republicans budget cuts would kill thousands of Americans. They would be be almost a hundred times as deadly to Americans as Islamist terrorist attacks.
In the longer term, the troll's most deadly act will probably be the continuation of global heating, which is likely to kill billions of people starting a few decades from now.
Saboteur of Health and Human Services Tom Price was confronted by a man whose life depends on Medicaid, which Price aims to rearrange gradually down to nothing.
According to a leak, fired prosecutor Bharara's office was investigating Price for illegal insider stock trading while he was a congresscritter.
The troll's main "counter-terrorism advisor" Sebastian Gorka is accused of joining a Hungarian antisemitic fascist group before moving to the US.
The EU demands Facebook and Google block fraudulent business offers and those that violate EU consumer protection law.
The US needs a single-payer medical system. With people unhappy with Obama's half-way system, yet dependent on it for their survival, we must go forward rather than back.
The Supreme Court's "Citizens United" decision assumed that outside political campaign groups were independent, but in fact they often coordinate with the candidate's campaign.
The CFPB makes credit bureaus fix their mistakes, and they make a lot of mistakes.
Small-scale farming, with more people working the land, could restore rural towns as well as the carbon in the soil.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter today to oppose the SCROTUS plan to slash US funds for medical care.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
US citizens: call on your congresscritter to preserve the Environmental Protection Agency.
US citizens:
tell
the State Department you oppose the Keystone XL pipeline.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
Cleveland has given the thugs that killed Tamir Rice no punishment, and only a dispatcher got a minor reprimand.
The dispatcher made a dangerous mistake, but thugs should not be so quick to shoot anyone.
Qatar refuses to correct the laws that effectively enslave foreign workers. Instead of correcting the system, it covers up.
The real threat to the safety and freedom of Israelis does not come from Palestinians. It comes from the ultra-orthodox Jews.
Their version of Judaism is as unjust towards women as the Salafi version of Islam. Both of them are enemies of human rights.
The ultra-orthodox are trying to take over Israel by overbreeding. There is no reason to permit any group to do that.
Uri Avnery explains why the concept of war crimes, and punishment for them, is essential to stop wars from turning into unlimited massacres.
Syria shows an example of what happens when the laws of war are discarded by various sides in a war. Israel is fundamentally similar, except that the Palestinians, in a weak position, can only commit small war crimes. Therefore, all the big ones are committed by Israel.
A UN agency published a report recognizing Israeli apartheid; the troll pressured the UN Secretary General to demand that the author retract it.
The author refused to retract it, and resigned instead.
US ISPs are presenting legal confusions when arguing to abolish FCC privacy rules.
What the troll's policies have in common is cruelty. (Except to the rich.)
US schools don't teach that the famine that made so many Irish people emigrate to the US was caused by landlords that exported food.
US officials: what we bombed was not the mosque. Look, the mosque is still there. Local people: what's still there is only part of the mosque.
This has the air of an honest mistake. Mistakes are not unusual in war; they may be especially in war. That's why the decision to fight a war includes the decision to make lots of honest but fatal mistakes.
The troll's budget would make old people go hungry in order to feed the military-industrial complex.
The cheater wants to eliminate the alternative minimum tax so that he won't have to pay tax any more.
Gorsuch believes that corporations are entitled to the same rights as real persons, and is likely to completely eliminate all limits on campaign spending by rich people.
The 'Fearless Girl' Statue Sums Up What's Wrong with Feminism Today.
The UK now has low unemployment, but real wages keep falling instead of rising.
While non-governmental causes play a role, ultimately it is the Tory government that decides to push wages down.
The Tories are lower than vermin — Aneurin Bevan.
Congress has recommenced the old practice of imposing drug tests on people collecting unemployment benefits.
This serves no legitimate purpose, but it is handy for manufacturing an excuse to despise the poor. Rich people use drugs too, but they don't need unemployment benefits.
American Law Mistreats Mothers and Pregnant Women in the Name of Protecting Children (or rather, fetuses).
Anyone who is pregnant has a duty to insure that the future human being to result from the pregnancy is healthy — but only to the extent that person is capable of doing. It is cruel to demand a human function to a superhuman standard.
It is extremely dangerous for medical personnel to report pregnant women for prosecution. If they keep this up, women will stay away from prenatal care.
A US envoy met with leaders of the Israeli "settlers" that colonize Palestinian land, thus creating the biggest obstacle to peace.
Under Obama, the US was an ineffective and useless force for peace. It appears that the troll will make the US a force for apartheid.
The troll wants to eliminate the agency that subsidizes low-income housing. This could make hundreds of thousands of Americans homeless.
DeVos says she now loves public schools — but only privatized, unaccountable "public schools".
Since the cheater used to run a for-profit college that cheated students, it is no surprise that he is now acting to promote that kind of business.
Republicans want US thugs to have more military gear.
This would mean more Americans killed through haste, negligence, or heart attacks.
Americans, contact your city government to push for a local law requiring the thugs to get city council approval for all acquisitions of arms or military equipment, regardless of where it comes from. Even if it is a "gift", the thug department should have to get city council permission to accept it.
The troll's saboteur in charge of Medicaid wants to kick most of the children off, and make the program so expensive for patients that they will go bankrupt.
SCROTUS and the troll want to cut the WIC budget which provides food for babies and pregnant or nursing women. The budget is already insufficient, so that some of the eligible people are left out.
7 groups were blocked from entering the US to perform at SXSW.
It seems that immigration thugs suddenly reinterpreted the rules so that "internationally recognized" entertainers must get a work visa even to perform unpaid — and didn't inform people. Even if it isn't racist, it is the act of a jerk.
US citizens: call on the Senate to block Gorsuch.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
US citizens: phone your senators (each of the two) at 1-844-373-7977 and tell them to block Judge Gorsuch, with a filibuster if necessary.
US citizens: oppose use of pelagic longlines on the Pacific coast; they kill marine mammals, sharks, sea turtles, even birds.
US citizens: call on the Senate to reject Jay Clayton.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
US citizens: call on Senate Democrats to block Gorsuch with a filibuster.
Everyone: tell Florida's governor to stop blocking State's Attorney Aramis Ayala, who wishes not to seek the death penalty.
US citizens: tell Congress not to shift funds from civilian programs to the military.
US citizens: call on Congress to reject moving funds from civilian programs to the military.
US citizens: phone your senators to oppose the nomination of Jay Clayton to run the Securities and Exchange Commission.
During and after the financial crisis, he helped banks get big bailouts and avoid responsibility. He should not be in charge of regulating them.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
Everyone: call on US media to report fully on the famine in Yemen.
"To defeat terrorists" (I'd say, rather, terrorism), "we have to get inside their minds."
Everyone Loves Bernie Sanders. Except, It Seems, the Democratic Party.
In other words, establishment Democrats are still subservient to the plutocrats and the banksters.
Pakistan asked Facebook and Twitter to identify suspects to be
prosecuted for "blasphemy",
in
order for Pakistan to execute them.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
For this and various other reasons, Islamic law is the enemy of human rights, and deserves to be condemned rather than respected.
A mass protest movement is developing against Belarus's repressive president.
A proposed law in Spain would create a special agency to investigate whistleblowers, which would be allowed to disregard the usual protections for citizens' rights.
Citizens of Massachusetts: take action to stop the state law that would punish organizations that support a boycott of Israeli businesses.
Phone Senator Walter Timilty, Senate Chair of the committee (Phone: 617-722-1643) and Representative Peter Kocot, House Chair of the committee (617-722-2140), asking them to oppose this legislation.
Also, if your representative or senator is in the Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight, phone that person. Here is the list of its members.
US citizens: call on Congress to reject the troll's budget.
US citizens: Tell Congress not to permit sale of fighter planes to repressive Bahrain.
US citizens:
call
on senators to support the Keep It in the Ground Act.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: call on Congress to oppose the troll's partial ban on Muslims entering the US.
Yemen At 'Point of No Return' as Conflict Leaves Almost 7 Million Close to Famine.
Salafi Arabia's bombing campaign is responsible for this, and it is backed by the US.
The troll's budget would cut the EPA by 1/3, a boon for companies that are based on pollution.
Murderous cuts in scientific and medical research.
The Dream of a Paranoid Strongman and a Vicious Scrooge.
Just as dangerous are the increases in military spending. Even if they don't lead to a conventional or nuclear war, they would build up the invincible military lobby to a new level of perpetual demand.
If Trump Were a Clever Populist, He'd Demand Universal Healthcare for America.
The troll depends on billionaires that see all money as "theirs" and want as little as possible to go to anyone else.
Yelp is accused of bias in support of the troll, and against a company suing the troll for unfair competition.
Don't be misled: Sessions has not made peace with state-legalized marijuana, not even close.
Extreme air pollution in China is caused partly by polar effects of global heating.
That exacerbates the effects of the combustion that itself contributes to global heating.
Reversing policies of screwing the poor requires the non-poor to pay more taxes.
Especially billionaires must pay more tax.
US citizens: phone each of your senators to oppose Gorsuch.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
cpdaction.org emailed me this:
Judge Gorsuch has repeatedly ruled in favor of wealthy corporations and against the interests of everyday people. In cases where workers alleged sex, race, age, and other discrimination, Gorsuch sided with the employer in eight of the twelve cases. Judge Gorsuch thinks the rights of billionaire donors to make political contributions deserves more constitutional protections than the right to vote. If given a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court, he'd make it harder for everyday people to have a voice in our democracy. Judge Gorsuch has a troubling history of giving corporate bad actors unchecked power while ruling against protections for people of color, immigrants, women, and their families. He is also a staunch opponent of marriage equality, placing him far outside of the mainstream and on the wrong side of history. We need a Supreme Court that will protect everyone, not side with the wealthy and well-connected. Call 1-888-877-2040 now and urge both of your senators to oppose Gorsuch.
He would endanger access to abortion and even birth control
20 Tory MPs are accused of campaign finance violations.
Judges have blocked the troll's partial ban on Muslims, version 2, from taking effect. This is pending the final decision to be made later.
The troll, and most of the large companies based in the US, don't pay their fair share of taxes. They want to change the law so they will pay even less.
The troll has given the CIA free rein to use drones to kill people, world-wide.
US citizens: call on senators (specifically Democrats) to oppose Gorsuch.
Then phone your own senators (one after the other) via 1-888-877-2040 to tell them the same thing.
People for the American Way mailed me this:
With his history of favoring corporate interests above everyday people, it should be no surprise that the New York Times just reported that Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch has ties to reclusive Colorado billionaire Philip F. Anschutz. Formerly a lawyer representing Anschutz's companies in court, Gorsuch now owns property in Colorado with some of Anschutz's closest associates. Anschutz is reported to have provided funding to both the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society, the two far-right organizations to which Trump outsourced the job of creating his list of Supreme Court nominees, from which Gorsuch was chosen. Between his close relationship with an ultra-conservative billionaire and his decisions that have favored corporations and harmed workers and consumers, it's clear that the majority of Americans who want to save our democracy from the influence of big money have a lot to worry about when it comes to this nominee.
The cheater's proposed budget would help businesses cheat poor people, and would protect men that abuse their wives or lovers.
Naturally.
30% of the children in the UK live in poverty. 20% live in poverty while their parents work.
This is the result of plutocracy. New Labour mainly served the rich but helped the poor somewhat. The Tories have pushed hard to drive the poor down.
Another advisor of the troll violated US ethics guidelines with a personal conflict of interest.
US citizens: phone Sessions's office and call for him to resign.
US citizens: call on Congress to protect funding for Planned Parenthood.
US citizens: phone your senators to oppose two more of the troll's heating-denialist nominees: Dan Coats for Director of National Intelligence, and Sonny Perdue for Saboteur of Agriculture.
Climate Hawks Vote suggested saying this:
Hi, my name is ____, and I am your constituent calling from _____. I am calling to demand that Senator ____ vote to oppose the confirmations of climate denier Dan Coats for Director of National Intelligence and Sonny Perdue for Secretary of Agriculture. Can I get a commitment to vote against these nominees?
Dan Coats, Climate Denier
Sonny Perdue, Climate Denier
Five Democratic senators voted for Coats in the intelligence committee.
Snowden explains how NSA officials can look at any American's communications by saying the target is whoever person is talking with. It's supposedly illegal, but it happens all the time.
We need a system for spying whose manner of operation actually prevents this.
Where Free Speech Ends, Ignorance Begins. Universities must not censor the views that are presented.
Several US naval officers took bribes to help contractors cheat the navy.
Sumatran elephants have lost 70% of their habitat in a couple of decades, mainly due to palm oil plantations.
Many other species have also lost 70% of their habitat. Some species, limited to smaller ranges, may have already been wiped out.
Bald eagles are in danger due to lead in bullets (used to shoot animals that are then eaten by eagles).
The troll's Saboteur of the Interior revoked a rule that attempted to reduce this poisoning.
Intensive industrial agriculture is destroying soil rapidly. It cannot continue to the end of this century.
The term "people of color" endorses a racist outlook towards humanity by treating "color" as as a matter of essence, of the substance a person is made of, rather than as a superficial detail.
The distinctions we call "racial" are grab-bags of various details, each of which correlates more or less with certain ancestral groups. They are real differences, but not particularly important unless people make them so. So let's avoid using essentialist language to refer to them.
Americans are protesting with slings and crutches at their representatives offices, and convincing some Republicans to block the Ryan-Trump medical care crash.
A British colonel says that a company fighting in Afghanistan regularly dehumanized Afghan civilians and subjected them to violence for no reason, and said this was the fault of the commanders of the larger unit.
Israel's thugs and soldiers regularly damage Palestinians' bodies and property, and never compensate them for the damage.
The FBI's persecution of prostitutes includes a good measure of dishonesty to label prostitutes, customers, or their friends as "traffickers".
Policies that raise the sale value of housing have left poor people unable to find decent housing.
Monsanto corrupted the research into safety of Roundup in order to influence the approval of that pesticide.
The troll has nominated another Goldman Sachs employee.
The Obama regime was subservient to Goldman Sachs. The Trump regime is directly run by Goldman Sachs.
The only way to save the Great Barrier Reef is by curbing global heating.
Israeli thugs killed Matar after arresting him. Palestinian witnesses said they killed him in cold blood. Then, as usual, they arrested his whole family and ransacked their house.
Suspiciously, the Israeli thugs have not released video showing the killing.
Dalits in India are pressured into working as sewer cleaners, and because they are Dalits, the city doesn't bother to give them safety gear.
Yemeni Couple on Verge of Reuniting in US May Be Derailed by New Travel Ban.
Berkeley, California, is repressing homeless people, as it fills up with wealthy people instead of the progressives that used to live there.
Living on the street is already in effect a punishment. It can't be just for the "solution" for this problem to include further punishment of the homeless.
Anatole France: "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."
Zachard Fardon, fired by the troll as US attorney for Chicago, said that the Chicago Thug Department's habits of unjustified violence require outside intervention.
The prime minister of Japan is tied to a school accused of racism and cruelty.
The lack of hope for success in life is driving many young men in the UK to gambling.
I suppose others use drugs for the same reason.
If you see little to aim for in the way of personal "success", dedicate yourself to a cause worth fighting for — truth or justice. You can do some good that way. Campaign for free software, or to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, or for racial equality, or to promote abortion and contraception rights and access. Or another good cause. This will give you a deeper satisfaction than gambling.
The Tories have squeezed almost 2 million disabled people into housing that's not accessible for them. They are trapped in their homes.
The Financial Benefits of the EPA Data Trump Doesn't Want You to Know About.
It appears that Russia is violating the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with a new cruise missile. What should the US do?
It is pertinent that the US has extended NATO, bringing in countries at Russia's border, and proposed to include Ukraine and Georgia. That's not an excuse for breaking the treaty, but it is a foolish and threatening practice, and implies that the US too should take steps to back off from confrontation with Russia.
Snowden: if the troll is offended that NSA agents can snoop on any American, including him, he should change that.
In Syria, attacking medical facilities became a standard tactic of war.
European countries want to make Google delete racist postings even when they are not threatening.
What David Duke said is false, and his racist attitude is despicable. However, freedom of speech means he has the right to say it. (European countries do not adequately recognize freedom of speech.)
I am more scared of companies that delete what they deem to be false, or despicable, than of David Duke's saying such things.
An astroturf group set up by Paul Ryan, with hardly any members except some rich donors, is getting lots of publicity campaigning for Ryan's medical care denial bill.
Shannon Hurd was sentenced to life in prison for stealing 14 dollars, then killed in prison by officials that refused to believe he had cancer. This is not unusual in US prisons.
Jeremy Hance wrote a letter to his daughter, for her to understand when she is older, about the culpability of today's adults for the global disaster she will encounter in a few decades.
The letter is so moving, and so full of truth, that people are likely to take every littlest detail for correct. Thus, I have to point out that Hance erred when describing the troll as "our next commander-in-chief." American civilians have no commander-in-chief, and we must never have one.
It's just a minor detail, but we may as well not spread an error that favors the troll.
More importantly, I think the letter doesn't follow the argument to its conclusion: we should not bring more humans into a world in which we would owe them such an apology. Even more so, seeing as each additional human augments the disaster we will have to apologize for.
I would like to see a letter "To the child I might have had: How relieved I am not to have had you. That means I don't owe you an apology for bringing you into a developing disaster, and I don't owe everyone else an apology for making all the environmental strains one human being larger."
We can still work to reduce the disaster. We can do this by putting our time into activism rather than into raising children.
The root cause of our failure to curb global heating is plutocracy: the political power of the rich. That is what sort of political system empowers fossil fuel magnates to veto adequate measures to reduce emissions.
Plutocracy gets its strength from power over many fields of life, and computing is one of them. Nonfree software is one of those forms of power. The free software movement, though I did recognize this at first, is one aspect of the fight against plutocracy.
It's a good idea for us in the software field to fight against plutocracy in our own field, since that is where we can achieve the most against it.
A European appeals court ruled that companies can order employees not to wear any visible symbols of personal beliefs (religious or otherwise). However, if the company is selective about which symbols to allow, this can be considered discrimination.
The decision seems correct to me.
Anyone:
donate bitcoin to the legal
defense of a Russian activist.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
Here is background information: in Russian describes the predicament. I can't read it, but a friend read it for me and says it this is on the level.
They are asking for bitcoin donations at 1MCTLYKSAmBSjk8Tg32YcaUF9bKifHVA6N.
US citizens: call on Congress to save the Endangered Species Act.
Campaigners against extra funds for Seattle thugs say, first make them stop being racist.
Tasmania's extractivist government wants to cut down areas of rain forest which are home to endangered species.
The swift parrot is designated as critically endangered, with only 2000 adults living, and could have been headed for extinction by 2030, partly due to habitat loss.
I guess that this appears to an extractivist as an opportunity to eliminate the issue by wiping them out.
In the UK, printed book sales are increasing and ebook sales are declining.
Can someone find sales figures for the US to compare with this?
The reason I reject commercial ebooks is that they attack our freedom in several ways.
We-Vibe has been ordered by a Canadian court to pay customers up to $10,000 each for selling them a "smart" vibrator with an app that told the company how people were using it.
If an object or product is called "smart", you shouldn't trust it.
It appears the company lost the case because it had not asked buyers to consent to the surveillance. The next such manufacturer will put something vague about this in the "terms of service" so it can say it got "consent".
We need laws that limit the collection of data by businesses or services and which take the position that "consent is not an excuse".
The troll's supporters who intervened to change the Republican Party platform in regard to Ukraine act guilty about it.
The argument is speculation, not proved true, but something like it could be true.
The change the troll made in the Republican platform was for the better, in my opinion. I think it would have been very foolish for the US to escalate the Ukraine proxy war. However, I find the relationship between the troll and Putin to be alarming enough to justify an investigation to determine how far it goes.
Some gun nuts have a conspiracy theory that the Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax, that the people killed there didn't exist. Naturally, they support the troll.
Following the troll's example, they insist on this with a lunatic rejection of all inconvenient facts, and harass and threaten the parents of children that were killed.
Northern Ireland thugs raided a workshop held by an abortion rights campaigner, looking for forbidden abortion pills.
I simply cannot understand why she, and so many people, feel "humiliated" when selected as a target by a repressive system. To me it seems like a badge of honor, and an opportunity for immediate action.
The Girl Guides of Canada have canceled group travel to the US from fear that some of the girls will be refused due to being Muslim or having Muslim-style names.
Remember the People America's Healthcare System Has Already Killed.
Dutch right-wing politician Wilders is exploiting the diplomatic row between the Netherlands and Turkey, just as Erdoğan is.
This reminds me of the way both Dubya and Osama bin Laden exploited their public enmity to recruit support. Each one was all the other could have wished for.
The US military wants to be allowed to declare war anywhere, "temporarily".
Quebec will systematically collect food for the hungry, food that supermarkets were going to throw away, and expects to reuse 8 million kg of food per year this way.
I'd estimate that is around 16 million meals per year.
"The president's budget won't balance federal spending one bit, but it'll move a lot of money up to the rich."
A balanced budget is not always a good idea. Deficit spending is the way to cure a recession. However, when business income is booming it would be wise to tax businesses more so as to reduce the national debt.
Republicans are not interested in the national debt except as an excuse to spend less on the non-rich.
US citizens: call on the EPA to preserve clean air standards.
A farmer who permitted a frackwell on his land says, "Don't do it!"
US citizens: tell Congress to ban trade in shark fin.
US citizens: call on all states to help parents keep military recruiters away from their children in high school.
It works to sign with Javascript disabled if you use the Salsalabs method.
Obsession about the troll's ties with Russia — which may or may not add up to substantial wrongdoing — could act as a smokescreen for the many real wrongs he and SCROTUS are carrying out.
The plan to extend Heathrow Airport is accompanied by a supposed plan to "offset" the CO 2 emissions.
Supposing the offsets actually work — which is hardly certain — this would be adequate if present-day emissions were at an acceptable level. But they are already far too high, and this won't reduce them.
The troll's new choice for Saboteur of Labor is almost as bad as Pudzer.
The troll's nominee to head the Securities and Exchange Commission is another banksters' agent — much as turned out to be the case for Obama's nominee.
Republicans claim, once again, that US tax rates for corporations are too high.
"Corporation tax too high", according to Republicans, means "more than zero".
Watch out for plutocratist Democrats that would like to lead the "resistance" against the troll but ignore the rights of working people.
Canada's law against breaking DRM, imposed by US pressure, has been interpreted in the nastiest possible way.
Canada needs to get rid of this unjust law. Breaking DRM should be lawful; implementing DRM should be a crime.
The term "digital locks" is not a good way to refer to the malicious functionality of DRM (Digital Restrictions Management). Please join me in calling them "digital handcuffs" rather than "digital locks".
Citizens of Massachusetts: Support the Safe Communities Act, which would block state funds from being used to help deportation (or a possible "Muslim registry").
US citizens: call on Ajit Pai not to cut off old people from internet service.
US citizens: call on your congresscritter to reject the NRA's plan to neutralize all states' regulation of guns.
The troll systematically attacks the credibility of all sources of information other than him.
He anticipated that the Congressional Budget Office would honestly report on the harm that the Republicans' medical insurance sabotage bill would do, so he attacked it preemptively.
The Dance of Death: seeing present-day global society as an empire in decay, searching to recover its former "greatness".
Privatized US immigration prisons are so dangerous that often prisoners ask to be put in solitary for their own safety. Others are put in solitary for "crimes" such as giving haircuts to other prisoners for a price.
The troll's Mexican wall would cause grave harm to ecosystems around the border, as well as emitting lots of CO2 from the concrete.
Some European countries banned Turkish officials from visiting to campaign for Erdogan's new authoritarian constitution. Erdogan's party responded to this with insulting trumpery and confrontation.
I think the insults and confrontationalism is another campaign activity. The idea is to manipulate Turks into regarding those European countries as their enemy and supporting Erdogan against them.
This is, I believe, meant to distract them from the principal enemy of freedom and democracy in Turkey: Erdogan himself.
The troll wants to whitewash the Guantanamo prison by pretending that it was perfect while Dubya was in charge.
State and local action can achieve 60% of the US commitments under the Paris climate agreement. The Paris climate agreement is considerably less than what the US needs to do if it is to do its share of avoiding global heating disaster. But at least this is a start at a start.
The Clean Power Plan would also avoid 6000 deaths per year, but the Republicans don't consider the lives of non-rich to be important.
Corporate Interests Give Tens of Millions to Dismantle Legal Rights of Consumers and Patients.
Republicans propose to nullify the FCC's privacy rules, demonstrating once again that they are always for business against the people.
The FCC's privacy rules are grossly inadequate because they regulate only how the ISPs can use the data they have collected. ISPs should not be allowed to keep any records of users' internet connections except under a specific court order.
Everyone: tell Amazon to stop advertising in Breitbart.
The troll's team were informed that Flynn was a foreign agent. They handled this the same way they handled the troll's foreign conflicts of interest — by denying it.
Uri Avnery: a single state comprising the territory of Israel and Palestine would inevitably be an apartheid state, and some day an Arab state. Jews, like Arabs, should insist on a separate state of Palestine.
Avnery mentions the tendency for Israelis to move to the US or Germany. Part of the reason for some Israelis to move is that they don't like living under the bigoted antiliberal regime that tears up the principles of law, constitution and liberty, one by one, as they become inconvenient for the goal of apartheid.
US citizens: Demand that Congress reject the Republican "healthcare" plan.
Please sign this one, too.
US-backed anti-terror campaign in Kenya is based on torturing and killing those who are suspected.
As the war in Afghanistan slowly heats up, refugees are being forcibly deported there. They include children born in exile.
Many of them can't return "home" — they can only become refugees elsewhere in Afghanistan.
These refugees should not have had many children, but perhaps it was our fault not to provide them with reliable birth control.
The troll's new visa denial policy, aimed at all Iranians, will mostly hurt Iranians that criticize the Islamist regime there.
US citizens: defend the rule that retirement investment advisers must be loyal to their customers.
Pruitt, the troll's chief saboteur at the EPA, is appointing global heating denialists to many posts there.
The World Bank funded the expansion of a palm oil company in Honduras that is accused of attacking and killing local farmers that object to prior theft of their land.
Massive use of pesticides is causing massive harm — to humans and to ecosystems.
Puerto Rico's debt crisis is heading towards collapse.
Sad to say, the US government's "solution" will surely prioritize the banks over the people.
Most convicted sex offenders do not commit another sex crime. Of those not judged "high risk", only 5% were found to reoffend within 15 years.
So let's not make harsh laws that assume they are all driven "predators".
The price of water for families is increasing steadily in the US. In a few years, a substantial fraction of Americans won't be able to afford water.
Meanwhile, companies continue to be able to extract tremendous quantities and pay next to nothing.
If the US keeps washing away people's access to water, in a couple of decades it could resemble the corporate water grab happening now in Ethiopia.
Employees of Uber can't get other jobs — people assume they had to be assholes to get along at Uber.
US citizens: support bill to make hard work pay once again.
Signing this petition with Javascript disabled does work, so disregard the statement that it won't work.
US citizens: call on the Senate not to defund Planned Parenthood.
EU citizens: use savethememe.net to phone your MEP to oppose plans for stricter copyright restrictions on material posted on a web site by users.
US citizens: US citizens: defend funding of the EPA.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
Republicans keep showing that they despise the non-rich and seek to push them down. Some of the non-rich are so bamboozled that they prefer not recognize this fact.
It is possible to live without a portable phone; I do. For the sake of democracy and your freedom, you should do it too. But that won't save you enough money to afford medical coverage.
The partial ban on Muslims, version 2, is still wrong, very harmful, and unjustified. It eliminates many of the details that were clearly unconstitutional. Whether courts will accept it is hard to guess.
The troll's ferocious deportation scheme will be a gift to those who seek to enslave people, just as drug prohibition boosts smuggling.
The cheater wants to raise the rents of all poor people in the US. Hundreds of thousands of Americans will lack either housing or food.
Apple and other companies have blocked, for now, Nebraska's right-to-repair law.
Here we see, in tangible form, the harm done by the term "intellectual property". They are talking about keeping trade secrets, a practice recognized as antisocial by the drafters of the US Constitution (they decided to permit patents as a way to discourage trade secrecy). By dressing it up as "intellectual property," they dress this harmful practice up as a principle that entitles them to screw their customers.
Can anyone put me in touch with the campaigners in Nebraska, or in Massachusetts?
The Bureau of Land Management is responsible for much of the environmental protection in the US, and the troll's saboteurs are at work there.
Greek protesters have blocked 20,000 auctions of seized houses in recent months.
Global heating of oceans is going faster than previously estimated, and the estimates for the past 50 years were underestimates too.
The US government is trying to pretend that deploying troops to fire artillery in Syria is not combat.
There is a difference between acting as advisors and fighting. Precisely because the distinction is meaningful, misrepresenting it is a lie.
Republicans Are Dismantling the Law That Protects Your DNA From Your Boss.
"Wellness programs" tend to be surveillance programs, which means people who oppose them are protecting society as a whole as well as their own freedom.
American protesters are facing years in prison for turning valves to shut off tar sands pipelines. They aim to present the "necessity defense".
What they did is just a part of what it will take to prevent the biggest mass murder in human history.
The ACLU is suing to have Sessions disbarred for lying in his confirmation hearing.
Bush-era neocons are still pushing their vision of power rivalry with Russia and China, although it is not the same as the troll's idea of rivalry.
The head Republican in the North Carolina senate shared news articles on Facebook—altering their headlines.
This is typical of Republicans today. The Republican Party has become the Anti-Integrity Party; its unofficial motto is "grab power and wealth by any possible means".
The troll's conflicts of interest continue unabated, including an apparent bribe from China in the form of rapid approval for trademarks for his business there. The Office of Government Ethics stated that, despite the troll's absurd claims, ethical rules for government employees do apply to his staff.
The article makes the mistake of using the term "intellectual property" as if that term had a coherent meaning. Many people believe that, and the confusion encourages bad laws.
When Pruitt admitted he denies the facts about CO2 and global heating, he also admitted lying to Congress previously about the point.
The Israeli soldier who murdered a Palestinian got a sentence "fit for a bicycle thief", less than Palestinian children get for throwing rocks at cars. But murderous right-wing Israelis say that is too much.
"Wake up and smell the apartheid", said Assaf Harel.
The ACLU has launched a "cities of resistance" program, calling on municipal governments to refuse to cooperate with some of the troll's cruelest policies.
As a 29-Year-Old Cancer Patient, I Find Paul Ryan's Argument Against Health Insurance Appalling.
Indigenous Americans brought their pipeline protest to Washington.
Bravo—but alas this protest doesn't block construction or operation of the pipeline.
How scholarship websites sell students'nformation to colleges and publishers.
The Department of Homeland Subjugation labels Black Lives Matter protesters as "terrorist suspects." New Anti-Protesting Legislation: A Deeper Look.
Shall we describe the Republicans' campaign to abolish effective protests a form of "judicial terrorism"?
The Theater of Security Agency (TSA) harassed Muhammad Ali Jr over his religion again.
The world's current famine is the biggest since 1945.
The Republican scheme for medical insurance would keep dooH niboR very healthy.
Sanders and other senators have proposed a bill that would make sure profitable companies pay their something closer to fair share of tax.
Women in Jamaica have launched a public campaign against sexual violence.
The troll has secretly appointed hundreds of second-rank officials that are essentially saboteurs.
EPA saboteur-in-chief Pruitt explicitly denied the basic facts about global heating.
Wikileaks has secret CIA files describing details of security holes, but rather than publishing these files, it will provide them to the software developers so they can fix the bugs.
I've seen people that hate Wikileaks say that developers should not trust this information if it comes from Wikileaks. This is irrational and absurd. A detailed report of a reproducible bug does not require you to trust everyone involved in forwarding it to you. You can verify it yourself.
Apple is campaigning against right-to-repair laws that weaken the unjust effect of the DMCA.
Last year, Michael Flynn was a foreign agent, lobbying for Erdogan's demands.
UK thugs were given a political mission to attack striking miners.
Turkey is no longer arming Syrian rebels, as it has made friends with Russia.
Russia is persecuting Jehovah's Witnesses for their pacifism.
The infrastructure of the US is in terrible shape after decades of insufficient investment.
The troll's plan to invest in infrastructure would be good except that he wants to give the money to companies so they can charge tolls.
The troll's glorious raid on Yemen turns out to have been a massacre across the whole village.
CIA Deputy Director Haspel, who was closely involved with CIA torture under Dubya, will have to testify about the CIA's destruction of evidence about the torture.
Philadelphia provides an example to follow for resistance to imposed privatization of public education. We will need it to rest Saboteur of Education DeVos.
US ground artillery is helping in the attack on Raqqa.
I don't see a great deal of danger in this, because it avoids the two situations where US troops tend to cause problems: acting as occupation troops over a civilian population they can't talk with and don't like, and fighting away from a battle zone.
The supposed cleanup of the Fukushima melt-downs is making no progress at all. They have not been able to build a robot that can explore the insides of the ruined reactors.
A lawsuit alleges that requiring people imprisoned awaiting deportation to work for a low wage is illegal forced labor.
An aboriginal American student was pulled out of class for refusing to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
The constitution defends a citizen's right not to recite that pledge.
The proper response to "My father fought in Vietnam and my husband fought in Afghanistan" is, "I am sure they wanted to serve their country. I deeply regret that politicians misused their loyalty."
Israeli Soldiers Stand By As Settlers Attack Civilians in West Bank Village.
Right-wing extremists (including supporters of the loser) now invent false history on the spot to suit their purposes.
The CIA has a group which studies and then uses the cracking techniques of other countries' crackers.
Perhaps it also arranges to make some other country appear to be the culprit.
The UK's tax on sugary drinks has pressured manufacturers to reduce the sugar levels of their drinks.
Los Angeles voters approved an additional sales tax to support housing for the homeless.
I honor their decision to pay more tax for this, but it ought to be a (progressive) income tax rather than a (regressive in effect) sales tax.
The Republicans' plan to "replace" Obama's medical insurance plan will result in a collapse of the insurance market. Millions of Americans will be unable to get any medical coverage.
It also bans using federal funds for Planned Parenthood's medical services including prenatal care and contraception.
EFF: Secret Court Orders Aren't Blank Checks for General Electronic Searches. Or at least, they shouldn't be interpreted that way.
The British Raj looted India for two centuries and was designed to make India less advanced. And it mostly succeeded.
A refugee arriving in Hungary was imprisoned automatically, paid the state around $2000 for permission to move to a tent city, and now faces being put automatically back in prison.
The government of Hungary has warped democratic structures to the point where it has total permanent control.
US citizens: sign call to protect federal regulation from SCROTUS.
US citizens: support providing lawyers to anyone held while entering the US.
Republicans have been using their control of Congress to reduce IRS audits and enforcement. That helps their rich paymasters evade more taxes.
Local and national battles against global heating are sometimes being won in court.
Bernie Sanders responds to a squeamish journalist who thinks it is wrong to use the word "lie" when the liar is president of the United States.
One last male northern white rhinoceros is protected very intensely in the hope it will father some offspring and preserve the species.
The White House is now a mouthpiece for Exxon.
Chinese feminist activists continue to advance their cause despite repression for any visible activism.
Women working in universities guide each other to navigate a complex landscape of sexual harassment hazards.
UK charities that say they help and serve homeless people also report them to immigration thugs.
A quarter of the deaths of children under 5 years old are caused by pollution — mostly water pollution.
Almost half of all the convicted criminals that were exonerated in the US from 1989 through 2016 were black.
This suggests that blacks have a bigger chance of being falsely convicted than whites do.
SCROTUS has a bill to cut Medicaid and increase insurance costs for old people. As well as repeal Obama's medical insurance system.
Anyone who loses insurance coverage for a couple of months would face a heavy penalty.
SCROTUS want to help US contractors violate workers' rights more easily. Always on the side of the wealthier against the poorer.
Annoying or harmful dress codes for women, requiring high heels or even dying hair, are common in the UK.
The troll made absurd accusations about "wiretapping" him, but this is only a distraction from his unwillingness to protect you and me from dangerous government surveillance.
Here's why it is dangerous.
UC Berkeley will have to block public access to 20,000 educational videos because it can't afford to make them usable by people with visual problems.
I agree with the goal of serving people with limited vision, but it is better to publish something most people can use than nothing at all.
I hope people save copies of these videos and distribute them elsewhere. Maybe you can save some yourself.
The article doesn't raise the question of whether these videos carry a free license. Perhaps they do. But they may carry a nonfree license such as the Creative Commons Noncommercial Sharealike license, which would be bad.
Version 2 of the partial ban on Muslims is still a gratuitous act of bigotry and still should be overturned.
I think it is an exaggeration to say it is "as bad as" version 1. It is not quite as bad, but it is nonetheless bad.
Khizr Khan, who rebuked the infant in the name of the US Constitution, finds himself blocked from traveling outside the US and has not been told why.
A mannequin presented to imitate a sleeping homeless person was used to catch someone who tried to kill the "person".
Using camera traps it should be possible to to catch people that steal homeless people's property. I have a hunch they will turn out to be people like this would-be killer, people that hate the homeless, rather than desperate people that want those goods.
Simple digging can make arid land retain rain when it falls.
The Tories plan to give the rich billions, while saying there is no money for important things such as the NHS, libraries, schools, etc.
US citizens: Oppose plans to inspect travelers' computers at the US border.
Everyone: Urge Paris not to buy trains from a Chinese company that pollutes a lake in Tibet with a lithium mine that Tibetans never had any choice about.
UN Experts Denounce 'Myth' Pesticides Are Necessary to Feed the World. They have accused pesticide companies of using various kinds of injustices to increase sales.
This is another case of plutocracy at work, and shows one of the reasons we need to break up large companies into many small pieces.
North Korea is holding all Malaysian visitors hostage.
Americans, and everyone else: don't visit North Korea unless it is absolutely necessary. To do so is to offer the tyrant of North Korea a hostage to use against your country.
If Britain can't get a good (for business) trade deal with the EU, it will "fight back" — by surrendering even more to big business in other countries.
US racists say that tying them to right-wing politicians is making their views acceptable.
They are sneaking dishonestly into the events of the antisocialists, and pretending to have support from them.
The troll said he had a secret plan to eliminate PISSI within 30 days after he was elected.
It's more than 40 days now, and we still haven't heard the plan, but it seems PISSI has not been eliminated yet.
A few foundations spent over 40 million dollars in the 2000s to stir up bigotry against Muslims in the US. We must suppose they have spent millions more since then.
While the bigots' description of Shari'a law is a caricature, we should not consider it innocent or harmless. It is true that Shari'a law endorses giving charity to the poor; that is one of the basic rules of Islam. It is also true that Shari'a law has principles and punishments repugnant to human rights — including the death penalty, applied for "crimes" such as blasphemy, and ceasing to be a Muslim.
Several members of the saboteur cabinet lied in their confirmation hearings.
Trumps out-of-control public behavior is very effective distraction.
It doesn't hurt him with his core supporters either, though they don't even come close to a majority.
Everyone: call for returning Kiarre Harris's homeschooled children to her.
US citizens: call for continued funding of Planned Parenthood.
US citizens: oppose union-crushing "right to work" laws.
Everyone: tell Wells Fargo, Citibank, US Bank and SunTrust Banks to stop funding the Dakota Access Pipeline.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: call for a special prosecutor to address the relationship between Sessions and Russia, and related matters.
US citizens: endorse Sanders's progressive agenda.
A few plutocrats are rapidly taking the wealth away from nearly all Americans: in 2016, they took over $17k per household from the non-rich 90%.
A periodic "State of the Environment" report says that global heating's damage to Australia may already be irreversible.
The Senate passed a bill to allow chicken processing plants to conceal how many injuries their workers get.
Ben Carson, now a cabinet secretary, calls the slaves being brought to the US "immigrants" who "had a dream" for their posterity in the US.
Denialism at work: a fossil fuel organization, the International Energy Agency warns of an "oil shortage" in a few years. This conclusion might be valid, in the fantasy world where global heating did not exist.
I imagine a ship's cook reporting a scarcity of water as the ship sinks.
The UK's carbon emissions have fallen by 1/3 since 1990.
Previous governments made some efforts to reduce carbon emissions, but the Tory government has mostly eliminated these.
The troll's attack on clean air and water is running very fast.
Israel has rejected freedom of speech, passing a law that denies visas or residency certificates to those that advocate a commercial boycott of Israel.
The troll's travel ban, version 2, avoids the arbitrary cruelties of version 1.
It does no good for the US, since visitors from the 6 target countries were and are no significant threat to Americans. The policy is gratuitous harm.
Bahrain now dares to openly reject human rights by subjecting dissenters to military trials.
Proposal to sell high-calorie foods in plain packaging so that people won't be drawn to buy them.
Taking the UK out of the EU gives the Tories an opportunity to appear patriotic nationalists while trashing their country.
However, it is more than just a distraction. It will also serve as an excuse for trade treaties that destroy the real sovereignty of Britain.
A state in Australia will start taxing those that own apartments and leave them vacant.
I think it is a mistake to make an exception for holiday homes, because it will be easy for investors to pretend they spend holidays in the apartment in order to avoid the tax.
Food not Bombs activists stubbornly keep feeding homeless people, even though they are arrested and jailed.
They report about thugs that throw away the food so that nobody can eat it, and cruelty activists that steal homeless peoples' shoes or hit them with baseball bats.
It would be good to publish lists of the businesses that demand repression of the homeless.
The Palestinian residents of Hebron held a protest march against the
Israeli
occupiers that exclude them from part of their city. They were
attacked
crushingly.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
Right-wing trolls (including Trump) seek to provoke loud condemnation because it publicizes them to those who might support them. How to respond to that tactic?
People denied asylum by the UK, who can't get permission to go anywhere else, are forced to live in total penury, sleeping on the street and begging for food. Sometimes this goes on for many years.
The example of Enaya's husband illustrates how the UK interprets the criteria for asylum so strictly that it sends people back to face real danger.
US citizens: Support the Endangered Species Act.
US citizens: support legalization of importing drugs from Canada.
Everyone: Call on Nissan to stop advertising in Breitbart.
A crony of the troll says he was in indirect communication with Assange about release of Podesta's leaked emails.
It was legitimate for Wikileaks to release information demonstrating the corruption in the Democratic National Committee. However, I will be disappointed in Assange if he cooperated with the troll.
Across the US, local Republican legislators are trying new ways to hamper protests or punish protesters. However, the Arizona bill to hold protest organizers responsible for any and all violence (even by provocateurs) was defeated.
Even thug department chiefs say that involving them in deportations would undermine public safety.
Communities with lots of immigrants tend to be particularly safe, because immigrants commit few violent crimes and support catching and stopping violent crimes. If they become afraid to report crimes, criminals will feel empowered.
For 40 years, confused use of US military force in the Middle East has
made things worse, for the inhabitants of the region and for the US.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
The troll wants to facilitate for-profit colleges to enlarge their businesses, which involve loans that most of their students have trouble paying back.
The largest banks in Australia put 10 billion dollars into fossil fuel projects, and only 3 billion into renewable energy.
If Sessions Had Nothing to Hide, Why Did He Try to Hide it?
There is a pattern of involvement between the troll's men and Russia, which adds up to a reason to suspect something scandalous or even treasonous.
Now we are informed that Flynn and Jared Kushner met with the Russian ambassador in December, and other members of the team were involved too, and they intervened to change the Republican Party platform as a result.
Many children and teenagers have sleep disorders caused by computers.
Sessions, as prosecutor, made a practice of prosecuting his political opponents using strained charges. Sometimes for money.
Sex education should be accompanied by love education.
The troll is spending taxpayers' money on travel at a fantastic rate.
State-subsidized tree plantations contributed to the great size of Chile's forest fires in January.
The troll has taken drone bombardment of Yemen to a new level.
A Chinese lithium mine in Tibet is poisoning the rivers.
Pruitt used a private email address to talk with lobbyists, and lied to the Senate about this in his confirmation hearing.
SCROTUS will stand firm in Pruitt's defense, on the grounds that this sort of thing is wrong only when Democrats do it.
How "Family Values" Conservatives Are Hurting Families.
Texas Republicans want to permit doctors to conceal from a pregnant women the fact that the fetus has an abnormality, so that she won't get an abortion.
The same Republicans wish to cut state support for mothers that are not affluent, including any that are tricked in the future into giving birth to a seriously disabled child.
I figure that "family values" means "spread adversity in the name of the 'strong father'", and it is really just an excuse to be mean.
Low oil prices are leading the main oil companies to lose interest in opening new strip mines for tar sands in Alberta.
It is beneficial that the low price discourages investment, but in order to lower consumption we need a high price.
The troll has proposed a plan to make child care cheaper for prosperous Americans.
Wells Fargo bank offers peculiar excuses for why customers that it cheated should not be allowed to sue.
Some scientists are refusing to review papers that don't come with complete published data.
A Norwegian news site is now requiring people to pass a test about the article's contents before posting a comment.
Antisemitism is becoming widespread among American teenagers. They seem to think hating someone is fun.
The troll may accelerate the decline of the US, but it started before him.
I think it is due to plutocracy.
Guber programmed its system for special treatment of people that might be investigating accusations of violating municipal regulations. The special treatment was that the system would say a car was coming, but no car would ever arrive.
Uber has the ability to do this because it forces all its clients to identify themselves — which is fundamentally unjust.
The troll regime has made a clear statement of how little it cares about human rights.
The troll's cruelty squad is entertaining plans to imprison children separately from their mothers, when they cross the border illegally.
The UK is cutting rent subsidies for poor people age 18 to 21, apparently assuming that at that age it is ok to live on the street.
Brazil has been hit with a get-tough-on-crime frenzy that includes torturing imprisoned minors.
Everyone: call on Target stores to sell "ugly" but usable produce, or give it away — but stop trashing it.
Human Rights Watch says that Do-dirty's death squads plant evidence to frame the people they have killed.
US schools are moving towards the TSA-style suspicion, which would teach young people to live in a tyrannical system of control.
Unlimited automation could split the world into the rich owners of robot factories and the starving "superfluous" ex-workers. It could end up as the Hunger Games or even with extermination of the latter.
To avoid this requires taxing the automated factories, or their products, to support everyone else. The article calls this "taxing robots", but it is not clear what that would mean. It would be meaningful if robots were units of comparable cost and productivity to each other, but they are not.
One of the leaders of Colombia's paramilitares, the army-sponsored right wing terrorists, is on trial in the US for drug trafficking. His band of terrorists killed 270 people.
Paramilitares also killed rural people to terrify their relatives into selling land cheap to the paramilitares. And they accepted pay to help multinational corporations break unions. Overall, they were Colombia's biggest and worst terrorist group, more harmful than the FARC. And they still are. Now that the FARC has made peace, that is even more true.
How Mexico City tries to help Mexicans deported from the US.
When Will France Admit that Police Racism is Systemic?
Sessions had conversations with the Russian ambassador, while a senator, then denied them in his confirmation hearing.
There is a broad boycott of international-brand sodas in part of India.
The article presents this campaign in a way that seems incoherent. Some of the criticism is aimed at the sugar in most sodas, the growing of which uses up a lot of water. But if that is the point, why not boycott drinks with added sugar, regardless of who makes it? Why would a local brand be any less bad than a world brand? The think to do would be to boycott sugary drinks, which could have the byproduct of reducing obesity.
This is a separate issue from the worldwide boycott of Coca Cola Company, which includes all products of that company including fruit juice and water. (Coca Cola's bottled water in India is called Kinley.) This boycott is about the use of paramilitares (right-wing terrorists connected with the army) to murder union organizers in Colombia. They do lots of other bad things too.
Spring came several weeks early around the northern hemisphere. This will invite many species to invade and destroy our ecosystems.
Americans with HIV infections fear that the troll will kill them by stopping government support for their medicines.
Soy plantations for Burger King are burning down Amazon forest.
SCROTUS defeated a bill to require the cheater to release his tax returns.
High officials, who are supposed to serve us, are not entitled to the same privacy rights as everyone else.
(Satire) Insecure, Frustrated Bully With Something To Prove Considering Career In Law Enforcement.
The troll's nominee to run Medicaid and Medicare is another saboteur.
The infant almost started a war with Iran a few weeks ago.
A Canadian doctor of Afghan origin who formerly lived in the US was interrogated for five hours when trying to enter the US. Eventually he was not allowed in. He had to beg for permission to call his clinic to cancel patients' appointments.
The US always had the nastiest immigration thugs. Now it is much worse. It is wise to stay away from the US.
A UN inquiry found that Assad's men deliberately bombed an aid convoy that the regime had authorized.
Facing years in prison for protesting is the new normal in the US.
The troll may have been inspired by Putin, who threatened Greenpeace protesters with many years in prison. But Putin didn't carry out the threat. The troll would do it.
The author meant to write "free rein". The metaphor is of letting a horse go however it chooses.
The troll proposes cutting EPA staff by one-fifth, eliminating key programs.
The troll's plans to cut EPA rules would allow industrial pollution to kill tens of thousands of Americans.
The Taliban are slowly gaining in Afghanistan, fighting against government soldiers that have no strong motivation to fight for the corrupt government. The US generals ask for more US troops, but the most those could achieve is to weaken the Taliban somewhat and stabilize the unending war.
The Taliban offered the US a peace deal in 2001. Repressive as they are, peace under the Taliban would have been better, both for Afghans and for Americans, than perpetual war.
Now PISSI is trying to recruit people there. It would be better if the Taliban had full control and could keep PISSI out.
The troll plans to try to cut back on protection from water pollution.
This would potentially threaten safe drinking water for 1/3 of Americans.
Wetlands could be destroyed, and endangered species pushed towards extinction.
The US military is exhausted from using troops too much and too long, but it doesn't need more money.
US citizens: call for ending the US intervention in Yemen.
The troll has tried to exclude non-citizens from US privacy law, apparently to make various agencies' data about them available for deportation. The ACLU is suing to defeat this.
Pollution dumped in the lakes is making Bangalore uninhabitable. The lakes catch fire and the canals spew toxic foam that can crack car windshields.
The level of corruption has made it impossible to control the pollution.
Perhaps Ulsoor Lake will have to be renamed Ulcer Lake.
Leaked emails, published by Wikileaks, tie a Turkish minister to an oil company accused of buying oil from PISSI.
The minister is Erdoğan's son-in-law, and possibly his intended successor.
There is no proof that the company bought oil from PISSI, but the fact that the minister lied about whether he had contacts with that company proves he is dishonest.
PISSI means the Pseudo-Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.
As the infant checks White House staff's phones for encryption apps they might have used to send leaks, we should be reminded that officials can also use encryption apps to hide communications from public records laws.
However, there are many other ways they can do that which won't go through their phones at all.
Student Grant Neal was punished by Colorado State University for "raping" his girlfriend, based on a suspicion that her roommate had, while his girlfriend insisted no such thing had happened.
The EU has approved a reform to tighten up its CO2 emissions trading plan in the hope of making it actually reduce emissions.
I recommend a carbon tax — it is not as easy to game that.
A UK local government elected official faces prosecution for making a Nazi salute in order to accuse Tories of acting like Nazis.
In effect, saying "You are acting like a Nazi" may be a crime in the UK. The UK does not respect freedom of speech, neither in politics nor in regard to sex.
I don't think the Tory policies are as bad as those of the Nazis, but they are very bad.
US citizens: phone your local thug department and say, don't cooperate with deportations.
The page has phone numbers for the Boston area, but you can look up the number for your town wherever you are.
US citizens: call for ending military aid to Honduras.
The troll may be planning to stack "bipartisan" independent 6-person commissions with 3 Republicans plus 3 official non-Republicans that act like Republicans.
Privatization = Public Loss For All, Private Gain For A Few.
The Walled-Off Hotel — built right against Israel's annexation wall that runs through Palestine.
Hardly anyone reads a web site's "terms of service" before agreeing to them.
I do read them, because I am prepared to refuse to use the site if I see anything in the terms I consider unacceptable. Most people don't see a point in reading them, because they are not prepared to do that.
This points to the basic injustice: most users feel helplessly compelled to accept web disservices with their nasty terms. Even when there is a choice of disservices to use, they only rarely differ in the nasty terms.
I think the solution is that the state should set these terms, democratically. Rather than letting companies impose terms on the public, the public should organize to impose terms on companies.
That's what democracy means: that the many join together to stop the rich from dominating them.
Daniela Vargas faces immediate deportation after immigration thugs grabbed her after a rally where she spoke to condemn such practice.
She was brought to the US as a child, and was previously given protection from deportation. She was in the process of applying for renewal of this when the thugs grabbed her. Clearly their goal is to show that there is no such thing in the US any more as due process of law. Clearly this is meant to terrify immigrants.
If there were a hell, I'd suggest deporting all immigration thugs there, with no court hearing, along with other kinds of terrorists.
The Absent Corporation — companies that intentionally give no way to complain or ask for help.
Being mistreated or cheated by one of these companies is a cost of doing business with them, but they hope you won't factor that into your decision of whether to do it.
Canada is moving towards a province-by-province system of authorizing immigration.
A large area of permafrost in Canada is melting, which leads to release of lots of CO2.
In the US: join the People's Climate March on April 29.
US citizens: call on Sessions to resign.
The new saboteur head of the Interior Department has cancelled a regulation that forbade use of lead ammunition when hunting on federal lands.
Once the lead gets into the environment, it can remain there for millenia, poisoning animals (and occasionally humans) over and over.
Right-wing twitterbots are inflating the retweets of the loser's tweets.
By His Own Standards, Attorney General Jeff Sessions Should Resign.
I don't think it is wrong for a senator to talk with the Russian ambassador. That alone would not even be suspicious. But it is a matter of public significance. This combined with other such matters add up to grounds for an investigation.
Meanwhile, for the attorney general nominee to lie about a matter of public significance in a confirmation hearing is inexcusable. Remember how Republicans impeached Bill Clinton for lying about whether he had sex with Monica Lewinsky)? That was a matter of no public significance whatsoever.
Republican Senator Johnson of Wisconsin is avoiding his constituents, and had a lawyer get an order telling Earl Good not to call his office or try to meet with staff.
Activists have announced a campaign of mailing him potatoes.
BBC TV Crew Attacked in China And Forced to Sign Confession.
Thugs want to prosecute pipeline protesters for setting their tents on fire. Rather than taking any care to find out who committed this "crime", they choose in a slapdash fashion.
Mike Pence used private email for security issues as governor of Indiana, and his account was cracked.
Rather than running a private server, he used a commercial email service, just begging to be compromised.
But that's no big deal. It's only wrong when Democrats do it.
Reasons not to fly Emirates airlines.
More-or-less repressive states use literary festivals to paint themselves as respecting freedom of the press.
It seems that an invited author that wants to use one of them to advance human rights by making contacts with people can perhaps succeed, but only by private activities. The more famous authors do more good by refusing to attend.
Jeff Sessions Must Now Tell America the Whole Truth.
The loser's recent speech shows that he has adopted much of the standard Republican dooH niboR platform.
Erdoğan's referendum on changing the Turkish constitution to give him great power is being held with no organized opposition — because the opposition is gagged or in jail.
The vote will not be free or fair. It will be illegitimate.
The New York City Council is considering a law to require the thug department to publish its rules for using surveillance technology.
Trump Wants You to Think All the Immigrants He'll Deport Are Criminals. They're Not.
"Smart" meters are snooping devices. I've said that for years. Now others are starting to be concerned about the matter.
The article doesn't say what specific issue the court decided, but in general legal "protection of privacy" in the US operates by putting conditions on access to data that has been collected. That's fundamentally inadequate.
Real privacy means stopping your "smart" meter from reporting on you at all.
If something is called "smart", be very suspicious of allowing it into your home.
Senator Santorum called Americans wanting medical coverage despite preexisting conditions "crooks" and "grifters".
What he means is that he and the rich people he serves want to wash their hands of all responsibility to the rest of society.
Russia and Syria recaptured Palmyra from PISSI, but PISSI planted lots of mines in the ancient ruins.
The Department of Homeland Suppression has decided to regard protests against the troll as terrorist in spirit. No terrorist acts have been associated with them, but those thugs are sure some will be.
The US State Department refused to meet with a leader of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Here is a list of myths that right-wing Democrats cite to excuse supporting continued plutocracy.
Right-wing plutocratist Democrats would not make anything better than it was under Obama.
Mussolini and Hitler gained power at first through democratic structures, then seized dictatorial power. (They were not the first: Julius Caesar and Napoleon III followed similar paths.) The loser's actions show quite a resemblance.
The mayor of Calais has banned giving food to the homeless refugees there.
US citizens: phone your senators to oppose "concealed carry reciprocity".
This is a tricky and disguised legal scheme to make every state allow lots of unvetted people to carry guns.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
Various countries have put together 200 million dollars to fund family planning aid, including abortion counseling and abortion, to fill the gap that the US is leaving.
They hope to raise additional funds in the next few months.
Although lead levels in Flint are down, it is still not safe to drink.
The troll's antisemitic insults against John Stewart show that this form of bigotry is embedded in his heart along with other forms.
When Celestine Omin tried to enter the US on a work visa, he was grilled by an immigration agent with vague technical questions, supposedly to prove he was really a software engineer.
The agent didn't understand his answers, and threatened to exclude him. Fortunately, other agents called his employer, who verified he is an engineer.
Regardless of details, it is absurd to ask a professional to prove his qualifications to someone who knows nothing about per field as a condition for immigration.
It is pointless anyway. What exactly is the wrong that agent was trying to prevent? That a company would arrange a work visa for the CEO's lover? That might be fraud, but there is no need to investigate such a suspicion at passport control.
Diane Wilson explains why she protested in Pruitt's confirmation hearing.
The Supreme Court made a decision that will help the battle against Republican gerrymandering.
This decision was almost unanimous — even Gorsuch could not have altered it.
Activist restaurant workers are suing Memphis thugs for snooping on them and sabotaging them.
"CloudPets" toys with microphones leak childrens' conversations to the manufacturer. Guess what? Crackers found a way to access the data collected by the manufacturer's snooping.
That the manufacturer and the FBI could listen to these conversations was unacceptable by itself.
When trolls enter a political discussion, here's how to win the audience to your side.
Up to 100 Gravestones Vandalized at Jewish Cemetery in Philadelphia.
Under Bannon's editorship, "Jewish" in Breitbart comments came to be used as a term of condemnation rather than as the name of an ethnic group.
When the troll finally stated disapproval of antisemitism, it was so weak that one can hardly believe he meant it.
An Israeli soldier shot Muhammad Amer Jallad in the stomach as he was running across a street to get a taxi to get to his chemotherapy appointment on time. It took him months to die, and Israeli soldiers kept his family away. His mother was allowed to see him just once and was not even informed when he died. His family still does not know.
The only way to reduce US medical care costs as the troll says he will do is with a national health service.
Watch out for those who want to use suspicion about the troll and his staff to push for a cold war with Russia, or even a hot war.
I think it would be good to relax tensions with Russia, and that the US should stop trying to constrict Russia by extending NATO. That doesn't mean we should tolerate a president who makes corrupt deals with Putin. We do need an investigation of this.
A lawsuit accuses PayPal of raising money in the name of many charities but not giving them the money.
The arrest of Deniz Yücel, a Turkish-German reporter for Die Welt, is getting lots of criticism in Turkey.
Women report pervasive sexual harassment in tech companies in Silicon Valley. Often it is worse in startups.
Being pressured to drink alcohol is mistreatment of anyone and everyone, even aside from the possible sexual pressure it might unleash.
SCROTUS held a hearing to give witnesses from fossil fuel companies a chance to argue that carbon emissions are less of a problem than currently acknowledged.
Actually it is much worse.
An entrepreneur who insulted the homeless of San Francisco has had a change of heart and proposes a plan to house 500 homeless people on a berthed cruise ship.
The ship would also rent rooms to tourists.
I think that his change of heart is sincere, and we should not hold his past callousness against his subsequent caring. However, the solution he proposes could not possibly work on a significant scale for adding either housing or shelter space in San Francisco. It might perhaps be worth doing with one ship, if there is a spare cruise ship available cheap.
In the UK, as in the US, plutocratist politicians aim to keep reducing inheritance taxes.
Meanwhile, they keep increasing the sales taxes that are most burdensome for people of low income.
These taxes fall only on the wealthy. They should be increased, and the paths to avoid them should be closed off.
People in several countries in Latin America are squeezed between water scarcity and privatization.
Israel designated some land in Palestine (specifically, in the West Bank) a "military fire zone" as an excuse to expel Palestinians. Now Israeli colonists are building a race track in that zone.
Apparently the designation was a simple pretext for ethnic cleansing.
Bigotry against Arabs in Israel leads repeatedly to hasty and false accusations against them. Israeli thugs, their chief, and the minister in charge are all guilty.
Bernie Sanders: On Anti-Semitism, Israel, and the Palestinians.
The infant has caused a big drop in tourism to the US. People decide that visiting the US is not worth even a small chance of being harassed at the border.
The UK is implementing a national identity card equivalent through a digital identity verification scheme that can't be trusted.
One of the troll's cronies says that antisemitic attacks are the work of Democrats.
It is absurd but typical. Republicans arbitrarily blame all bad things on Democrats.
Tibetan Women's Soccer Players Denied US Visas for Texas Tournament.
Maybe the troll thinks that Tibet is a Muslim country. Or maybe he was trying to hurt China by being harsh to Tibetans. Either one is dumb enough for him.
"Trump's America is great for holidays — if you enjoy vigorous frisking by men in uniform."
Papers link the murderers of Berta Cáceres to "special forces" trained by the US.
The US continues to "train" them. Apparently it doesn't train them in respect for human rights.
US immigration thugs have a long history of trampling laws in order to persecute someone. Even US citizens are not safe. The loser has given them encouragement to do this even more.
I refer to Trump as "the loser" sometimes, because he lost the election; the only reason he could pretend to win in the electoral college is that Republicans rigged the election.
Sessions ends US opposition to state voter ID laws.
These are voter suppression schemes, typically carried out by Republicans, so Republicans are in cahoots to support them. It is the only way they stay in power.
A former marketer for commercial colleges explains how they lured students, and why students default on their loans.
DeVos is likely to try to help these companies.
A bill in Hawaii proposes to allow MDs to prescribe housing as a medical treatment for homeless people with mental or drug problems.
Australia has allowed investigating some journalists' phone records without even a court order.
The UK is facing lawsuits about torturing Kenyan rebels to death in the 1950s.
The loser's latest absurd accusation is that Obama is organizing the nationwide protests against the troll.
The accusation is absurd, since Obama would have every right to organize protests against the troll. But it's also nothing like Obama. If Obama had had such a vigorous commitment to the progressive cause, we would have a progressive president now.
Shell Oil published a film in 1991 warning about climate mayhem.
However, Shell continued doing the things that have brought climate mayhem on us.
More recently, Shell lobbied successfully to keep disaster on track by weakening Europe's greenhouse gas reduction targets.
Each time the planet roasters succeeded in one country or region, that had the effect of discouraging climate protectors elsewhere around the world.
China is looking at an insane measure: paying people to have more children.
Yes, this would assuage a temporary economic problem — but it would make all the long-term environmental problems worse. There are other ways to take care of the old people. Those that are healthy could continue working. Meanwhile, automation could leave many working-age people without jobs; jobs taking care of the old and infirm would be welcome. The state could give money to people that take care of their aged parents.
A few Catholic churches in the Philippines are giving sanctuary to people that Do-Dirty's killers might want to kill.
A progressive "shadow cabinet" will respond to the Republican saboteur cabinet.
Microsoft is running a patent protection racket, threatening to sue users of free software.
Why does the Linux Foundation accept money from them?
Studies have found that vouchers for private schools don't help students do better than in public schools. The loser and DeVos want to ignore this.
Education is not their goal — enriching private business is.
Turkey has arrested a reporter, supposedly for supporting terrorism, but really for publishing leaked emails of a relative of Erdoğan.
Europe must not depend on Turkey for anything.
The amount the troll wants to add to US military spending would be almost as much as Russia spends. The US already spends more than Russia and China and several other military powers combined.
If the US didn't have such a big army, and had as a consequence not conquered and destroyed Iraq, the US would be a lot more secure today than it is.
The troll's "jobs czar" just finished imposing pension cuts on the unionized workers of a factory, and defeating the strike that followed.
Never trust a Republican to do anything good for workers.
Some homeless people in San Francisco frequent the library. Residents want the library to chase them away.
The solution is to set up another decent place where they are welcome.
A prestigious French historian was held prisoner at the US border for 10 hours as he was trying to go to a symposium.
It appears that the agents were on a power trip and didn't understand the law they were carrying out. The troll has unleashed all their worst instincts.
The US was already a bad place to hold international meetings.
More information about Henry Rousso and his background.
Law professors have filed an ethics complaint against Kellyann Conway as a member of the bar.
CPJ: In China, Sources Face Harassment, Jail for Speaking to Foreign Media.
The troll wants to scrap the rules of the Dodd-Frank law that were designed to hold banks back from causing another financial crisis.
Those rules are not strong enough, not as strong as what was repealed under Bill Clinton. We need to bring back the laws that avoided a crisis for 60 years.
Mem Fox reports on the cruel and idiotic contempt of US immigration thugs, as vented on her and others around her.
US citizens: call on your state governor to protect immigrants.
US citizens: call on Congress to reject union-crushing "right to work" laws.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
Don't tweak NAFTA — kill it!
We need a law requiring the immigration agency to publish all its data about a particular person's interrogation or exclusion, if that person publicly asks. We must not allow the agency to hide its refusal to explain itself to the victim behind a facade of concern for the victim's own privacy.
SCROTUS wants to eliminate federal protection of consumers' privacy.
That protection is so weak that it is laughable, but a step in the wrong direction would make things even worse.
The UK plans to increase taxes on bookstores, after cutting Amazon's tax rate.
The Tories seem to be puppets of companies like Amazon.
In 2014, Congress was almost finished passing a law to increase transparency in responding to FOIA requests. Obama's Justice Department killed the bill.
That Health Tracker Could Cost You. Any devices to track your activities can help companies establish policies of discrimination.
Democrats abandoned the fight against monopolies (more generally, industry concentration) around 1980. The result was great concentration, encouraged by Bill Clinton and Obama as well as Reagan and the Bushes.
Arizona's senate has voted for a law that allows thugs to arrest everyone at or near a protest if they think violence might start. And to imprison whoever planned the protest, if anyone starts violence in or near it.
The NAACP has called for a boycott of North Carolina.
(Satire) All US parents were declared unfit, and all US minors made wards of the state, according to The Onion.
The troll's attack on freedom of the press has inspired a Cambodian attack on freedom of the press.
Jewish Centers and Schools Cope with Another Wave of Bomb Threats.
SCROTUS blocked efforts to investigate the troll's relations with Russia and his tax returns.
Paul Ryan has pretended for years to be moderate and reasonable, but actually he is a radical crush-the-weak Republican.
The IPCC is now nearly certain that humans have caused all the global heating in the past 60 years.
The troll calls the press an enemy. As the news publishers become dependent on tech companies, and in many cases are bought by tech companies, the troll gains the power to attack them through the FCC.
Media concentration also threatens honest, independent journalism. So the Republican plan to allow increased media concentration also threatens the free press.
US border thugs grabbed a group of homeless hispanics as they left a church which offered them shelter for the night. Thugs handcuffed them and then questioned them.
UK universities have prohibited student events to protest Israel's occupation of Palestine.
The maker of a feminist Indian film is campaigning against the state's decision to ban it.
Sita Sings the Blues was also banned in India.
The UK deported Irene Clennell to Singapore, far away from her British husband of 27 years and her family, on the grounds that she spent too long visiting Singapore to care for her parents while they died.
The reply from the immigration authorities amounts to, "Our job is to be rigid no matter what the harm." They are run by Tories, after all. But no interpretation of their job can justify deporting anyone on short notice, or on a Sunday. What was the rush? What was the need for surprise? That must indicate a policy to fudge the legal rights of deportees.
An executive of the NRA says all progressive protesters are planning "criminal violence".
Meanwhile, Republicans around the country are planning to reclassify nonviolent acts (such as lying down on a street) as "violence". For Republicans, no truth is sacred.
The troll wants to increase military spending by 54 billion dollars a year, at the expense of things that benefit Americans and the US.
It wasn't easy to find the names of the "300 scientists" that signed a letter urging the troll to increase use of fossil fuels. Perhaps that's because they have no pertinent expertise — they are in other fields.
Legalized marijuana has created a economic boom in Colorado with a consequent rise in population and a housing shortage. This has led to more homeless people. So some right-wingers are trying to blame marijuana use for the increase in numbers of homeless.
As other states legalize marijuana, the boom will spread itself around and Colorado won't draw as many people from other states.
Ethiopian journalist Anania Sorri has been imprisoned without trial.
Here's how the troll treats his real buddies, defined as those who paid at least 200 thousand dollars.
Pruitt announced his intention to sabotage the EPA in big ways quickly.
Vietnamese journalist Dang Xuan Dieu was sent into exile after five years in prison in cruel conditions.
US courts are starting to question whether thugs have the right to make people use fingerprints to unlock devices.
A bigot shot two Indian men in Kansas after demanding to know their visa status.
Right-wing hatred directed at foreigners stirs up acts like this. The killer seems to have been susceptible, but such a susceptibility does not always develop into actual violence. That depends on what ideas are being trump-eted in the social environment.
The troll has started hand-picking which media organizations are allowed into press-manipulation sessions.
This looks like a campaign to repress and destroy journalism.
What the troll and Spicer say is unimportant. The press should ignore these press-manipulation sessions and focus on what the troll actually does, and on the leaks that show his plans.
But that doesn't mean the campaign to repress and destroy journalism is harmless.
Republicans are winning the favor of companies that own broadcasting, with a plan to permit increased concentration of radio and TV stations.
Paul Ryan defines freedom as "the ability to buy what you want".
With that definition, wealthy people have and deserve more freedom than the rest of us. This reductio ad absurdam shows that that is the wrong definition of freedom.
Ryan is not alone in proposing this neoliberal definitoin of freedom. Many people I meet say that your freedom is defined as how many options you have. That definition is basically the same as Ryan's, and it has the same basic flaw.
My definition of freedom is "having control of your own life."
Sea Shepherd pursued an illegal fishing boat for four months; when the fishing crew gave up hope of escaping pursuit, they scuttled the fishing boat in deep water.
They knew that if they brought their illegal catch into port, they would be prosecuted based on the evidence Sea Shepherd would provide.
The catch was illegal because the boat was taking protected fish, fish in danger of being wiped out by fishing.
They may still be prosecuted, based on the evidence of fish that Sea Shepherd sailors collected from the fishing boat as it sank. But even if they are not prosecuted, the loss of their boat and their catch is a substantial punishment.
If Sea Shepherd can do this to many such fishing boats, or if navies help, it could do a lot to discourage illegal fishing.
SCROTUS, visiting their home districts, meet with wealthy donors while shunning the voters.
Mexico says it will not not let the US deport Central Americans to Mexico.
US citizens: stand for network neutrality.
US citizens:
call
on Congress to preserve the Dodd-Frank whistleblower protections,
which apply to people that report crimes of their employers.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: call on your congresscritter to support HR 975 to end the federal war on marijuana.
US citizens: call on Congress to preserve the Johnson amendment, which prohibits churches and tax-exempt charities (such as the FSF) from campaigning for or against political candidates.
To weaken this amendment would give rich people a way to donate any amount of money to political campaigns, and get a tax deduction for doing so.
The troll's aide, Stephen Miller, is an avowed racist. He made a "white power" hand gesture in a White House event.
An Anaheim thug attacked a teenage girl for walking on his lawn, and ended up shooting at a group of teenagers. Fortunately he did not hit them, but protesters demand his arrest.
White House Defers to "States' Rights" on Transgender Protections — But Not on Legalizing Marijuana.
Sessions has cancelled the plan to phase out federal use of private prisons, which are harsher than government-run prisons.
The troll was paid to do this job by the private prison companies.
Advances in face recognition threaten to track everyone around on the street, even using low-quality images.
Can we determine what victims can do to make this not work?
Kim Jong-un used a chemical weapon, VX nerve agent, to assassinate his brother.
It seems that two different people put two different chemicals on his face, where they came in contact and generated VX.
Technology designed to herd and control is increasingly frustrating to use. Even in the bathroom.
I find most sensor-operated faucets very difficult to activate. The fact that I can't see where the sensor is actually located limits me to trial and error. I have to hunt for a long time to put my hands where they will be detected by the sensor, and I can never do it reliably.
President Do-Dirty of the Philippines is prosecuting opposition leader, Senator De Lima, using absurd charges.
She called him a "serial killer", an accusation which he has admitted.
The troll has started to provoke a new nuclear arms race.
Obama had already arranged to spend a trillion dollars on new nuclear weapons, though without increasing the total number of missiles (limited by treaty).
There is a systematic pattern of US immigration harassing US citizens that have Muslim names.
The Long History of Deportation Scare Tactics at the U.S.-Mexico Border.
There is pressure to stop the tiny "flood" of Central American asylum seekers from the US to Canada.
I am suspicious of exaggerated citation of tiny "dangers". For instance, one MP says "it is not safe" for the refugees who trek across the border, but they are not in much danger and they think staying in the US is more dangerous. She also says it is "not safe" for the community, but what danger is there? All these refugees wish to do is find Canadian authorities to surrender to, away from the border. They are not going to hurt anyone.
But it would be a good thing for Canada to suspend the agreement with the US to return refugees to the US when they go through border crossings. Then they could seek asylum that way.
Leaked documents show how the Heatland Institute operates to promote denial of global heating, and that this is one of its priority missions.
The organization calls itself the "Heartland" Institute, but "Heatland" describes it more accurately. The organization describes itself as "libertarian", but I won't call it that. Global heating denialism has nothing to do with liberty, and little to do with the views of the people that call themselves "libertarians", since most of them are not denialists.
However, I have decided not to refer to them as "libertarians", since I reject their claim to support liberty more than I do. Their basic philosophy is that the state should not actively help people have better lives.
Since they call all state programs to help people "socialist", I am thinking of calling them "antisocialists".
More of the Raqqa diaries.
The author says that PISSI and the Assad regime practice similar cruelties. That may be true in terms of what they do to those they consider enemies. However, my understanding is that the regime defines people as enemies only for opposing it, not for religion.
The Democratic Party elected the establishment candidate, Tom Perez, as chair.
I fear he will rig the 2020 primaries against Sanders or whoever is the progressive candidate.
Scientists remind us that we could destroy half of all living species by 2100.
SCROTUS are wiping out state retirement laws that facilitate keeping a retirement account moving from one employer to another.
Montana Democrats Accuse Republicans of Voter Suppression Ahead of Special Election.
US border thugs harassed Muhammad Ali Jr for hours as he was returning to the US. Their first questions were, "Where did you get your name from? Are you a Muslim?"
I am puzzled by the idea that he needed to prove that he was the son of the famous boxer. They had seen by his passport that he is a US citizen and has an unconditional right to reenter the US.
How the plutocrats gradually replaced American democracy with their own rule.
The troll sabotaged the US treasury by cancelling a recently adopted rule that stopped fossil fuel companies from cheating when paying for taking fossil fuels out of public lands.
Thugs' unions have great political influence, and use it to protect them from punishment for tyrannizing people.
It should be a crime for a thug to turn off any cameras in a place where the thug has an interaction with the public, or to interfere with filming by bystanders. This should be punished by years in prison.
Starting the fight against budget cuts in important social programs involves fighting against increases in military spending.
A famous Australian author was interrogated for hours by US border thugs, evidently for no reason.
She had visited the US 116 times before, but says she will never do so again.
US border thugs were even nastier to Canadian writer Peter Watts.
South Korea's government is bowing to Japanese pressure, and pressuring local governments to remove statues that commemorate the Korean (and other) women that were forced into prostitution during Japanese occupation.
Wolves in Finland are so numerous that they endanger the dogs that rural people use to hunt moose. Finland is looking for a way to maintain a wolf stable population level that can coexist with the sparse human population of rural areas.
Everyone: call on Elon Musk to quit the troll's business council.
US citizens: tell the FBI to keep accepting FOIA requests by email.
US immigration thugs dragged refugee Sara Beltrán Hernández away from the hospital, tied to a wheelchair, as she was waiting for an operation to remove a brain tumor.
Since then, she has received no medical attention although the thugs pretend she does.
This may be because she is kept in a privatized prison. They tend to skimp on their duties towards prisoners, figuring that they can get away with lying about it.
Everyone: Tell the prosecutors to indict the Los Angeles thug who shot at a 13-year-old boy.
A man who publicly burned a copy of the Qur'an, in Denmark, is being prosecuted for blasphemy.
This prosecution is an injustice. In addition, it will lend support to the Islamists that are pressuring for a global ban on criticism of their religion. That is not merely wrong in principle, it is a big threat to our freedom. Denmark should repeal this law.
Freedom of speech includes the freedom to criticize, condemn, insult, or mock any person, group, thing, institution, belief, or practice. Censorship is an attack on human rights, and we must fight against campaigns for censorship.
SCROTUS are expected to kill a Democratic resolution demanding that Sessions hand over documents about the Troll.
Arizona, under Republican rule, wants to define organized protest as "organized crime" by defining it as "rioting" if any participant engages in violence.
It is very important for protest organizers to avoid violence. As long as we have enough democracy for a nonviolent protest to be effective, violence only weakens the effect.
But organizers can't guarantee that there is no violence in the vicinity of a protest. If the protesters are disciplined and refuse to engage in violence, anyone in the vicinity of the protest who commits an act of violence could provide an excuse for this prosecution. Even a thug dressed up as a protester.
US citizens: call on Senator Schumer to kick right-wing Democrat Manchin from his leadership team.
Manchin has repeatedly voted for the troll's saboteur cabinet nominees.
Democrats are not well organized for fighting Republican sabotage.
White House Asked FBI to Deny Reports Linking Russia and Trump Advisers.
I think the same rule requires that the FBI should not have publicly stated that it had found more emails exchanged with Clinton — emails which, a few days later, it admitted contained nothing important.
Israel has stated a formal policy of not giving visas to staff of Human Rights Watch.
That is to support the policy of trampling Arabs' human rights.
US citizens: Call on Sessions to disassociate himself from Operation Rescue.
The troll's men want to deport Herbert Carino to the Philippines, where President Do-Dirty's men are likely to murder him.
Turkish-supported Syrian rebels have captured al-Bab.
Next maybe they will fight PISSI elsewhere — but they would have to fight the Syrian Kurds first.
North Korea used the assassination of Kim Jong-nam as an opportunity to declare its chemical weapons capabilities.
Thugs arrested the last protesters blocking the Dakota Access Pipeline.
All of humanity will suffer the effects of burning the oil that pipeline will enable extraction of.
The troll wants to eliminate deportation hearings and ship people out of the US without time for second thoughts.
Human activity is messing up the ecology of the sea bottom, even deep down.
The defeated tyrannical ruler of Gambia has imposed a billion-dollar debt on the people.
Currently, when tyrannical or corrupt government imposes debts on the country, the people have to pay them even after that government has been kicked out. This is an injustice, and creates a moral hazard: it encourages banks to lend to dictators, knowing they can squeeze the money out of the people afterward.
For the sake of justice, we must enable countries to repudiate the debts of a corrupt or tyrannical regime. That would teach banks to think twice before lending to such a regime, and that would make it harder for such a regime to stay in power.
Poor people can't afford the fresh fruits and vegetables that make for a healthy diet.
Teenagers have blockaded high schools in Paris in protest against the thugs that raped a student and said it was an "accident".
It is wrong for protesters to destroy cars — they belong to people who have nothing to do with that crime.
I am glad that thugs face charges for the rape.
Amnesty International: The divisive rhetoric of the troll, and other right-wing politicians around the world, add up to a current of eliminating human rights world-wide.
Rep. Ryan is hiding from constituents and has deactivated his fax line.
Senator Daines of Nevada cancelled a talk at the state capitol to avoid protesters.
The troll discriminated against blacks in renting housing. He told a doorman to overstate the rent when blacks inquired.
SCROTUS are aiming to eliminate much more than Obama's medical insurance program. They want to replace medicaid with schemes of little help to any but wealthy Americas, and tell the rest, "You're on your own."
The loser displays several typical signs of incipient tyranny.
A journalist interviewed 100 supporters of the troll and reports on what reasons they give for supporting him.
Also what they disapprove of.
If the US starts demanding visitors give passwords to their internet accounts, this could crush the freedom of all international travelers.
The spooks won't tell us why, but they seem to think that what Flynn said to the Russian ambassador, together with what the troll said, suggests a serious wrong.
We can't assume they are telling the truth, because they had reasons to try to screw the troll and his men.
Still, it calls for an investigation.
I've read elsewhere that the NSA's supposed rules for not snooping on Americans are bullshit — because they can get other countries to collect the conversations and give the recordings to the NSA, and then it can do whatever it likes. So don't believe that part.
A US agent displayed irrational discrimination to British children on a school trip, by blocking their teacher from entering the US with them.
The school's principal says the students have learned the right lesson, to condemn bigotry, rather than the trumpish lesson of imitating bigotry.
The Raqqa Diaries were smuggled out of Raqqa to report on PISSI's violence and oppression. The author condemns PISSI for perverting Islam.
The more Muslims learn about what PISSI really means, the more PISSI will be weakened.
Malawi's forests are being cut down — for charcoal.
Unlike Brazil and Indonesia, where business interests are behind deforestation, the pressure in Malawi comes from ordinary people. They are not particularly greedy. The problem is only that they are living unsustainably. (Just as in the United States.)
I hope that the efficient stoves solve this problem. Solar-heated stoves might be even better. But ultimately we need to reduce human population growth before we destroy all forests in a final frenzy.
A right-wing bigot in North Carolina talks openly about exterminating Muslims.
The troll is substantially responsible for this, since he encouraged it.
On April 22, participate in the March for Science.
A BBC journalist is stuck in Thailand for two years as he faces prosecution for reporting on a swindler.
A power shortage in Australia was due mainly to problems in fossil fuel power plants. The planet-roaster Australian government tried to blame it on renewable energy and use that as an excuse to promote fossil fuel use.
The UK government is planning to increase pollution limits so that extending Heathrow airport will fit them.
The FBI has lured another weak-willed, feckless man into participating in a fantasy terrorist plot. He will spend much of his life in prison, and the FBI will present this as an example of "protecting us".
The FBI will claim that it sets these traps to catch capable and dangerous terrorists in the US, if there were any, and it just happens that confused fantasy terrorists keep falling into them. However, anybody mentally competent enough to be a real danger as a terrorist would be competent enough not to be caught.
After two years, Mexico's tax on sugar-sweetened drinks has led to a 15% drop in consumption of them.
It will take years to measure the effect on health.
Meanwhile, the higher tax in Berkeley, California, has decreased sugar-sweetened drink consumption by over 20%.
Women are taking the lead in British union organizing.
In the absence of government by a real Labor party, one that will stand for the non-rich against the rich, unions are what workers need.
Climate scientists in the US fear harassment from lunatic Republican denialists.
Pruitt, the saboteur head of the EPA, worked in close concert with fossil fuel companies to attack the EPA when he was attorney general of Oklahoma. He even repeated what they told him to say.
The troll knew this, of course, but he concealed this illegally from the public long enough to get confirmed by the senate. Here's more information about that.
US cities with many immigrants had bigger declines in crime rates than other cities.
A British teacher, leading a class trip to the US, was blocked from a flight to the US by US officials operating in Reykjavík airport. He can see no possible reason except that he is a Muslim and one of his names is "Mohamed".
Why does Iceland permit US officials to exercise such powers in Reykjavík?
Outside Coastal Bubbles, to Say "America is Already Great" Rings Hollow.
The author does not realize that the blacks that didn't vote in Mahoning County may have been disenfranchized by Republican voter-suppression.
People who hope that manufacturing jobs will return to the US don't realize that robots already mean manufacturing provides few jobs. The cause of their poverty, and of the lack of hope in their cities, is dooH niboR.
Gorsuch's rulings on rights of the disabled show a streak of cruelty.
No One Should Demand the Closure of Galleries — Even for Far-Right Artworks.
When a congresscritter won't meet with constituents, constituents hold a "town hall meeting" with a cardboard mockup of the congresscritter.
The troll wants to distort economic statistics by altering the definition of "exports".
The troll killed funds for electrification of California railroads.
The Israeli soldiers that run the checkpoint for Palestinians going into parts of Hebron harass them arbitrarily to make them move away.
Ethnic cleansing in the Jordan valley: Israel demolishes Palestinians' houses, steals their tractors, and declares their land a military firing zone.
Israel seized even the tents they were given as emergency aid.
The people of Bil'in have protested every week for 12 years against the Israeli wall that was built through their lands.
The only place Israel has the right to build a wall is on the border between Israel and Palestine — the Green Line.
Restricting people's use of their courts is, in effect, rationing justice.
At the same time, if the rich have an advantage in court because they can pay lawyers to make outrageous maneuvers (as the troll does). that's slanting justice.
How We Got Here: The Misuse of American Military Power and The Middle East in Chaos.
In the US: join a rally near you to preserve the US government's support for medical care, now threatened by Republicans.
Now that the US government's excessive surveillance power is in the hands of the troll, Democrats are starting to want to limit it.
If Republicans still want to limit it, maybe it can be done.
Some states are deregulating food produced and sold on a small scale direct from producers to consumers.
Republicans in Iowa proposed a law to impose an explicit political requirement for hiring professors.
Several congresscritters have asked the troll to replace Dubya's broad authorization for war against al Qa'ida, everywhere in the world, with a narrow one directed at PISSI.
One of the commissioners on the Federal Election Commission has resigned as a protest against how the Republicans have stopped it from doing its job.
If the US sends all Central American refugees into Mexico, Mexico will be overwhelmed.
In principle, Mexico does not have to accept them. But it may have no mechanism at the US border to keep them out.
I crossed the border from San Diego to Tijuana by car a few years ago. As far as I could see there was no border control. At some point I was surprised to see that the signs on the street were all in Spanish. "Could we be in Mexico," I asked myself. Indeed, we were. We arrived at our destination in Tijuana without being stopped anywhere.
Later, when I boarded a flight from Tijuana to Mexico City, I had to go through Mexican immigration formalities. That surprised me again, since I was already in Mexico. The agent explained to me that the area near the border has some sort of special status; leaving that area for the rest of Mexico is when immigration control occurs.
If Mexico doesn't check people at the border, it will have no way to stop the US from dumping Salvadoreans, Hondurans and Guatemalans across it.
Thugs are preparing to attack the remaining pipeline protesters at Standing Rock.
They have a silly pretense that it is for the protesters' own safety. If that were their concern, there would be no need for threats or demands; "We are here if you need us" would suffice.
It was right to release Jamal al-Harith from Guantanamo, because he was charged with no crime. The fact that he subsequently joined PISSI can't change that.
17 Britons were prisoners in Guantanamo and released. Here's what happened to them.
One of them joined PISSI. But if he hadn't been imprisoned, maybe he wouldn't have done that.
One of them simply lived peacefully, but the way prison had maimed him provoked his nephew to join al-Qa'ida. We can be pretty sure that, if the US hadn't imprisoned people without charges and tortured them, he would not have become an enemy of the US.
There are surely hundreds more, if not thousands, who were inspired to fight the US by their disgust for Guantanamo.
The US Export-Import Bank financed mines in Africa which run on slave labor and environmental destruction.
It also finances fossil fuel use, so there was a campaign to get rid of it.
Floods in California are driving homeless people out of their tents.
US citizens: oppose union-weakening "right to work" laws at state and federal level.
US citizens: call on Sessions to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the administration's ties to Russia.
The troll plans to eliminate the Legal Services Corporation, so that poor people harmed by illegal acts of people, agencies and companies would be unable to get justice.
One former prisoner in Guantanamo joined PISSI and became a suicide bomber.
The enemies of human rights will use this to argue for imprisoning every suspect forever — an instance of their general strategy of exaggerating small dangers as distractions.
We have no way of counting the number of people that PISSI was able to recruit because of resentment of the Guantanamo prison, but it must have been in the hundreds at least.
English colonists in New England enslaved thousands of indigenous Americans, many of whom were sent to other English colonies far away.
How can scientists effectively fight the troll's anti-science politics.
The Watergate burglary was a small part of Nixon's broad attack on the US political system.
This offers a lesson about what the troll might do.
The UK scandalously trains Ethiopian officials involved in "security" (i.e., repression).
Women in Ireland will strike on March 8 demanding a referendum on changing the constitution to permit abortion.
Everyone: support the International Women's Strike.
With so many items in their program, naturally I don't agree with 100%. I disagree in principle with a right to unlimited reproduction, and with the goal of eliminating all limits on migration between countries.
I agree with the rest of their program, which means around 95% of it, so I support the action.
US citizens: oppose Iraq war architect John Bolton as National Security Adviser.
The UK is adopting a law to allow seizing property of people who violate human rights in other countries.
A Mexican woman has lived in the US since age 2, but is not a citizen. She is terrified to have any contact with thugs, even when her husband attacks her, lest they deport her.
A bizarre Utah law requires giving anesthetic to a fetus before an abortion after 20 weeks, but doctors don't know of any way to do that.
The law's purpose is to create an irrational way for anti-abortion activists to convince people that those fetuses can feel pain. First make smoke, then claim it proves there must be a fire.
The troll wants to give priority for deportation of immigrants that are merely suspected of a crime.
A subtle analysis of how the troll's campaign rallies functioned to build up stubborn support, wilfully blind to his mistakes and crimes.
The article errs in treating the loser's victory as legitimate. He did not win the election—it was stolen by Republican voter-suppression, just as in 2000.
China has ordered installation of GPS trackers in every car in a certain part of Xinjiang.
When we see China do this, we recognize it as a repressive act. The universal tracking of cars by camera in the UK is equally repressive, and so is similar tracking that is spreading (though unevenly) around the US.
Let's demand an end to tracking of cars and people on our streets!
Republicans in 21 states are using the troll's complaints about nonexistent voter fraud as an excuse for more voter-suppression.
Data collected via snooping devices such as the Fitbit could be used to deny you medical insurance or make you pay more.
"We charge less if you let a Fitbit track you" is just a nice way of saying, "We charge more if you don't let a Fitbit track you." If you're bit, you'll have a fit.
We Can't Let Silicon Valley Companies And Their Spin Undermine Workers' Rights.
The question for investigation: who told Flynn to phone the Russian ambassador?
Another question to think about: did someone choose a hothead with no diplomatic experience to do an unofficial diplomatic job?
Salafi Arabia's perverted Islam is spreading in Pakistan. Supporters of PISSI are killing the more traditional Sufis and attacking their festivals.
Starting a successful business is a road to wealth, for perhaps a few percent of people; but those who start out poor can't get on that road.
Sri Lanka has arrested officers in military intelligence and accused them of political assassinations.
The teenager who will have to register as a "violent sex offender" had a sexual meeting with a younger teenager.
Why do people think there is something wrong with a sexual relationship between people of ages 13 and 18? The principal activity of human adolescents is sex.
Buying a used "smart" car, house, TV, refrigerator, etc? Usually the previous owners can still remotely control it.
75 years ago, the US imprisoned all citizens and residents of Japanese descent.
Hardly anyone opposed this. The ACLU tried to fight it in court.
The troll's plan to trample the rights of people because they are Muslim is facing a lot more resistance. We have learned something from history.
Americans are pushing to meet with congresscritters on recess, even the ones that "can't make it".
To be progressive, politics must not adulate our focus on the successful entrepreneurs who present themselves as "smart".
To do so is to serve some of the rich.
New Yorkers must replace Senator Schumer with a real progressive champion.
Global heating is reducing the level of oxygen in the ocean, and some kinds of fish already have trouble getting enough.
There are local "dead zones" with very little oxygen, but this is a different issue. This is a decrease in the amount of oxygen in surface waters where no local phenomenon operates to reduce it.
When some US states legalized same-sex marriage, the suicide rate for high school students dropped 14% in those states.
Cryin'air shows its non-respect for people that need wheelchairs by saying, "Please walk up this stairway, or we will leave you behind."
California's rainy season is the wettest ever recorded, and while in some ways that will help make up for the drought, it was the occasion for the Oroville dam to start to break.
Paradoxically, global heating makes for bigger rains and for deeper droughts — just not at the same time and place.
The precarious service sweatshop platforms are platforms for racial discrimination.
This results from making users give their names, then allowing lots of people (most of them racist, at least unconsciously) to accept or reject each user.
Please don't use the word "sharing" to describe what these platforms do. What they do is a kind of business, and "sharing" means cooperation that isn't a sale.
"Gig economy" is not incorrect, but "precarious service sweatshop" explicitly states their principal wrong.
Supermarkets offer fresh fruit and vegetables all the time by importing them from other countries, even other continents. The extreme weather events that interrupt this are a foretaste of global heating disaster.
Scientists protested in Boston: Stand up for Science.
Here's what's wrong with Bannon.
In specialized high-tech manufacturing, foreign companies often out-compete US rivals by treating their workers better.
Those companies succeed even though they pay higher taxes than in the US, which enables everyone in those countries to live a better life.
This is interesting, but it doesn't make globalization ok overall. Specialized high-tech manufacturing employs only a small fraction of workers. It is the exception and will remain so. Most factory employees are in the race-to-the-bottom economy where globalization provides a force to knock down unions and workers' rights. For them, as for farm workers, globalization is a disaster.
"Trump's Lying Reveals That He Is Empty Inside."
It appears that the only way lying can get you fired as the troll's servitor is if spy agencies catch you and dislike you enough to use the evidence.
Montenegro claims it defeated a Russian-sponsored coup d'etat in October.
Old CRTs need to be recycled, but the materials are not valuable so the recycling companies are paid to take them. Closed Loop was paid to accept millions of them, then didn't recycle them, and went bust.
If the UK exits the European Union, it will cease to have laws to protect human rights.
An Israeli soldier who murdered an incapacitated Palestinian prisoner has been sentenced to 18 months in prison.
I think that is too little for cold-blooded murder.
Rosa Ortega, who has lived in the US since infancy, will be deported to Mexico because she voted in Texas without authorization. The normal penalty is probation.
She didn't try to hide her identity, she just didn't know that she wasn't allowed to vote, and the state didn't tell her.
Adults who have lived in the US since infancy should be entitled to citizenship even if they commit little crimes like this. (That doesn't mean they shouldn't be punished.)
US citizens: call for impeaching the troll now.
US citizens: sign up for meetings this week with your congresscritter and staff.
Extreme heat is bleaching coral again in the Great Barrier Reef.
This despite the fact that El Niño is not happening this year.
The only way to save coral is to cap CO2 in the atmosphere.
Right-wingers are the ultimate sensitive snowflakes,raging against anyone who violates their PC (populist correctness) rules for speech.
US citizens:
call
on Congress to legislate Bannon's removal from the National
Security Council.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
Everyone: call on the Ladies Professional Golf Association not to hold its tournament in the troll's golf course.
UK universities are being flooded by antisemitism.
Exit from the EU creates the opportunity for the UK to raise money discouraging speculation and encouraging investment.
Most Republican congresscritters are hiding from their constituents during their week home from Washington.
Ramirez, in immigration prison, says that the immigration thugs altered his statement to make it appear to be a confession of gang involvement.
Should North Korea be on listed as a supporter of terrorism?
The assassination of Kim Jong-nam was a brazen crime, but equating murder with terrorism would undermine the meaning of the word "terrorism". And even if it were terrorism, one instance of it is not "repeated".
Now that coal plants are uneconomical to run, the planet-roaster government of Australia wants to change rules to give them "clean energy" funds.
Meanwhile, deadly heat continues to blanket parts of Australia.
None so blind as he who will not see.
Iraqi Shi'ites post bloodthirsty videos of killing PISSI prisoners.
As the FARC and the Colombian state make peace, assassination of activists is increasing.
The paramilitares are involved in this. They were the worst terrorist group in Colombia, even when the FARC was at war. For instance, they collaborated with the Coca Cola Company bottler to murder union organizers.
US employers increasingly track everything that employees do while at work. Even how often they speak to someone.
I think we need to limit this, by law if we can't find another way.
Apps and devices to monitor medical indicators can make people's health worse. They can lead to false alarms and pointless anxiety.
The saboteurs have changed the Department of Energy web site that used to teach kids about the environment.
The Same Republicans Who Pushed for Invasive Surveillance Are Complaining About It Now.
Zuckerberg wants to make Facebook a platform for world-wide democratic decisionmaking. In other words, to require people to be useds of Facebook if we want a say in political decisions.
That might be ok if that part of Facebook is pulled out and converted into a public utility. I say "might" because there are likely to be other pitfalls that would have to be avoided.
CETA would allow 40,000 US companies to demand changes in European laws, through their Canadian subsidiaries.
Germany has classified a doll with a built-in microphone as an illegal spy device. People who own them are required to disable the microphone.
Does this seem like an overreaction to you? I think action is required so as to teach people how dangerous these listening devices are. I disagree with punishing people who have bought them, but they ought to fix the devices.
The device is nasty in other ways too, It is full of proprietary software, and it communicates with other devices. To use it at all is a mistake. But the microphone allows it to snoop on people that don't use it.
"Ignore his insults and focus on his lies" is a step in the right direction. But you have to go further because his lies are mostly trolling too.
I'd say, ignore his insults, and ignore his lies except when attacking them is funny. Focus on the troll's actions and how they are unjust or damaging.
SCROTUS rushed to confirm saboteur Pruitt as head of the EPA before he obeyed the court order to release emails he exchanged with fossil fuel companies. I guess SCROTUS feared that the email would give them some reason they had to reject him.
Senator Manchin is officially a Democrat, but in deeds he is a Republican.
Obama's head of the Securities and Exchange Commission was working the whole time for the companies she was supposed to regulate. Now she has returned to working for them more directly.
The troll's appointee will probably act even worse because person won't be obligated to pretend to be doing the job right.
A Canadian court held the government legally responsible for the suffering and life impairments caused to indigenous children cause by forcibly taking them from their parents and putting them into assimilationist boarding schools.
It is amazing that this continued as late as 1984.
The US had a similar policy of coercing indigenous children to attend assimilationist boarding schools, and this was only finally eliminated in 1978.
Another technique for forced assimilation was taking indigenous
children away from their families and
giving
them to non-indigenous foster families.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: call on Senate Democrats to defend the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
The troll and his appointed White House staff use a private email server.
Remember the exaggerated attacks on Clinton for using a private email server.
Arresting and deporting people for participating in public safety activities makes the whole community less safe.
US thugs go to great lengths to hide their use of stingrays.
Two big coal-burning power plants in the US are expected to shut because they are no longer economical.
The article ignores the most important reason we need to turn off coal-burning power plants: as one step to avoid global disaster.
By the way, global heating disaster could eliminate a lot more jobs than are provided today by fossil fuels. Human society is taking a terrible and stupid risk by continuing the subsidies that keep fossil-fuel-burning power plants running. But that's plutocracy for you.
The troll punished California by refusing federal aid for the evacuation of areas threatened by the damage to the Oroville dam.
This could be retaliation for opposition to the troll's other cruelty. For example, California is moving ahead making the whole state a "sanctuary" for unauthorized immigrants.
The term "sanctuary" is misleading. No city or state can stop immigration thugs from operating — all it can do is deny the cooperation of its own agencies.
Sally Yates warned the troll in January that Flynn was covering up contacts with Russia.
The troll fired Yates but not Flynn. He continued to defend Flynn until the fact that Flynn was lying became public knowledge.
I wonder why the troll cared about public pressure about those lies. Was it that some SCROTUS demanded it?
The biggest danger to the US today is not the troll. It is SCROTUS, who we now see will support the troll's actions and overlook his dishonesty almost without limit.
The troll's executive orders have been mainly for show. (The article overlooks the fact that the executive order about the Dakota Access pipeline did cause construction to restart.)
Alas, his appointees are doing real harm, and so are SCROTUS.
This is why confronting SCROTUS now in their districts is so important.
Their intention is to bamboozle the public so as to serve the plutocrats, but the public can make that more difficult.
The Tories do not like the study which blames medical care cuts for 30,000 more deaths in 2015 than in previous years.
Britons, are you letting minor dangers such as terrorism distract you?
Americans, our medical system is much worse than Britain's NHS, even in its current degraded form. How many Americans die each year from this?
US volunteers try every two years to count all the homeless people, but they overlook a large fraction, maybe more than 1/3.
The US State Department is partly inoperative, since the troll makes all decisions without consulting or even informing anyone there.
The troll pretends to be good at hiring people, but we see now that he can't do that well.
Senate Democrats demand information about the troll's dealings with Russia and call on Sessions to recuse himself from the issue.
'Draconian' Trump Gag on Scientists Could Affect Legislation, Experts Warn.
US citizens: Support the bill to prohibit a US nuclear first strike.
US citizens: call on Congress to investigate White House ethics violations.
US citizens: support the Global HER Act which would overturn the global gag rule.
This petition is run by Population Connection, which I am a member of.
Canada switched to a proprietary payroll system a year ago for paying government employees. Many employees have gone unpaid for months. The article was published in November but the situation is basically unchanged.
The loser is an extreme example of a common phenomenon: bosses that think they can demand anything.
That does not conflict with the conclusion that he is on the edge of insanity. There are many sorts of psychological problems which, in their extreme forms, can be called insanity, but have less severe forms that certainly aren't insanity.
"Smart city" often means massive surveillance. I've concluded that anything described as "smart" is very likely to be an injustice. There are exceptions, but be very suspicious of them.
Microsoft is converting LinkedIn into a system for tracking and profiling people as employees. This makes it highly dangerous.
New Jersey Governor Christie vetoed a bill to require thugs and prosecutors to report on the property they "seize" (i.e., steal) from people without charging them with crimes. His reasons are absurd.
I hope the legislature can and will ignore his no-op "compromise" and override the veto. They have the votes for it.
One month of "government" by the loser shows he doesn't know how to do anything well, except troll the media and keep his hard-core supporters fired up.
US warhawks want to send more US troops to Afghanistan "to train Afghan soldiers", and there is no political will in Congress to refuse. No amount of training will enable government soldiers to fight as well as religious fanatics. The only real decision for the US to make about the Afghan government is how long to prop it up.
US immigration thugs can label you as a "gang member" based on vaguely suggestive "evidence".
Empathy is not necessary for thinking about good and bad, and if we assume that it is, we may fail to try to do justice to those who (for other reasons) we cannot empathize with.
The UK has cut prison guards in half, firing the most experienced ones. The remaining ones have no training in how to deal with the prisoners that are being driven mad by prison conditions.
US citizens: Tell the US not to target survivors of domestic abuse for deportation.
The US immigration thugs held a meeting with congresscritters, but members of the House Hispanic Caucus were not allowed.
Paul Ryan's scheme for medical insurance would make it cheaper for healthy people (provided they don't have a problem) and impossibly expensive for everyone else.
Here are other Republican schemes to deny millions of Americans medical care.
The Committee to Protect Journalists reports on 10 journalists who are being prosecuted for covering pipeline protests.
This is in addition to protesters. Federal thugs are arresting pipeline protesters away from the protests, and charging them with horrible "crimes".
This is a policy of systematic repression, intended to crush Americans' spirit so they won't resist. I hope it has the opposite effect.
Contrasting Bannon's theocratic agenda with the previous generation of "theocons".
The FBI is now pursuing right-wing fantasy terrorists as well as Islamist fantasy terrorists.
The loser's new nominee for Secretary of Labor did a bad job in the Justice Department (that's assuming it wasn't intentional).
US border thugs jailed a Mexican woman as she was in court asking for an order to protect her from a violent man.
This sort of thing will make unauthorized immigrants frightened of asking for protection.
Another immigrant faces deportation because of a tattoo which border thugs claim is suspicious. They don't think it is necessary to charge him with any crime, let alone to try him for it.
The death in French jail of Adama Traoré in July is still being investigated.
The troll is already planning ways to crush civil society in the US.
It appears Russia and Syria were behind an attack on an MSF hospital in Syria a year ago.
A giant coral reef at the mouth of the Amazon River is unlike all other known reefs because it thrives under light-blocking sediment. Scientists are just beginning to explore it and have found many new species.
It will be killed by ocean acidification if spilled oil from wells to be drilled nearby don't get it first.
Immigrants across the US went on strike, shutting many restaurants and some other businesses.
A Republican congresscritter (Chaffetz) has proposed two good bills, for a change. One would require a court order aimed at a specific person before the state can use a stingray to track cell phones. The other would ban all other use of stingrays.
Israeli leaders no longer have to pretend to want to make peace with Palestine or end the occupation of the West Bank. They can come out and admit their real goal—annexation of the West Bank.
SCROTUS have introduced a bill to weaken the CFPB so that it couldn't protect people much any more.
Teaching a lesson about solidarity, the 5th grade basketball team in a Catholic school voted to forfeit the season's competition rather than obey a rule that would have required kicking out the two girls on the team.
The head of the House Intelligence Committee insists there is nothing to investigate about Flynn's contacts with Russia.
On behalf of Wall Street, SCROTUS propose to eliminate California's new retirement savings plan.
Buyers of new houses in the UK get a sort of warranty, but they are being forced to sign nondisclosure agreements for the complaints they are compensated for.
The staff of UK "jobcenters" treat unemployed people as chiselers to be kept down, not as citizens to be helped. They arbitrarily punish anyone that is not subservient by making them go hungry or even homeless.
It can't be the case that everyone working in every "jobcenter" has spontaneously developed a cruel streak. The ethical tone of the organization comes from its leaders, and we know they have sometimes had quotas for punishments. They have done this, and I would guess they did it intentionally. Every penny less provided to the poor is one more penny for dooH niboR.
Thus they demonstrate, once again, that the Tories are lower than vermin.
SCROTUS refuse to investigate Flynn's links with Russia. They only want to investigate the leaks that told us about those links. In the same way, some Democrats attack the cracking of Democratic Party emails to distract attention from the anti-Sanders dishonesty of the party officials.
The loser's regime has arrested a Mexican who was brought to the US as a child, and who was employed pursuant to permission given him under Obama. That's the troll's cruelty at work—intended to reinforce the support of people who support him for his cruelty.
Everyone: tell Oklahoma legislators: don't let men veto abortion.
US citizens: call on Congress to reject the troll's budget cuts.
Right-wing extremist judges such as Gorsuch hide their plans behind a fictional idea of "original intent" which systematically ends up meaning "right-wing".
Systematic repression and torture effectively treats all defense of human rights in China as crime.
Torture includes denying people treatment for diabetes and cancer.
SCROTUS eliminated a rule, made under Obama, that forbids demented old people from buying guns.
I don't know whether demented people will misuse guns very often, but they often mistake their relatives for burglars. Those who are well enough to grab and shoot a gun could shoot their relatives.
If there is no research on whether those people are likely to misuse guns, why is that? Because Republicans have prohibited federal funding for any research about gun violence. Step 1: ensure there is no research. Step 2: cite the lack of research as a reason to eliminate a rule.
In London, blacks and people of mixed black-white ancestry are disproportionately attacked with tasers, showing that the thugs are applying a double standard.
US thugs are disproportionately violent towards nonwhites, too.
In Cambodia, the big threat to the rain forest is cutting the trees for timber.
Instead of Truman's "The Buck Stops Here", the troll's motto is "The Buck Never Gets Here."
Global heating is affecting a worldwide oceanic current system. As a result, the ocean is absorbing more CO2 than was previously forecast.
This slows global heating somewhat but speeds up ocean acidification, which can wipe out coral, molluscs, and many other forms of life in the ocean.
Air pollution may cause millions of premature births.
The extent of Antarctic sea ice has hit a record low.
Before this year, Antarctic sea ice was growing, and this was cited by global heating denialists who erroneously presented it as evidence there was no heating.
SCROTUS and the troll have eliminated the requirement for US extraction companies to disclose their bribery of foreign governments.
The Office of Government Ethics called on the troll to investigate Kellyanne Conway's violation of ethics rules.
Fake news from the White House: an Arkansas case which found no voting by any ineligible voters is cited as proving there are lots of them.
UK citizens (and anyone else): Support Liberty's campaign against the snooper's charter by sending a donation to
Liberty The Royal Bank of Scotland Sort Code: 15-30-00 Account Number: 71186809or by mailing a check to
Liberty House 26-30 Strutton Ground London SW1P 2HR.They also accept donations digitally, but their web site requires nonfree software to do that, and you shouldn't run nonfree software.
US citizens: call on US prisons that implement virtual visits with prisoners not to use this as an excuse to ban real visits.
I am worried about these virtual visits. Does the visitor have to run a nonfree program? I suspect it does.
US citizens: call for continuing research about pollinators despite the troll's hiring freeze.
You will need to use the Salsalabs method to overcome a Javascript problem.
Natalya Sharina is being prosecuted in Russia for letting people read a banned Ukrainian nationalist book.
The staff of the Ukrainian library say that the copy that thugs reported finding there wasn't theirs — they planted it.
To carry out the Paris treaty pledges, the EU must close all coal-burning power plants by 2030.
To do its share of avoiding disaster surely requires more and sooner.
The famous "border wall" is the least of the nasty things in the troll's Jan 25 executive order.
It's easy to bribe the president of the US: just stay at one of his hotels and buy some thousand-dollar bottles of wine.
I once bribed Congressman Barnie Frank with a zero-dollar bill. I had the ambition of someday bribing the president that way, but I realized it was unlikely I'd ever meet the president of the US.
Now I see I could easily give the president a nonzero bribe, but I wouldn't want to.
SCROTUS are responsible for appointing Sessions, just as much as the troll is.
Yazidis from Iraq, accepted as refugees, were included in the troll's partial Muslim ban (although they are not Muslims).
A study found that UK parents give more mental stimulation to the first-born child, on the average, and it is reflected in their IQ.
Many kinds of human relationship jobs now appear vulnerable to replacement by robots.
13 million Syrians have trouble getting the necessities of life. 600,000 are in towns under siege. Most of them are besieged by Assad's army, but some are besieged by PISSI. 4 million more live in areas that are hard to reach, sometimes because of fighting. UN aid can't reach many of these people.
For curing bulimia, 20 weekly sessions of cognitive behaviour therapy was far more effective than 20 weekly sessions of psychoanalysis, or even 100 weekly sessions of psychoanalysis.
Australian gas-burning power companies are choosing to keep power plants off line so as to manipulate the market.
Australia's planet-roaster government is trying to use this to argue for burning more fossil fuels.
The loser is trying to bully the store Nordstrom for dropping his daughter's celebrity clothing line.
America's "paid protesters" were ripped off 181 million dollars of pay in just one day.
The troll wants to convert Medicaid into a block grant, for states to use as they wish. Many states would eliminate care for disabled people.
Furthermore, the block grant would not be increased to cover the need, so it will increasingly fall short, almost forcing each state to keep cutting this care.
The FBI says that new restrictions on FOIA requests will be lifted when its new web site becomes active.
If the FBI follows through on this, the matter won't be a real problem.
The president of Sri Lanka promised not to prosecute rejected refugees returned there.
The loser expresses contempt for people when shaking their hands.
Leaks have made the troll pull back from several nasty policies before officially ordering them. This demonstrates how democracy depends on leaks.
A Democratic representative has invoked a rule by which Congress can inspect officials' tax returns for conflicts of interest.
US intelligence officials say that the troll's campaign aids talked frequently with Russian officials.
The Tories propose to jail journalists that publish government leaks. The UK has been drifting steadily into tyranny, with increasing surveillance, censorship, and repression. It is logical that such a state would take this additional step into out-and-out repression of the press.
And natural that the Tories, when criticized for this proposal, pretend that the law's obvious consequences would not occur, for some magic reason they decline to explain.
Unions and climate defenders now have an opportunity to unite.
A girl sent Zachary photos of herself in underwear, so he will have to register as a "violent sex offender" for all his life.
Merely to possess a copy of anything should not be a crime.
Hamas in Gaza elected a hardline leader that opposes any reconciliation with Israel. In effect, a miror image of Netanyahu.
Michael Flynn has resigned as the troll's national security advisor because of his contacts with Russia.
Of all the troll's advisors, Bannon endangers national security the most, since he is attracted to the idea of starting a war.
A UK rapper was awakened by thugs breaking his door down. Someone saw him entering his house and assumed he was a burglar.
The article doesn't say, but I hazard a guess that he is black.
A similar thing happened to a black Harvard professor who was reported to the thugs for trying to get into his house in Cambridge, Massachusets.
The European Parliament voted to approve CETA, but national governments still have a chance to block it.
The ACLU is suing to destroy DNA samples taken by thugs after illegally harassing some teenagers (apparently because of their skin color).
A proposed federal law would require thugs get court orders before they collect people's geolocation data.
A survey of US community college students found that 13% of them are homeless and 20% don't get enough food.
Some US teenagers have to go hungry so their younger siblings can eat.
Part of the solution to this is providing reliable birth control to everyone at no charge. But once children are born, society must make sure they get everything they need to grow up well and capable.
SCROTUS are attacking the EPA in several ways at once.
It was over 100F in Oklahoma recently — an astounding sign of global heating.
The troll's management approach creates distrust and rivalry.
Israel systematically seizes land and houses belonging to Palestinians that live outside Israel — even when the reason for that is that Israel won't allow them to live inside Israel.
Nonviolent pro-Palestine activists in Spain are being prosecuted for urging a music festival to exclude a musician who campaigns against rights for Palestine.
Whatever you might think about the issue of the occupation of Palestine, it could not justify prosecuting people for taking a stand on the matter.
6 crucial questions about the troll and Flynn.
Ajit Pai as head of the FCC is systematically for big companies and against users of technology.
500 US Christian leaders have called for welcoming refugees, and rejected the troll's partial ban on Muslim visitors.
SCROTUS in a House committee blocked the demand for the troll to show the committee his tax returns.
In other words, they really really want him to get away with anything whatsoever.
Greece's leaders have refused to make more cuts, thus in effect causing a showdown with the euro-banksters that are crushing the country.
It is worrysome that the IMF seems to have gone back to the side of the banksters.
Has anyone tried to estimate the number of peopl in Greece that the euro-banksters have killed? If you see such an estimate, please send it to me.
Pence is putting allies into the US government to push his theocratic agenda.
A proposed law in Mexico would ban import of US corn.
This might help Mexican peasants support themselves.
Mines in Australia are covering up what it will cost to clean up the mines once they are exhausted.
Some Americans are refusing to pay federal taxes as a protest against the loser.
The really bad things that the US does with its money, such as spending more on the military than all its main rivals put together and bombing people around the world, while bailing out the big banks that are our country's worst enemies, did not start this year.
The White House "press corps" is shifting its membership, downgrading mainstream media and inviting trollish extremists.
Imagine calling the New York Times "liberal", and you see how extremist they are.
Apple proposes a fingerprint-scanning touch screen — which would make it difficult to use it at all without having your fingerprints taken.
There are still a few scientists, outside the climate field, that deny global heating. The troll has chosen one hard-core denialist to give him "science advice".
Selling water from exotic sources reflects and encourages a propensity for the rich to engage in frivolous waste.
One more reason why we need to transfer a lot of their money to poor people. Even if it won't lift everyone out of poverty, it will reduce the tendency that pushes society into increasing levels of frivolous waste.
The previous UK law to repress whistleblowers and journalists was covered up so Parliament would not realize what it was passing. The current attempt was also supposed to be covered up, but this time that failed.
Now Britons have a chance to fight to prevent repression.
The EU ban on neonicotinoids allows "emergency" exceptions, and some countries authorize these without real scrutiny.
The troll sets the ethical tone of the administration. By his constant lying and cheating, he inspires everyone to lie and cheat.
If you didn't want to lie and cheat, would you accept a job with
him?
Would he offer you one?
A former confidant of the troll, being investigated by the FBI over contacts with Russian intelligence, asks for an official investigation.
The EU parliament has voted for a tightening of the greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme. Emitters gamed it and made it totally ineffective.
The fact that even with the reforms it is still not tight enough to work very well shows that they still have far too much power.
The troll abolished the US policy of supporting in principle a Palestinian state.
Pudzer has been forced to withdraw, after criticism convinced some Republican senators to reject him.
His companies has now been sued for illegal wage-fixing conspiracy between the franchises that are (notionally) "independent" and competing businesses.
That's typical of how businesses today try to have it both ways.
Alas, this victory comes afer most of the saboteurs, including those in the crucial areas of climate and human rights, got through.
Seattle Judge Demands an Explanation after Undocumented 'Dreamer' Arrested.
He has been in the US since he was a child.
Saboteur nominee Pruitt is connected with 15 companies that have been disciplined many times by the EPA.
Republicans say it out loud: a pregnant woman is a "host". In effect, they consider women incubators.
Proposal: tax junk foods and subsidize healthful foods.
ALEC has made common cause with the troll to eliminate regulations that protect us from being poisoned or cheated by businesses.
It is hard to determine which side is responsible for the renwed fighting in eastern Ukraine.
Theresa May is trying to perpetuate the "special relationship" with the US by sucking up to the troll.
There is a name for this kind of relationship: "slavish subservience".
Plutocratic states are attacking the idea of retirement, by reducing pensions to the point where people can't really live on them.
There's no money for pensions because it's all needed for dooH niboR.
For over a billion people working poor, work is hell.
To a large extent this is because a rich few get too much of a share of the total.
The NAACP and other civil rights groups have been bought by major ISPs and now campaign against network neutrality regulations.
US citizens: Support preserving the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: call on the troll to stand by the Paris climate agreement. It's insufficient to avoid disaster but it will reduce the disaster somewhat.
The White House comments line is 202-456-1111.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
Everyone: thank the US football players that refuse to visit the troll.
US citizens: call on the House Judiciary Committee to investigate the troll's conflicts of interest and connections to the Russian government.
Voting rights defenders in Georgia have got a court order to block one Republican scheme for voter suppression. Alas, Republicans keep inventing new methods to do this, and for each election several schemes are in effect to rig the election.
Many young vaguely-progressives naively assume that the TPP must have been good because Obama supported it and the troll opposed it. This article explains what is dangerous about the TPP and other business-supremacy treaties. We also need to teach people that Obama was not much of a progressive, and Clinton even less so.
The founders of Mossack Fonseca, the wealth-hiding company, have been arrested for money laundering. Accusations stemming from Brazil's investigation are spreading around Latin America. The current president of Panama and a former president of Peru are involved, as is the current president of Brazil.
India is forcing nearly everyone into a system that tracks people through fingerprints and iris scans, and records all payments. It may also use a universal basic income to force people into total surveillance. Whether the Aadhar system's security can be broken is a side issue of minor importance. The principal danger is what the state will do with the data. The Modi government leans toward repression, and more power to track everyone means more power to repress both minorities and dissidents.
A UK MP says that the abusive attacks directed at women politicians are discouraging women from entering politics.
Freedom of speech means people have a right to say rather nasty things to anyone. They have a right to say things we consider disgusting.
But that doesn't mean we should not show our disgust for them and pressure them to stop.
In an Age of Robots, Schools Are Teaching Our Children to be Redundant.
Kim Jong-un's brother, who had criticized him and fled, died in an airport after saying someone had put a contact poison on his face.
A suspect has been arrested.
Feminism must not be depoliticized into self-pampering. It must fight to end the power that men usually have over women.
French thugs claimed that they anally raped a teenager "by accident".
I guess the resulting riots were an accident too.
Theocratic Republicans in Oklahoma are proposing anti-abortion laws that make no sense except to religious nuts. One would ban abortions based on genetic abnormality in the fetus.
Another would require a woman to get the fetus's father's approval for an abortion. If an abortion should require this, what about the more drastic act of having a baby?
US citizens: call for Keeping wolves in Alaska protected on wildlife refuges.
US citizens: phone your Democratic senators and urge them to stand firm against Gorsuch.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
US citizens: call on Congress to support HR 608, which is designed to pressure Salafi Arabia about its war in Yemen since that makes it an ally of al Qa'ida.
The Tories' Digital Repression Bill proposes a ten-year prison term for sharing copies of almost anything, on or off the internet.
43% of American children live in families that are barely able to afford basic needs. This fraction has increased since 2009.
The US racial wealth gap between blacks and whites has built up through generations of discrimination, and personal efforts such as education, working hard, and marriage are insufficient to overcome the effects.
Exposing the Myths of Neoliberal Capitalism — and why the troll is not likely to change it in the way that would help Americans.
Insecure work, often involving forcing workers to be "self-employed", impoverishes the state as well as the individual workers.
Part of the remedy for this is to stop basing the taxation of businesses on how much they pay to employees. The practice gives businesses a perverse incentive to have fewer employees. Regardless of how they achieve that, it is not what we want to incentivize.
Gorsuch wants the Supreme Court to ban abortion and ban assisted suicide. Here is a suggestion for how Democrats could defeat his nomination: by showing that he argued that Merrick Garland should have been confirmed.
I didn't support the campaigns in favor of confirming Garland, partly because I was sure Republican senators would ignore them, and because he's a "centrist" and corporatist, too right-wing for me to support. I agree he is much less bad than Gorsuch.
The income of the bottom 50% of Americans in 1978 was 20%. As of 2015 it was 12%.
South Dakota legislators defended the rights of employers to refuse to make feasible accommodations for pregnant women.
This amounts to defending the profits or convenience of the powerful (bosses) against the needs of the weak (employees, female ones in this case). And telling these women, "just quit your job" means, for many, "just starve," due to other forms of cruelty that these same legislators support.
Spyware was installed into the phones of Mexicans that advocate a tax on soda with sugar.
Canada is looking at authorizing US border thugs to violate the rights of Canadians trying to enter the US.
Canadians, I hope you organize to stop this.
The People's March for Education Justice is planned for several US cities.
US citizens: phone your senators to oppose the nomination of Pruitt to head the EPA. Pruitt wants to eliminate the EPA, but sabotaging it would be the next best thing.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
Everyone: call on journalists to skip the White House correspondents' dinner.
Americans, prepare yourselves now to oppose the power grab that the troll has already said he intends to make as soon as a terrorist or military attack gives him an opportunity.
NAFTA hurt Mexicans more than any wall could. NAFTA and the previous application of neoliberal policies starting in the 1980s ended income growth and poverty reduction in Mexico.
NAFTA has harmed workers in the US, too.
Calling NAFTA a "trade treaty" leads people to erroneously suppose that it is a compromise between conflicting interests of various countries — that each decision in NAFTA would pit the interests of Mexicans against the interests of Americans and the interests of Canadians.
In fact, NAFTA is a business-supremacy treaty, and it pit the interest of plutocrats in Canada, Mexico and the US against the interests of most people in Canada, Mexico and the US. That's why we need to get rid of it.
The prime minister of Australia knew that an electric blackout was due to a failure in a gas plant, but publicly blamed the extent of renewable electric generation.
This shows he is willing to lie to destroy civilization.
US policy towards Iran is based on three assumptions that are mostly false.
Iran is not expansionist, and is mostly rational about its foreign policy — perhaps more so than the US. However, it is a mistake to call Iran a democracy, since the principal political authority is the council of religious rulers and the people have no avenue to replace them except revolution. Iran's democracy is limited to lower levels; reformist presidents have been thwarted.
Iran is somewhat evil, since it represses non-Muslims (Zoroastrians and Bahais terribly, Christians less so) and dissidents. In this dimension it is considerably worse than what the troll tried to do to Muslims. It represses Muslims too, by imposing religious rules that many Iranian Muslims don't want to follow.
However, it is not as bad as Salafi Arabia in religious repression.
The troll says that he "hasn't got one call" to oppose the Dakota Access Pipeline.
That's true, because he shut off the phone line to call the White House. He hasn't got one call about anything.
Four US Muslim schools and community organizations have rejected
federal
grants conditioned on turning into informers on the people
they serve.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
They feel it would corrupt them.
Many US universities have "bias response teams" which are effectively the speech police.
I might despise some of the bias that these teams try to stop; in other cases, I might agree with it, because their scope is wide. However, students have a right to state their views regardless of what I think of them.
A drug company will henceforth charge Americans $89000 for an old drug for treating muscular distrophy, available in most countries for under a dollar.
The company says that insurance will pay for most of it. Perhaps so, if you have insurance (tens of millions of Americans still don't). Even so, your deductible and your co-pay might bankrupt you.
This is the consequence of a bad artificial monopoly law that ought to be repealed. In addition, the US should have a National Health Service to drive the price down for everyone.
US citizens: call on Congress
to continue the methane leak limits.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: call on Rep. Chaffetz to do his job and investigate Kellyanne Conway's ethics violation.
The UK's National Health Service, after years of increasingly insufficient funding, is making doctors burn out before they are finished training.
The NHS worked very well, and cost much less than the US medical system, but the Tories didn't like that. Starving the NHS ever more of funds over a period of several years has brought it to the verge of cracking.
In reaction to the troll, the membership of the ACLU has doubled.
I first joined in a similar way. When Bush I called Dukakis a "card carrying member of the ACLU", in effect insinuating that defending the US Constitution was the equivalent of joining the Communist Party, I asked myself, "Why I am I not an ACLU member?" Before that, it had never occurred to me that this was a choice I could make.
If you reside in the US, are you an ACLU member? If not, why not?
Low incomes and rising rents have made the US a maelstrom of evictions. Millions of Americans are evicted each year.
I wish they could get their shit together to riot and stop the evictions.
Republicans in Congress are feeling lots of pressure from their constituents.
They don't really want to serve their constituents, only to use them. For the moment they are holding the line for their plutocratic masters. But they may have trouble doing that in October 2018.
Tens of millions of people face famine in Yemen, South Sudan, Nigeria and Somalia.
Thug unions hope for Sessions' support in eliminating court-ordered settlements that required thugs to change policies to protect people's lives from the thugs.
A bill proposed by SCROTUS would mess up the EPA badly for reasons that are subtle and not obvious. This explains them.
Some fake news is starting to target right-wing authoritarians.
Even if that helps in some narrow sense to fight the troll and his saboteurs, it won't help us make truth great again. But it may give us a chance to do that, by organizing to reject fake news intended to appeal to us.
Ironically, the article encourages people to believe news articles without careful thought by endorsing the foolish concept idea that people "consume" news. You can't be thoughful about judging what you consume, but you can be thoughful about judging what you read or hear.
Ingrained poverty is not simply a matter of people's lacking certain resources. To lead a people out of ingrained poverty involves more than simply giving them certain specific things.
The article has some cheap shot arguments which are mistaken. Eliminating public defacation won't make people prosperous but it can reduce transmission of diseases and it can help the stigmatized caste that collects the waste.
School for today's 5-year-olds won't educate today's 25-year-olds, but will educate the 25-year-olds of 20 years from now, and it could be a lot easier to teach 5-year-olds than 25-year-olds. Even if learning to read won't assure children a future job, it will help them think about their world.
However, the overall point about creating prosperity seems valid.
Birth control and reduced birth rate is a crucial part of creating prosperity. A rapidly growing population has not got a chance for prosperity to get ahead of births.
Fake news is being used for character assassination against German politicians.
Many American right-wing extremists want another civil war. Some dream of bringing back slavery.
Almost every company involved in health care in the US is selling "anonymized" patient data, from which only the patient's name and address is missing. It is easy to correlate that data with other data to reidentify the patient.
My main medical provider invited me to communicate through a service I call "Tracking Your Health". When I saw that its "privacy" policy permitted selling my data provided it is "anonymized", I rejected it.
(I would have rejected it anyway, because communication with the web site requires running nonfree Javascript code. And because the terms say that they can change the terms at any time.)
The cheater wants to give people a tax deduction for supporting his future campaigns. They will only have to launder the money through a church.
Other candidates will be able to do more or less the same thing, but they won't get the support of the billionaires that could really win big.
Daniel Dennett puts fake news in the context of a world in which appreciation of truth and facts is being lost.
Microsoft is inviting that GNU/Linux distributors pay for "protection" from patents. It is the patent protection racket.
The human contribution to global heating: 1.7C per century (so far). The natural contribution: .01C per century.
The human contribution is increasing, since it is causing consequences that increase the rate of heating.
The loser is thinking of eliminating the EPA's enforcement division. That would be almost equivalent to doing away with those annoying antipollution regulations, since polluters could usuall simply ignore them.
Attorney General Sessions will display cruelty and inflict many kinds of suffering on Americans who are disadvantaged, including seeking opportunities to punish people who are not guilty.
About the refugee minors in France that now can't go to the UK.
They believe that staying in France would be horrible, and if thugs are patrolling to stop charities from giving them food and sleeping bags, perhaps they are right. On the other hand, conditions if they got to the UK might be even worse. For those that can be legally accepted in France, staying there is probably a good idea.
Uri Avnery summarizes the history of Israel's war of independence, and how expulsions of Arabs and Jews from their homes fit into it.
Representative Nadler has used a special kind of petition to force the House Judiciary Committee to vote on demanding information from the troll about his conflicts of interest and his dealings with Russia.
The Republicans can vote no and defeat it, but this will put them on record as defending his trashing the Constitution.
US citizens: oppose plans to make Milwaukee county thugs double as US immigration thugs.
US citizens: tell your senators to block Gorsuch.
US citizens: insist that designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a "terrorist organization" would hurt the US. It is a violation of human rights when government arbitrarily labels an organization as guilty of terrorism or of anything else. Each accused party must get a fair trial.
US citizens: call on Congress to stop Bannon's takeover of national security decisions.
US citizens: call on senators to oppose the partial ban on Muslims.
US citizens: oppose fast-tracking the Dakota Access Pipeline.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: oppose plans to make the DMCA worse.
US citizens: call for full opposition to Gorsuch.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
Everyone: call on US business leaders to quit the troll's "business advisory panel". The only advice he would follow is bad advice.
US citizens: oppose trying to use fighting between Houthis and Salafi Arabia as an excuse for war between the US and Iran. Since Salafi Arabia and the US started, and continue, a war against the Houthis, one can hardly blame the Houthis for firing back on a Salafi Arabian ship or a US ship.
US citizens: The Army Corps of Engineers is supposedly accepting comments about the Dakota Access Pipeline, but its comment page has shut off. So submit your comment via activists.
"We Fear Soldiers More Than Gangsters": El Salvador's "Iron Fist" Policy Turns Deadly. The US could fix most of this problem by ending the War on Drugs.
Proposing that women go on strike against male violence and for reproductive rights. I wish they wouldn't define this as for women only. I would support that campaign if I am welcome.
SCROTUS plan to deactivate climate protection by changing the Clean Air Act to exclude greenhouse gases.
For Americans in general, this policy is like waiting till you have a toothache to visit the dentist. However, the plutocrats that SCROTUS serve expect to buy their way out of the consequences. Will we let them?
The Tories are killing Sure Start, which successfully improved education for UK children in poverty. Everything suggests that the Tories want poor people to be badly educated and thus easy to swindle and confuse.
The troll's scientific censorship is comparable to Stalin's. We will depend on whistleblowers like Snowden to tell us what EPA scientists find out.
Blocking Yiannopoulos from speaking at Berkeley redounded to his advantage. It was foolish as well as wrong.
As the civil war in Afganistan moves closer to cities, the number of civilian casualties in 2016 was the highest since 2001.
The troll wants to allow financial advisors to knowingly give clients advice that goes against their interest. That fits his general alignment: for banksters, against everyone else.
Twitter favorizes raw emotion—not wisdom, logic, honesty, creativity or anything of independent value. The infant knows how to take advantage of that.
California is considering laws to reduce the range of personal data collected by its agencies, as well as refusing to give some of it to the federal government. Both prongs are good, but the first is especially heartening. To make democracy safe, we need to limit collection of personal data by all sorts of entities.
Der Spiegel cartoon: the troll has beheaded the Statue of Liberty. It is useful of Der Spiegel to warn Americans while we may be able to prevent this.
More Republicans face crowds of angry constituents for planning to eliminate Obama's medical insurance system.
Because the FBI uses "national security letters" without judicial supervision, and those who receive them are forbidden to talk about them, the FBI knowingly uses them to demand information such as people's email contents, which are supposedly exempt from them.
US immigration thugs, exceeding their authority in applying the partial ban on Muslims, coerced several people to "voluntarily" sign away their permanent residence visas. Now that the ban has been suspended, those people still cannot come.
Dr. Suha Abushamma was deported in that way. Some of these people are suing.
In Tory Britain, Disabled People Are Seen as Idle (as an excuse to cut their support money).
An Iranian refugee who smuggled himself from Manus Island to Fiji was sent back to Manus peremptorily while his legal case was still going on. He now faces prosecution there for leaving. What a succession of evil treatments he has lived through.
A former Israeli minister had to cancel a visit to Belgium because she would have been prosecuted there for war crimes.
Israeli thugs arrested 14-year-old Amir Othman Darweesh and beat him up in jail.
Israeli thugs murdered Israeli Arab Yaqoub Abu Al-Qiaan. They shot him while he was driving a car; he lost control of it due to his wounds, and it injured and killed some.
Instead of retaliating against those responsible (themselves), the thugs murdered Abu Al-Qiaan by denying him medical aid while he bled to death.
These events occurred during protests as the thugs were about to demolish the whole village where he lived.
Several African countries plan to withdraw from the International Criminal Court. Dubya's opposition weakened the ICC.
The FBI offers Muslims "temporary immigration relief" if they become informants. When the informants are no longer useful, the FBI helps deport them.
US Nazis planned a hate march in Whitefish, Montana, but no Nazis showed up on the appointed day, even though local Jews were offering handouts of matzo-ball soup. The article offers insight about how to defeat Nazi hate through a sort of aikido resistance.
The Arecibo radio telescope faces closure for lack of funds.
About the judge that the troll referred to as "so-called" for deciding against the troll.
China is slowly extending military domination over the Japanese Senkaku islands. For years it has used threats of force to stop Japanese fishing boats from going there.
Since oil seems to be part of the motivation for this dispute, as well as many other disputes in the sea near China, the best solution would be for all the countries involved to agree never to extract any fossil fuel from the sea bottom there. We need to leave 80% of known fossil fuel reserves in the ground, plus all other unknown fossil fuels. Why not start with fuels that there is a dispute over?
Due to business-dominated globalization, international clothing front companies use workers of age 14 that are paid under 20 cents an hour.
Making countries compete to permit the lowest wages and the worst abuses is what business-supremacy treaties were designed to do. We must abolish them so that workers in each country can organize.
The Tories are arranging to quietly impose further cuts in vital social support, hoping fools will blame the local councils (which will decide what crucial activities to cut) instead of the Tories (that will decide how much to cut).
An alleged Russian source for Steele's dossier about the troll and Russia died mysteriously in Moscow. This doesn't prove everything in the dossier is true, but does lend it some additional credibility.
Legalization of marijuana in some US states has hurt Mexican drug cartels through a big decrease in smuggling marijuana to the US. Ending the War on Drugs would be far more effective at this than any wall. And it would end the other evils caused by a war that is blitzed out of its mind on drugs.
Ready... Fire... Aim: How an Unhinged Trump Is Threatening US National Security. Of course, atrocities and precipitous injustice are worse than merely self-destructive—they are wrong.
South Dakota voters passed an initiative for campaign financing. The legislators spat in their faces by abolishing it.
Hawaii's republican legislators removed Minority Leader Beth Fukumoto because she supported the Women's March and rejects bullying.
Many federal judges have separately concluded that the partial ban on Muslims is almost sure to be rejected as unconstitutional, and thus issued temporary stays on its execution. Here are the reasons why it is unconstitutional.
The troll has cut off public access to USDA inspectors' reports about how animals are treated at sites ranging from circuses to research labs.
Paul Ryan hopes to attack non-rich Americans financially while we are paying attention to the troll's acts of gratuitous cruelty.
The FCC suspended investigations into ISPs that are violating the net neutrality rules. The troll will have it eliminate those rules.
The US continues rigging elections in Haiti and installing corrupt presidents of its own choice.
The imaginary "Bowling Green terrorist plot" was a plot concocted by the FBI to (in imagination) aid al Qa'ida in Iraq. If the plot had been real, it would have been wrongdoing, but it would have harmed no one in the US.
Terrorism Is Only a Real Threat If It Frightens Us into Destroying Our Liberties.
Uri Avnery: the boycott of products of Israeli colonies in Palestinian territory is wisest, because it can teach Israelis the importance of respecting the boundary between Israel and Palestine. I agree in principle, but I am starting to think that it will take sanctions on Israel to make the Israeli right wing stop establishing more colonies.
In an act of spectacular betrayal, the troll's recent deregulatory executive orders give Wall Street more power to cause an economic crisis. Wall Street wants the deregulation so as to cheat others, and likes economic crises too because they provide more opportunities to cheat others (for instance, the millions of fraudulent foreclosures that Obama forgave them for).
People don't want to hear that some mothers wish they weren't mothers. Those who talk about it face personal insults.
Women who have babies are pressured into adopting the narrow and suffocating social role and attitudes prescribed for mothers. They understand why other people find them dull, because they find it dull themselves.
I hear from people who are happy to have children. I can understand how it might make someone happy, in a world of plenty where raising children is not a crushing burden and where there is no anxiety that something might go wrong. But I can't imagine being happy with it in the world we are in.
More about Flynn's apparent hint to a Russian ambassador that the troll would drop sanctions if elected.
The troll has mostly succeeded in distracting the US press from the scandal of his involvement with Russia.
The troll's habit of speaking without thinking is providing useful help for lawyers challenging some of his policies in court.
As the extent of January Arctic sea ice hits a record low, a macroengineering plan to rebuild Arctic sea ice must now be considered.
This plan would not be treating a symptom. The loss of sea ice is a result of global heating, but also a cause of more global heating.
The 120,000 victims of Erdoğn's witch hunt find themselves blacklisted, unable to get any kind of work, and fearing that their bank accounts might be seized at any time.
Those who are arrested do not get a fair trial. They are told the only way to get out of jail is to name some "co-conspirators", which often means additional innocent targets for the witch-hunt.
UK house builders are holding back the supply of new houses to push up the price.
The diamond mining companies hold back the supply of diamonds to keep the price up, but we can disregard this because nobody really needs a diamond. Everyone needs a home to live in.
One district court ruled in favor of storing government regulations behind paywalls.
The case is not over.
Anti-abortion protests at Planned Parenthood offices were met by numerous supporters, in some cases greatly outnumbering the protesters.
It is very important to speak up visibly and publicly against the right-wing supporters of the troll.
Rosa María Ortega, a Mexican citizen who has lived in the US since infancy and thought she was allowed to vote, was sentenced to 8 years in prison for illegal voting.
I don't think the term "fraud" applies, since she did not lie about anything. She just registered and voted.
The unusual severity of her sentence was caused by talking about the troll's fictitious claims. It will probably cause her to deported to a country she has no memory of living in, and may not be able to survive in.
Increasing the belligerency of PISSI may serve Bannon's apocalyptic desires.
An unexploded 500-pound bomb dropped on Thessaloniki in World War II was just found, and before trying to defuse it, they are evacuating people over a mile away.
A bomb that size can demolish a building, but such a large evacuation seems hypercautious. The evacuation will do substantial economic harm and it too has a chance of causing harm to someone's health.
Excluding Iranian refugees — typically fleeing because they are opposed to the Islamist regime — is self-defeating for the US as well as cruel to them.
The troll may appear stupid to progressives when he talks about a "'so-called' judge", but he is dog-whistling to his supporters. Most of them think he should have the power to override judges.
The troll wants the US to adopt protectionist trade policies but wants Canada to do the opposite. Canadians would rather have a trade war.
In opposing the troll, we must not defend neoliberalism and its "free trade" agenda.
I am against "free trade" because that tends, in practice, to give big business power over the nation. "Free trade" treaties are really business-supremacy treaties.
I am not particularly concerned with tariffs, and not against buying things from other countries. What we must do is make it difficult to move production from one country to another in order to cut wages for workers of all countries.
In the UK, smart children from a background of poverty are years behind smart children from a rich background, in what they learn.
The Cyborg Bill of Rights v1.0.
I think another principle is required, that persons are entitled to control over all software implanted in them. This means that the software must be free, and each person must get a copy of the source code of that software, the power to install modified versions into perself, and the power to stop others from installing modified versions into per.
Time Warner Cable has been sued, accusing executives of knowingly swindling customers for years.
A tyrant or cruel strongman needs lots of underlings to exercise power. Nonviolent resistance operates by convincing many underlings not to carry out the orders.
Reportedly the troll spends his days in the White House isolated, lonely, and communicating with few other people. He gets his news from cable TV, which means he has a very biased picture including a reflection of himself. He could easily be fooled by his own propaganda.
He might decide after a few months of this that it is no fun, and resign.
Perhaps Bannon is taking advantage of the troll's habitual careless approach to give himself more power.
Coretta Scott King's letter opposing confirmation of Sessions as a US judge shows what an enemy of democracy he is.
Sessions tried to prosecute people for helping black voters fill out their absentee ballots, and aimed to get them sentenced to 200 years in prison.
Troll's 60-day delay on new regulations could wipe out the rusty patched bumblebee.
The appeals court's decision to keep the troll's partial ban on Muslims suspended is an example of judicial courage.
Every visit of the troll to Mar-a-Lago is a disaster for businesses in Palm Beach. Some will have to close.
The 2015 Republican smear campaign against Planned Parenthood failed to find any illegality but succeeded in stirring up right-wing extremist violence.
Most of those Britons who voted for leaving the EU aimed to reduce the number of immigrants. An economic projection suggests this will reduce the number little, if at all.
The troll is closer, so far, to Brave New World than to 1984.
However, considering how the troll threatens people, and uses the state to inflict suffering on many, 1984 is certainly part of it.
Flynn discussed US sanctions against Russia with the Russian ambassador in the month before the inauguration — meaning the denials of Pence and others were false.
Even when SCROTUS rebuke Republicans for ethics rule violations, they continue to protect those Republicans.
Call on the Senate to block the appointment of David Friedman as ambassador to Israel. He leads an organization that funds construction of colonies in Palestinian territory.
The troll threatened to "destroy the career" of a Texas legislator that proposed curtail "civil forfeiture", taking people's property without prosecuting them let alone convicting them. But the troll seems not to have understood what it means.
Ilana Hammerman: Why I, as a Proud Israeli, Want the World to Boycott Us.
US Army veterans have returned to the pipeline protest camp, pledging to defend protesters with their bodies.
US citizens: call on the EPA hold mining companies accountable for clean-up.
The wildfire danger in eastern Australia is now "off the scale". They had to extend the scale up from 100 to 150.
The immediate cause is due to conditions that vary. It probably won't be this bad next year, and even 30 years from now it won't be this bad every year.
However, many of these conditions will become gradually worse, on the average, due to global heating. It is expected to increase the frequency of droughts and the frequency of heavy rains. In 30 years, there will be occasional years that extend the scale to 200 or 300. Expect towns and villages to have no trees or bushes, and be surrounded by 50-meter firebreaks.
From desperation, apartments are now being made in London that have space only for a bed, a toilet and a shower.
The UN assistant secretary general compares Boko Haram to the IRA and says that Nigeria has learned it cannot get rid of Boko Haram.
I never felt any sympathy for the IRA's cause, and I still don't. But the IRA never tried to kidnap girls and turn them into slaves or suicide bombers, and one can at least understand its cause without having to be a fanatic. Does a large minority in a part of Nigeria really support Boko Haram including its violence, or does it support a less violent position from which the extremists go to Boko Haram?
Adults under 35 waste more food, apparently because they want to show off a large platefull on Instagram.
The study that found this was in the UK, but I expect the US is just the same.
How silly it is to show off the food on your plate! Unless it is a work of art. I've eaten a few times in my life in restaurants where that was the case, and I appreciated it — but what I particularly want from food is for it to be delicious when it has disappeared into my mouth.
And if there is food left over, how silly to throw it away!
8 countries have now joined forces to make up the cuts in aid to be caused by the troll's global gag rule against aid to organizations that mention "abortion".
Bravo! I hope American individuals who donate to global women's health provision can also redirect their aid to this fund rather than to funds which don't counter the anti-abortion extremism of the US.
Most Americans hold a sexist attitude towards married couples' names: they condemn women who don't change their last names, but strangely don't condemn men for doing the same thing. When you look into the reasons, you find broader sexism.
Kellyanne Conway directly broke US ethics rules by promoting Ivanka Trump's clothing line.
The troll's standard practice is to violate all ethics standards in the most blatant way, in effect saying "You can't stop me!" Conway must have felt she could and ought to do likewise. It will be interesting to see if Republicans allow her to be punished for this.
The US publishes a list of air attacks in Afghanistan, but it is bogus: thousands of attacks were left out of the list.
Successful protests against the Trump regime should look for a broad base and should demonstrate they are patriotic.
I agree with most of the article's points, but some of them betray the author's right-wing positions. We would be fools to limit ourselves to criticizing only things that Marco Rubio wouldn't do; he like all the Republican presidential candidates is a right-wing extremist and would do great wrong if given the chance.
Defending abortion rights is a crucial issue, and we shouldn't seek more support by dropping that issue.
The troll has told the border patrol to give high priority to deporting unauthorized immigrants who were prosecuted in the past for working without permission.
They are now treated just like people who committed violent crimes.
The US appeals court upheld the restraining order that suspended the troll's partial ban on Muslim visitors.
The infant responded, "See you in court", as if he thought he would sue the judges.
The troll flipped out in a phone call when Putin proposed extending the most recent nuclear arms limitation treaty.
In the US: call on supermarkets to reject GMO apples that disguise when they have spoiled.
You can sign this petition with Javascript disabled using the salsalabs workaround.
The Democratic Party would be making a big mistake if it focuses on helping the white workers whose pay has gone down in the past 3 decades.
I agree with the article's conclusion, but we should not suppose that right-wing democrats abandoned white workers because they were focused on nondiscrimination. It's more the opposite: after Bill Clinton sold out to the rich in the 90s, mainstream Democrats would no longer offer a New Deal, so nondiscrimination was all they had left.
When dooH niboR is making the non-rich poor, if they are not wise enough to see this, they tend to break up into groups that compete with each other. Especially if right-wingers encourage this and nobody discourages it. But if Democrats offer everyone a chance to have comfortable a life, they can work together for that.
The troll has reversed himself in regard to supporting Taiwan's independence.
Too bad. I have long been disappointed with the US's timid bowing to China's demand; it looked like this was one of the few areas where the troll might make something better.
Overall, the troll is moving towards continuing the foreign policy of previous presidents.
The EU is offering a lot of aid to Gambia under its newly elected president.
I hope someone can check the deal for strings that might be bad for the country. Such strings in the fine print are common in foreign aid.
Democrats must stop blaming secondary causes of Clinton's defeat and recognize the fault is that the party has not tried to oppose dooH niboR.
The FBI is investigating pipeline protesters, by visiting activists and hoping to lead the activists into saying something about the movement.
Religious tolerance has deteriorated in India, as Sikhs, Christians and Muslims face persecution and even forced conversion. The theocratic BJP government has contributed to this.
Even in prestigious universities, some students and alumni are treated as criminals because their skin color inspires suspicion.
The troll approved the ground raid in Yemen without proper intelligence (in either sense of the word). Not a great surprise that it was a military failure as well as killing many civilians.
The troll's mouthpiece: we must all call the raid a success because one of the raiders died.
This attempt to manipulate people through their patriotism to supporting unjust wars is nothing new. Dubya called on Americans to support the occupation of Iraq because it was done by the US Army. My response to this was to say that he had hijacked the US Army and it was now the Bush forces. It was used during the Vietnam War, so people posted bumber stickers saying, "Support our troops in Vietnam — bring them home."
But the troll is taking it to an extreme that is almost risible.
US citizens: phone your senators to call on them to respect and
preserve regulations that protect Americans from harm from industry
and not override them.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
The UK had a policy of accepting unaccompanied child refugees that come to the EU, but the government quietly cancelled the policy hoping no one would notice.
The troll wants to put more prisoners in Guantanamo.
Anyone captured or arrested and accused of supporting PISSI could be put there.
PISSI fighters captured in Syria or Iraq should be held there as prisoners of war.
If teachers wear body cameras, it will destroy trust between teachers and students.
Recognition from a Christian that the troll is no Christian.
Melania Trump appears to have ignored her commitment to campaigning against cyberbullying, unless perhaps she's boycotting her husband.
Seattle has decided to move its account out of Wells Fargo bank.
Seattle moves billions of dollars through that account each year. If each dollar money remains there a month on the average, the account probably has a balance of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Unfortunately, Seattle can't actually change how it does this banking until late next year. But you can move your money out of the DAPL-funding banks next week. They are
Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ, BayernLB, BBVA, BNP Paribas, Citigroup, Crédit Agricole, DNB ASA, ICBC, ING, Intesa Sanpaolo, Mizuho Bank, Natixis, SMBC, Société Générale, SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, TD Bank, Wells Fargo.
It is also important on general principles to stop doing business with the big banks that provoked the financial crisis of 2008. I moved money out of Bank of America several years ago for that reason.
It appears that the UK thug group that infiltrated political groups destroyed documents after being told to preserve them.
Hina Shamsi was harassed by US border thugs about working for the ACLU and travelling to other countries, while being a Pakistani citizen.
She being a lawyer responded to them with a lecture about the laws they were ignoring.
A Canadian Muslim was harassed trying to visit the US with her family.
I am trying to think of a good way to respond to thugs' questions which try to put one on the defensive by putting some nasty construction on innocent activities. Perhaps, "Why do you wear glasses and black shoes?"
Intel Gives [Troll] credit for $7bn US Factory it Announced under Obama.
What this says is that Intel is willing to support the troll by repeating his lies.
Apple iCloud Hoards 'Deleted' Browser History.
Dependence on future bots and agents could be debilitating, especially if they contain nonfree software.
Doctors, students and patients condemn Dana-Farber for holding a fund-raising event at the troll's hotel.
Sooner or later an Islamist terrorist attack will kill a few Americans. The troll more or less ignores right-wing terrorist attacks, but an Islamist attack will give him a welcome opportunity for repression and massive snooping.
Americans had better prepare now to defend our freedom from the troll if and when that happens.
Sad to say, the events in Boston a few years ago show that killing even three people can lead to a nationwide media frenzy, and to irrational self-destructive responsess such as shutting down a whole large city.
The refugees dumped on Manus Island have to wait weeks for medical attention for serious problems, and are denied treatment rather than sending them to Australia. Then the state lies to cover it up.
It seems pretty clear that the officials in charge of this have dehumanized the refugees. I'd guess that by now most of the people employed now to deal with them dehumanize them — because the decent ones have left by now. The doctors are to some extent an exception, because they have medical ethics to strengthen them.
Temperatures in Australia are reaching 48C, which creates various dangers to lives and property.
The planet-roaster ruling coalition is not satisfied and hopes to achieve 53C in a few decades.
Send thousands more troops to Afghanistan???
The corrupt Afghan government can't inspire people to fight for it and win the war. The US can prop up the Afghan government for as long as it wants to keep spending lots of money on continuing the war, but the only way the war can end is to let the Taliban win.
It's not clear whether Kellyanne Conway is working for the White House or for Trump Inc. Maybe there is no difference any more.
Everyone: oppose the Rhode Island bill to jail parents that leave a child in a car.
US citizens: call on Congress to prohibit a nuclear first strike without a prior declaration of war.
US citizens: support removing dams on the Snake River so that salmon and orcas can survive.
US citizens: call on congress not to legalize discrimination based on religion as an excuse.
The Salafi Arabian bombardment of Yemen is causing famine.
While the nation writhes in agony, Obama ignores that and gives a tycoon a great PR opportunity.
This disappoints many Americans who have for 8 years invested in Obama more hope than he should rationally inspire.
Israeli fanatics cut down 700 olive and almond trees near Nablus, part of their unremitting efforts to drive Palestinians away from places where they are taking Palestinian land.
Admiral Mullen, formerly head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, rebuked the troll for putting Bannon on the National Security Council.
Melania Trump intended to use her presence in the White House to market fashion products.
Influenced perhaps by her husband?
A landfill company sued activists that opposed plans to put coal ash in a landfill. The ACLU defended them and won.
SCROTUS is planning to abolish the federal agency that helps states maintain the security of voting machines.
Maybe Republicans want to rig elections digitally, as well as stopping hundreds of thousands of marginalized Americans from voting.
Atalya Ben-Abba and other Israelis are about to refuse to be drafted and go to prison instead.
Israel is considering a law to refuse entry to anyone that supports a boycott of Israeli products.
Thousands of Jews And Arabs Attend a Protest against the Treatment of the Arab Community.
Israel prosecuted and jailed a 12-year-old Palestinian boy.
In Breaking the Silence, former Israeli soldiers report on the repressive practices they were ordered to carry out.
Republicans claim that the protests against them are full of "paid protesters".
How much money would it have cost to pay a million people to protest? We progressives are not backed by billionaires — we can't afford to do that. Only Republicans can.
It is standard Republican practice to accuse the opposition, falsely, of using the methods that they themselves use.
The Army Corps of Engineers is rushing to complete the Dakota Access pipeline, skipping the steps that are normally required.
This is to make sure that the environmental impacts are never studied and that no court can rule on the legality of the project before it is too late.
Since the pipeline will contribute to mass murder, I think that sabotaging it with violence so that it cannot be used would be justified on the principle of necessity for preventing a greater crime.
Sherry Turkle: campaigning to reestablish direct conversation between people in a world of people who are addicted to portable phones.
She doesn't put this together with the fact that the technology, being proprietary, is designed to be addictive. The users generally don't have control over this or any other aspect of it, so they can't make it less addictive.
Ajit Pal, the troll's head of the FCC, supports charging prisoners $14 an hour for phone calls.
This panders to those who want to grind the heel on prisoners, and will please many supporters of the troll. It will have the byproduct of increasing crime in the future, as prisoners who have limited communication with their families and friends will be less likely to fit back into society after they are released. (Most prisoners are released, you know.) So they will be led back to a life of crime.
But the main effect will be to enrich some companies, whose owners Pai seems to consider his cronies.
The troll approved a ground raid in Yemen, disregarding uncertainty about who was there. It killed lots of civilians.
How to organize resistance to the loser so it can go beyond protests and have long-term effects.
Canadians Form 'Rings of Peace' Around Mosques After Quebec Shooting.
The troll's executive order for the partial ban on Muslims disregarded the executive order about the procedure for checking executive orders, which was designed to avoid gratuitous mistakes.
The troll is aiming for the sort of misery that other presidents tried to avoid.
Travis County in Texas stands firm as a sanctuary, resisting Governor Abbott's threats to cut unrelated funding as a punishment.
Such threats are probably unconstitutional, but Republicans don't care. Any threat will do, to intimidate.
The responses from Travis County are good for retaining support from the people there, but I think it is crucial to publicly attack Abbott in ways that will hurt him state-wide. I would think of showing how he is dishonest, cruel, false to the Constitution, and un-American.
California is passing laws to resist the troll's cruelest plans.
[The troll's] belligerence towards Iran plays into the hands of Tehran's hardliners.
If the UK leaves the EU, Tories will be able to mistreat disabled people to their heart's content.
The corrupt head of the UK branch of ALEC has been appointed to design a trade treaty with the US that would subjugate the UK permanently to the US.
Since the senate rules don't allow a committee to vote with no Democrats present, the Republicans in the Finance Committee decided to ignore the rules.
Is it valid to suspend the rules without a quorum? It sounds like cheating to me — which fits the Republican political philosophy of "by hook or by crook."
US citizens: support State Department dissenters that criticized the partial ban on Muslims.
Iran's theocratic supreme leader thanked the troll for demonstrating that the US leaders cannot be trusted, revealing "the real face of the US."
This will harm Iran; it will strengthen the extremists in domestic politics.
Lawsuit Filed Against Trump Nominee Scott Pruitt for Denying Public Access to Polluter Emails.
Ordinary Americans Carried Out Inhumane Acts for Trump.
Perhaps there were immigration thugs that imprisoned travelers merely because they thought they had orders to do so. But those orders could not require handcuffing people who were not dangerous, denying them food, or denying them a wheelchair. The people who do that went beyond obeying orders. They were eager to mistreat someone, and their orders gave them license to do so.
"How dare Trump use my daughter's death to further his brutal agenda."
The TSA's "behavioral" inspection has no scientific base, it is just an excuse for racial profiling.
The troll is giving Erdoğan support and encouragement.
This is probably partly because Turkey is fighting PISSI, but it will support Erdoğn's repression too. I fear for the Kurds. Their support for secularity and human rights will not win any support from the the troll.
The danger of terrorism in the US is minuscule compared with the danger of other people with guns. Babies with guns kill a lot more Americans than terrorists do.
Microbead Ban Should Include All Products Washed Down the Drain, Say Campaigners.
An orphanage worker condemns the whole idea of orphanages, saying we must enable children to stay with their families.
With some funds it would be possible to enable many of these children to live with families. But it is not going to be easy for a single parent to care for five children, even with money, if the parent has to work as well.
We must give poor people help in having fewer children.
Local participatory activities, even if initially shallow, have the possibility to lead to creation of real communities.
Nigerian hunters try to free captives from Boko Haram, but their funding has been cut and they don't get the help they need from the army.
The FBI will discourage FOIA requests by ceasing to accept them by email.
To get people to accept intrusive biometrics, UK railroads propose to use this to enable people to pay fares faster.
The same could be achieved by making more entry gates, but that would not teach people to accept surveillance.
The UK is considering a law to require social networks to verify users' ages (and thus their identifies) or else impose censorship on them for their "protection".
40% of Americans are in favor of impeaching the troll, and 12% are not sure.
SCROTUS are proposing various bills to hamstring the EPA, or even abolish it.
Bermuda objects to being required to correct some of the openings for tax evasion and cheating and argues that other countries also have policies that facilitate this. What a non-sequitur.
Every country change the laws that help the rich and businesses to hide profits, and each step forward in any country will focus pressure on the countries that fail to do so.
Keeping fake news out of the coming French elections. Suspicions are that Putin will direct efforts to elect the right-wing extremist Le Pen.
The troll upholds and continues Obama's practice of rigging elections in Haiti.
A judge sentenced racist teenage vandals to read 35 books that could help them recognize the humanity of people they blindly hate.
A city in Australia has placed hundreds of microphones in public places to record people's conversations.
There are also microphones in taxis in Canberra, and buses in San Francisco. No matter what supposed justification there is, the danger of listening to people is more important. We must get rid of them.
A Russian dissident was poisoned last week with a substance not yet identified. It was the second such attack.
We failed to convince a third Republican to reject miseducator DeVos as Secretary of Education. She was confirmed on Tuesday.
The latest reshuffle of the UK's welfare system requires people to wait 6 weeks before benefits begin. During this time they often can't afford rent or food.
We are supposed to think of this as a minor detail or side effect of a large change, but I think it is the opposite. They make "reforms" that change many things, but the overall effect is less money for the poor. Since less money for the poor is exactly the Tories' general aim, I think that the "reforms" are meant as excuses for this.
Russia has greatly reduced the penalties for beating a spouse or children so badly that it causes bruises. In effect, the state is now encouraging domestic violence.
Has the troll already advocated such laws? If not, I expect he will.
The mainstream media tend to give the impression that Islamist terrorism is directed mainly at non-Muslims. Actually nearly all the targets are Muslims.
Hungary plans to imprison all asylum seekers.
The idea of calling these prisons "shelters" reminds me of what the British did when they put all the Boer civilians in prisons, which they called "concentration camps".
Palestinians ask other countries to punish Israel with sanctions for the newly adopted law that legitimizes theft of Palestinians' land by fanatical colonists.
Other kinds of thoughts can suppress the fast racist response.
To shield his lies from refutation, the troll wants to destroy the institutions that protect the truth.
Refugees in the US are walking across the Canadian border so they can apply for asylum there.
Global heating effects, including heavy rains, have damaged many historic places and sites of natural beauty in Britain.
The Statue of Liberty and other US historic sites are vulnerable to damage from global heating effects.
We won't have to worry about the Statue of Liberty if the troll succeeds in making liberty obsolete for everyone but him.
Australia's planet-roaster government has recognized that coal is now so uneconomic that the way to get new coal mines started is to subsidize them.
In other words, the coal barons have taken control of the country with their denialist lies, and now like a virus will direct the country's machinery to enriching them while endangering everyone else.
Amnesty International says that Assad's men killed thousands of prisoners by hanging, and thousands more by torture and starvation.
The available information stops in 2015; there is no information on whether the executions continued then.
Every US TV network gave far more coverage to a Canadian murderer who was a Muslim than to a Canadian murderer who was a right-wing extremist and killed Muslims.
Your average bank is far more likely to ruin Americans' lives than your average immigrant. That's why the troll wants "extreme vetting" for immigrants and not for banks.
The troll acts as if he were seeking regime change in the US.
Bernie Sanders: Trump 'Is a Fraud' Sending Nation in 'Authoritarian Direction'.
US citizens: call on the Senate to block Gorsuch.
US citizens: call on Senate Democrats to block the troll's Supreme Court nominee by all means possible.
US citizens: Call the Senate Committee on Homeland Security at 202-224-4751 and say that no individual whose primary responsibility is political in nature (such as Bannon) should be allowed on the NSC or authorized to attend its meetings.
US citizens: phone your senators to defend pollution regulations.
US citizens: call on Congress to invoke War Powers on the intervention in Yemen before any military escalation against Iran.
Massachusetts citizens: call your state legislator and state senator to oppose a bill designed to punish supporters of the campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel's occupation of Palestine.
Here's an explanation of the bill.
Canadian journalists face threats of imprisonment, much as US journalists do.
We must study and maintain nonviolent discipline in our protests against the troll's real and threatened violence.
Gorsuch as an undergraduate joked about founding a "Fascism Forever" club and repeatedly quoted Kissinger to countenance doing the unconstitutional.
Such jokes indicate something about the person who makes them.
If Gorsuch in the years since then had persistently demonstrated the rejection of what those jokes imply, I'd say we should overlook them. But there is no sign of that.
Romanian protesters have made the prime minister back down from pardoning the politicians convicted of corruption.
The troll reportedly wants to permit churches to endorse political candidates and to permit various kinds of religiously-motivated bigotry.
The troll's partial ban on Muslims included automatically denying their applications for citizenship and permanent residency. The ACLU sued stop this.
Now it seems that the troll cancelled this.
Perhaps he found out he was going to lose the case.
Pipeline protester Ken Ward, facing decades in prison for shutting off a pipeline by turning a valve, got a mistrial.
Some jurors must have been convinced by his arguments that he was acting to protect our world.
The troll is a salesman more than a businessman. His approach to
"creating jobs", like his approach to "creating casinos", is to borrow a lot of money.
A court temporarily suspended the troll's partial ban on Muslims, so the troll said this was done by a "'so-called' judge".
I think the troll is trying to build up mob support for defying the
judiciary so he can in effect rule by decree.
Large protests against releasing imprisoned corrupt politicians continue all around Romania.
Umberto Eco analyzes fascism.
Antisemitism is rising in the US: 50 bomb threats since the start of the year.
We can't trace these directly to the troll, but we know he is partly
responsible in general ways, such as his association with Bannon who
has encouraged antisemitic extremism, and his "holocaust remembrance"
announcement which avoided mention of Jews.
Antisemitism was once normal and accepted in the US, just like bigotry
against blacks. However, awareness of the holocaust mostly suppressed
antisemitism starting when I was a child; thus, I have escaped that
bigotry, though my mother told me about encountering it when she was
young. I never expected to see it come back in the US.
It's one more item for the list of the troll's injustices to humanity.
Annual giant forest fires in Indonesia produce pollutinn that kills
many thousands, perhaps a hundred thousand, and release tremendous amounts of greenhouse gases.
Stopping them is difficult because giant companies set the fires.
The Netroots, progressive resistance against Dubya, was bought out and
undermined by Obama and other nonprogressive Democrats.
It failed because it couldn't replace the nonprogressive Democrats.
This time we must do better.
[The cheater] Retains Direct Tie to Businesses, Documents Show.
Impeachment is called for.
The cheater tried to cheat customers of a golf course he bought; a
court ruled he owes them 6 million dollars.
The infant never accepts defeat, so he will appeal the decision. He
figures that if he makes them go through enough steps he will win by
intimidation sooner or later.
Everyone:
call
on the CEO of Uber to leave the troll's Business Council.
US citizens:
call
on Congress to reject the troll's bigoted policies against
Muslims.
In the US:
call on TV
networks to stop broadcasting Kellyanne Conway and the troll's
press manipulation rallies.
Executives of Tepco face prosecution for failing to take action to keep the Fukushima reactors safe in the event of a tsunami.
India has forbidden Compassion International, a Christian charity for children, from bringing 60 million dollars of foreign funds into India.
Most Greeks now believe it was a mistake to have joined the euro. Greece needs to get out of the Euro zone so that it can throw off the power of the Euro-banksters, whose demands for Greece to pay of its debt have pushed Greece into ever-increasing debt.
Sweden will aim to be carbon neutral by 2045. Whether this is fast enough to avoid disaster (if the whole world did it), I am not sure. Perhaps if the emissions are reduced enough in the next 10 years, it would be ok to take 20 more years to reduce them to zero.
What is clear is that Sweden can't avoid disaster by itself no matter how good a job it does.
Drawing lessons about men and masculinity from the success of the troll—a parody of all the worst aspects of traditional masculinity.
As the FARC soldiers lay down arms, crime rackets that they used to operate are being taken over by others, including Colombia's worst terrorists, the paramilitares. Those are right-wing terrorists connected with the army.
Increasing CO2 makes some algae produce poisons and kill coral.
As the troll drives away allies, China is winning more.
Vanuatu has banned import of junk food.
Australia's "climate and energy adviser" was a coal industry lobbyist. One must suppose that his advice will be to burn more coal and destroy civilization.
Trump’s CIA Chief Selects Major Torture Operative to be Agency’s Deputy Director. The troll seems to be seriously gung ho about torture.
I suspect he wants his supporters to get vicariously high on violence, whether it happens or not. This would enable him to use them to approve other violence.
SCROTUS in the House of Representatives voted to allow mentally incompetent people to own guns. Next will be toddlers: don't they deserve to be able to keep guns in their cribs?
A small relaxation of US sanctions on Russia is not corruption.
A peaceful but illegal sit-in protest in 1960 sparked a wave of protests that ended segregation in stores across the American south.
The cheater said he would make drug companies lower their prices. But now it seems he wants to deregulate them instead. Depending on which regulations he gets rid of, that would allow them either to charge even more, or to sell drugs which are totally unsafe.
A bill in Congress would reduce the scope of the DMCA's prohibition on breaking all sorts of digital handcuffs. This would reduce the injustice, but that part of the DMCA is entirely unjust and should be repealed entirely. DRM is an injustice and the government should help us get rid of it. This is pertinent again because this bill has been reintroduced in the
new congress.
Rumors say that the troll wants the US anti-terrorist educational activity to focus exclusively on Islamist violence, thus giving clear sailing to the violent right-wing extremists that the troll encourages.
SCROTUS have backed off the plan to sell large amounts of federal land, due to public opposition.
The UK admits refugees from persecution, then makes them go hungry.
Comparing the troll with the book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, that predicted some of what digital mass media do to people. I'm more or less immune to the direct effects because I stay away from those technologies.
Bangladesh proposes to force Rohingya refugees to an island that floods every high tide. This would be effectively to kill them. If Bangladesh does not stabilize its population, it will turn into a game of musical land lots with lives eliminated at each turn.
The French right-wing party violently pushed a reporter out of a press conference, for asking an inconvenient question. Then the party officials claimed that thugs had ordered the expulsion, which if true would mean that the thugs were intervening politically and ought to be fired.
Facebook has taken a positive step to avoid boosting fake news. Despite this, many reasons remain to refuse to be used by Facebook. Sad to say, research is advancing on generating fake audio in someone's voice, and fake video using someone's face.
Federal Reserve heads mocked unemployed Americans in a meeting, in effect blaming them for suffering from macroeconomic circumstances. It's convenient for plutocrats to have high unemployment, since that makes workers desperate and easy to abuse and easy to cheat.
We need a government that will be on our side against the banksters (and other rich and powerful individuals and businesses).
Israel is one of the last states to maintain a colonial empire. Others include Indonesia, in West Papua, and Morocco, in Western Sahara.
SCROTUS want to destroy unions all across the US with so-called "right to work" laws.
They want the rich to be united, as in "Citizens" United, while the non-rich are set against each other.
A systematic phishing campaign targets human rights defenders in Egypt. Presumably it is run by the Egyptian military dictatorship or some state friendly to it.
Central American refugees from violence there have been excluded by the troll.
Reddit has banned two right-wing extremist subreddits associated with the groups sponsored by Bannon.
In South Africa, pregnant women using meth are creating many mentally handicapped, aggressive children.
This harms society, but especially harms those children. To save more children from being victims of that incurable lifelong damage, we should give those women long-term birth control so they will not make and harm any more children.
Obama made an agreement to accept many of the refugees that Australia has imprisoned on Nauru and Manus Island. The troll doesn't like refugees and this has created hostility between the two countries.
The Australian government is a planet-roaster government, like the troll. Anything that creates conflict between them has a tendency to make for good.
Under pressure from drought, nomads in Kenya have invaded the most important wildlife conservancy.
In an overpopulated world, it may be possible in theory for people to coexist with wild areas—as long as all goes well. But we can't suppose expect everything will go well all the time. Overpopulating humanity will wipe out natural ecosystems, as the last step of trying to survive—a few years before masses of humans begin dying.
To avoid this future requires we do all we can to encourage use of birth control and reduction of birth rate.
Building a million more separate houses in the UK will increase flooding. The solution is to build more densely—near mass transit lines.
Some companies aim to make all their plastic packaging sustainably disposable. This is a big step towards eliminating plastic waste, but the concomitant requirement is to get all purchasers to dispose of the packaging properly.
Can garment workers in Kenya escape the race-to-the-bottom of globalized production? Changes in some treaties might help.
Since the infant seems to be putting Bannon in charge of national security issues, the fact that he expected war with China should be of some concern.
The Netherlands will count ballots by hand to protect the security of their elections. All countries should adopt this wise policy.
The troll reportedly threatened to invade Mexico, while talking on the phone with the president of Mexico.
I hope the president of Mexico ended the phone call at that point, because to continue it would have been servile.
Theresa May, when minister for surveillance and repression, tried to make the NHS hand over patient data to the state, looking for unauthorized immigrants.
Now the UK has a new plan for denying medical care to unauthorized immigrants: demanding two kinds of ID before people can get treatment.
We must stop letting companies pay fines to protect their executives from prosecution.
The US is heading for a shortage of potable water in 25 years or so. The price of water is rising so fast that many of US households may be unable to afford water in a few years.
Contrasting the troll's lies with most politicians' and diplomat's deception: the troll uses lies to get underlings that will obey with no scruples, while intimidating everyone else into obeying from fear. And it's a strategy aimed at the short term only.
New York Senator Schumer, the leader of Senate Democrats, is weak in opposing the troll's saboteur cabinet nominees.
Thousands protested at his apartment calling on him to "wake up".
The right to repair should include motorcycles. Of course, what we really need to do is repeal that part of the DMCA.
Homeless refugees in France face continual harassment by thugs, and people that help them (for instance, with food or transportation) face prosecution, sometimes on false or patently illegal charges.
City policies to harass unauthorized immigrants have in some cases been rolled back by courts.
The troll has discarded Obama's ethics rule that somewhat impeded the president's appointed officials from acting corruptly for their own profit.
Some US thug departments are refusing to say whether they used stingrays to snoop on the participants in the Women's Marches.
The Department of Labor has assisted Wells Fargo in getting away with mistreatment of workers, by deleting a web site for whistleblowers there.
Windows 10 forced software changes can sabotage the user terribly if Microsoft chooses an inconvenient time to do them. Since the article is in the mainstream media, it suggests only to buy another computer that serves a master that doesn't do this particular form of nastiness. It completely ignores the possibility of installing a free operating system in the PC—which doesn't even require buying a new computer.
Driverless cars will have trouble participating in social interactions with pedestrians and other drivers.
This article is perceptive—however, not surprisingly someone in the tech industry, it ignores the danger of massive surveillance through cars, which can lead to giant disasters.
Google has made Chrome automatically install the DRM module. This makes it dangerous for security researchers in the US to investigate possible insecurity in Chrome. More information.
To preserve the US Constitution, members of Congress must act like adults and be loyal to the Constitution. Unfortunately, most of them are Republicans and their goal is to win power for their plutocratic masters by hook or by crook.
The leaked intelligence dossier says that Putin promised the troll 19% of a principal Russian oil company if the troll drops sanctions. It looks like this gift is already being carried out.
The troll's actions could indicate either strength and decisiveness, or weakness and confusion.
A US citizen was held for hours in an airport because he was entering with his mother who is Iranian. The citizen, 5 years old, was handcuffed because he was considered a "security threat"—or so the troll's press manipulator said.
Superstitious Burmese endanger various species for the sake of "natural remedies".
PISSI has applauded the troll's entry cutoff for Iraqis and Syrians. The government of Iraq responded with hostility.
The loser could get Iraq, Syria and Turkey to be aligned with Russia. Hmm, perhaps that's one of the missions he was given.
How did the troll choose the seven target countries for the partisan Muslim ban?
The article's title seems to suggest that extending the ban by adding countries to it would make it better, but that not the central point.
The European Union wants to get rid of cash, but some countries and many people are opposed to this.
If you live in the European Union (especially Sweden), you can oppose this by using a button company to make a batch of buttons saying "DON'T BE TRACKED PAY CASH", then selling them to others? Use a translation in your local language if that will be more effective.
A new surveillance app will monitor people's actions and communications to check for depression. The information will be available to "counselors".
I suspect that later versions will be made mandatory for employees of various companies, and that they will inform Human Resources.
People in Manchester, England, took direct action against spikes designed to stop people from sleeping—by putting cushions on them.
One million Britons have signed a petition not to allow the loser to make a state visit there.
A journalist was investigated by the Secret Service after posting jokes on Twitter that referred to hypothetical assassination of the troll. This infringed his freedom of speech, as understood under US law.
Here's How We Know Trump's Cabinet Picks Are Wrong on Human-Caused Global Warming.
Pipeline protesters in Washington State, and journalists that covered the protest, face up to 30 years in prison from the repressive state.
A Burmese Muslim who was one of Aung San Suu Kyi's advisors was assassinated. Political motives are presumed.
Americans should organize to carry out general strikes. Disruption and inconvenience are a necessary price for effective protest.
The author is unaware of the injustice that both Uber and Lyft commit against their passengers. Do delete your Uber account if you have one, but don't replace it with another nonfree surveillance app such as Lyft.
Statisticians fear the troll will manipulate future economic statistics, or simply end the making of measurements that would show harm that is occurring.
A unique coral reef at the mouth of the Amazon is likely to be destroyed soon by oil drilling.
Turkey, Hungary and Romania drive 23% rise in appeals to the European Court of Human Rights.
Bernie Sanders: How Corporate Media Threatens Our Democracy.
Many large tech companies condemn or criticize the troll's partial Muslim ban, but Uber took the opportunity to undercut the taxi drivers' protest strike.
Now many users are boycotting Uber demanding that it stop helping the loser. This would be a good reason to boycott Guber, and it adds to the other reasons, such as mistreatment of its workers.
But even without a boycott, customers should reject Guber (and other such services including Lyft and Bridj) because they are surveillance systems and require running a nonfree app.
The troll's demolition derby is meant to wreck US government agencies.
Then Republicans will point to the wreckage and say, "See, this proves the government can't help anyone." They've been playing that game since Reagan's days.
The troll will exclude the chief military and intelligence officers from National Security Council meetings, and invite Bannon instead.
Banks in the UK are distracting attention from their crimes and misdeeds by threatening to leave the country.
There's only one valid reason for the UK to leave the EU and that is to get rid of the EU laws that give the rich (such as banksters) too much power. But Tories don't want to do that—on the contrary, they will let themselves be "forced" to give the rich more power.
The troll has decided that most permanent residents (green card holders) will be allowed to return to the US, but not necessarily all, and it is not automatic for anyone. Thus, they face being grilled and threatened on return to the US.
They could be compelled to surrender the passwords to their phones, or pressured to become informants.
Many students in US universities are covered by the troll's incomplete Muslim ban, and some were caught outside the US and are unable to return to their studies.
How US Indian reservations can resist right-wing oppression coming from state and federal levels.
A warehouse in the UK is such a dangerous place to work that ambulances take 35 people per year to hospitals from there.
Violent right-wing fanatics attacked a squat in London where homeless people live, throwing bricks and poles through the windows.
Many large tech companies are bringing staff back to the US in a hurry, who originate from countries that the troll might ban next.
Deutsche Bank will
cease funding new coal power plants and some coal
mines.
It is a substantial part of what every bank must do, to protect
humanity and other living species from disaster.
The
leader of Zimbabwean protests against Mugabe has been arrested and
accused
of "subversion".
Immigration thugs continued to jail US permanent residents
of Iraqi origin, trying to return to the US, after the order saying
they were allowed to return.
SCROTUS are
preparing to abolish recent regulations to make extractors
limit methane leaks and limit harm done by mountaintop removal coal
mining.
They are seriously embarking on a course of mass murder and the
possible collapse of civiliation.
It would be interesting to make an order of magnitude estimate of how
many people are likely to be killed by removing one mountaintop and
extracting the coal. Each one kills people both by pollution that
makes them sick, and in long term by global heating.
Trump's
Copying the Bush Censorship Playbook. Scientists Aren't
Standing for It.
Fighting in eastern Ukraine is
getting hotter.
The article says it isn't clear which side is escalating, but the fact
that the fight is going against Ukraine suggests that Russia is doing
so.
"Steve Bannon is
calling the shots in the White House. That's
terrifying."
"America First in pugilism, parochialism and misplaced
protectionism."
What We're Witnessing Is a
Stress Test of the US Constitution.
The troll's executive
order to eliminate two regulations for each new
one
is totally irrational.
Its superficial purpose is to prevent necessary regulations. Its
deeper purpose is to convince people irrationally that regulations
that
protect the public are all bad.
A Dutch hacker and Tor admin
recounts how state agents tried to
recruit
him for underground activities.
How Scientists Can Protect Their Data From the Trump Administration.
Don't Give In To Coup Fantasies;
Power Is More Straightforward.
The Tories have reduced claims for mistreatment of workers by 70%
by imposing a fee on such claims. The result is that lots
of poor women can't defend their rights.
How Do We Stop Trump and Win Gains in Justice and Equality?
Peaceful protesters in Cameroon
face execution.
US citizens:
rebuke the democrats that voted to advance Tillerson's
nomination.
White supremacists and other right-wing
extremists are present in many
US thug departments.
Tying Honduran politicians and plutocrats to the murder of over 120
environmental activists since the military coup that installed an
oppressive government.
Clinton seems to have endorsed the coup.
US citizens:
call on Congress to overturn the troll's partial ban on
visiting Muslims.
US citizens: Phone your senators to
resist and delay the troll's
cabinet nominees.
US citizens: support Senator Warren's bill to require president and
vice president to divest from
conflicts of interest.
Everyone:
call on mayors of sanctuary cities not to yield to the
troll's
pressure.
US citizens:
call on the Army Corps of Engineers not to approve the
Dakota Access Pipeline.
Here's the comment I submitted.
Democratic Senator Whitehouse encountered anger from hundreds of
voters who showed up to criticize him for
approving
some of the loser's saboteur cabinet nominees.
Protester Ken Ward has been
prohibited
from arguing a necessity defense as he goes on trial for shutting
the valve on a pipeline. He could be imprisoned for 30 years.
The troll wants to
risk
another financial crisis by overriding the Dodd-Frank financial
reform bill that was designed to try to prevent one.
The Dodd-Frank law does not go far enough — what we really need
is to bring back the Glass-Steagal act. However, getting rid of
Dodd-Frank would make things much worse.
Washington
State will sue to cancel the troll's partial Muslim ban.
The troll is causing disasters that reflect his temperament and character,
and this is likely to get worse, as he
makes
more enemies and gets more angry. This could end in calamity.
Women are protesting Texas's absurd miscarriage-harassment law by
mailing
their used tampons to the state governor.
In the heart of the loser:
despite
all the advantages that were handed to him, he feels no gratitude,
only anger that he wasn't given even more.
SCROTUS
want
to privatize gigantic areas of US government land.
Alcohol Industry
Subverting
Science to Prevent Greater Regulation, Study Finds.
Between
overfishing
and sewage effluent, fish stocks in the Bay of Bengal are
crashing.
Only massive contraception can save the people of that overpopulating
region.
The FBI has rules about infiltrating political and religious
organizations, rather weak rules though they are, but agents are
allowed
to ignore them essentially at will.
The FBI has
ignored
Obama's orders to stop racial profiling.
The FBI makes
standard
practice of seizing journalists phone records without a court
order.
This is exactly the threat to democracy which is why we must stop
systems from keeping records of who people talk with.
The moral lesson of the holocaust is
being
forgotten.
To defeat the troll, we need to
replace
right-wing establishment Democratic officials that resemble
Clinton.
US Funding Cuts to UN Agencies
Would
Be Costly for Peace And Security.
Protesters in Romania Denounce Plan to Decriminalise Misconduct Offences.
This could enable many convicted corrupt politicians to get out of prison.
Two young children were effectively arrested in their British school
because they had a toy gun. Based on their skin color, they were
treated as terrorists. Now they are terrified in school and out.
This treatment was part of official government "terrorism prevention"
policy, part of the fear-tyranny-industrial complex.
How various people are suffering due to the troll's partial ban on Muslims,
which was implemented in terms of seven specific countries.
Do-dirty has ordered the Philippine thugs to stop their anti-drug
operations (targeted killings).
Will the Philippines return to rule of law?
Only the state can enable everyone to have a good life, but
plutocratist policies and propaganda have convinced many people to give up on the idea of using the state for that purpose.
As the wealthy take more and more of the world's wealth, they are
crushing people slowly to death. Only reestablished democracy can
save us.
Homosexual Iranian refugees who were excluded precipitously from the US
fear Turkey will send them back to Iran to face persecution.
Canada: "Islamophobia has killed innocent Canadians".
Faux News eagerly claimed that the Québec shooting was done by a
Muslim (actually one of the worshippers at the mosque, who fled when
the bigot started shooting), and didn't withdraw the false claim until
Prime Minister Trudeau demanded it.
Why Democrats Should Hold the Line And Filibuster against Neil Gorsuch.
Homeless people have refused to be forced away from the main train
station in Melbourne, where they have camped.
I would like to know more about the "social housing" that the city
wants to move them to, and why they don't want to go.
Israel represses Palestinian nonviolent protesters with false accusations. A prominent example is Issa Amro, who received a UN
award as a human rights defender.
Even worse, it shows contempt for freedom of speech. Supposing that
the protester had indeed called a soldier "stupid", what kind of
state makes that a crime? A tyrannical state.
Also a dishonest state, which systematically denies the facts of the occupation.
The Israeli Law to Legalize Land Theft (only from Palestinians): it
would declare Israel a criminal state and call for sanctions.
The Council of Europe adopted a report rebuking Israel for "systematic
killing" in Gaza, as well as the siege and its consequences.
The report calls for an investigation by the International Criminal
Court, which I hope will take place.
Gaza's infrastructure is on the verge of collapse, and the blame falls mainly on Israel.
A robot is being developed to replace food warehouse workers.
The total number of jobs lost in the US could be in the hundreds of
thousands.
Deutsche Bank has been fined over half a billion dollars for not trying to avoid laundering money from Russia.
Four states have sued to overturn the troll's partial ban on Muslim visitors.
The troll's nominee for the Supreme Court is a right-wing extremist and might swing the decision on those cases.
Israel is going all out to extend its colonies in Palestinian territory.
A repair company for Macintoshes is sending threatening lawyer letters to
customers that published complaints.
If the victims say "so sue me", they would win in court. But many of them
are likely to panic and pay what was demanded.
Note that it is possible to install GNU/Linux in a Mac.
When Sally Yates was appointed as acting head of the Justice
Department, Senator Sessions asked her to commit to defend the
Constitution by rejecting unconstitutional orders from the president.
She did exactly that, and the troll fired her for it.
Tesla is producing electric storage facilities to help meet peak electric demand using renewable sources.
Wise governments would announce plans to buy lots of batteries over
many years, to create an incentive for R&D and production volume that
would drive the cost of production down.
Democratic senators blocked two of the troll's saboteur nominees by
refusing to attend the committee meeting which had to vote on them.
This tactic could be used against all the nominees if the Democrats
are united.
Naturally, Republicans called this shocking and unheard-of, although
they did the same thing a few years ago. That's the standard
Republican dishonesty, to demand that Democrats follow the bipartisan
comity which they themselves have completely rejected.
Extreme right-wing advances in the UK have stimulated hatred against
Jews as well as against Muslims.
A right-wing extremist in Québec murdered six Muslims in a mosque.
He seems to have been inspired by the French right-wing polician Le Pen.
Other right-wing politicians inspire murderers, too.
The troll has shut down the phone number to call the White House and
leave a message for the president. So Sanders has set up
WhiteHouseInc.org, where you can
send
him a message via one of his businesses.
The troll does not seem to understand
what's
required in responding to emergencies.
Republicans since Reagan have claimed that the government can't do a
good job of helping people, to build support for eliminating the
effective
programs that do so. They find it inconvenient when the facts to
undercut that claim. Thus, they have every reason to stop government
programs such as FEMA, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, food
stamps and welfare from working well. And they don't have enough
civic virtue to override their political interest.
Many Iranians that live in the US have been
separated
from their families because they were temporarily out of the
country.
They are being forced to give the passwords to their phones, which
means the US gets to know everything about them.
Philippine President Do-dirty admits to being "embarrassed" that thugs
killed
a South Korean businessman, assuming he was a drug dealer.
Even with its laws for trials, the US still gets mistaken convictions.
With no trial, just a gunshot, mistakes are far more likely.
The troll's precipitous prohibition on entering the US was not well
thought out, partly because the troll didn't consult very many people
about it. Even some Republicans recognize it
will
strengthen jihadis and terrorists.
Some immigration agents are
deporting
people in defiance of the court decision.
US border thugs who surprised visitors and returning students with the
news that their US visas had been canceled also
charged
them with attempting to enter the US illegally.
Are they imitating the troll's vicious dishonesty, or is this merely
the natural tendency of a thug when the opportunity arises?
Peter Watts, Canadian, was also banned from entering the US for a
period of many years after he was
convicted
of a bogus crime against the border thug that beat him up.
Bad
forest management contributed to the monster fire in Chile, which
threatens the city of Constitución.
Greece and the Euro-banksters are heading for the showdown, after a
secret IMF report says that
traveling
the path the banksters impose would make Greece's debt snowball.
Republicans still can't find a way to repeal Obama's medical insurance
system without
making
lots of their constituents very very mad.
If those constituents were aware of how Republicans' other changes
will hurt them, they would make those stop too.
The UN Human Rights Committee ruled that
denial
of abortion rights violated a woman's human rights.
The UK Labour Party
needs
to listen to white working class Britons' concerns rather than
dismiss them out of hand as "racist". Even though some of what they
say is racist.
The same applies to the US Democratic Party. We need to find common
cause with downtrodden people who do racist scapegoating, without
endorsing their racism.
Most of the necessary change consists to ceasing to treat plutocratic
bankster rule as inevitable and start fighting to eliminate it.
North Carolina's Republicans have threatened to eliminate the city
government of Charlotte if it continues to
stand
against bigotry.
The European Union
formally
called on China to investigate its arrest and torture of human
rights lawyers.
The troll has, apparently, brought back the practice of
sending
soldiers on ground raids in Yemen.
In this raid there were substantial casualties on both sides, as well
as many civilians. At least the target was a real al-Qa'ida base.
Killing 14 members of al-Qa'ida and an officer is insignificant as a
blow against that organization. What determines its strength is how
well it can recruit. The troll's ban against visits from Yemen and
other countries is sure to strengthen al-Qa'ida recruiting, generally
and especially in Yemen.
White supremacists and other right-wing extremists are present in many
US thug departments.
Amnesty International accuses the Philippines thugs of paying for
murder, planting evidence, and extorting money from the families of
the people they kill.
US citizens: phone your senators to oppose Pudzer as Secretary of
Labor.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588.
US citizens: phone your senators to oppose DeVos as Secretary
of Education.
Two Republican senators have already said they won't vote for her.
With one more Republican, and if no Democrats defect, DeVos will lose.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588.
US citizens: phone your senators to oppose Tim Price.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588.
US citizens:
call on
Democratic senators to oppose the troll's Supreme Court nominees.
US citizens:
sign
this White House petition calling on the troll to release tax
returns and conflict of interest data.
Everyone:
Help
NASA save data from the troll's men.
US citizens:
call on
Democrats to do all possible to resist the troll's budget cuts.
US citizens:
call
on Congress to require the troll to show he is no longer
financially involved in the Dakota Access Pipeline.
A former US official who resigned in disgust under Bush I urges
officials to
"kick
sand in the gears" until they are fired, rather than quitting
immediately.
That is a drastic response, and would be a harmful overreaction under
ordinary circumstances, but these are not ordinary and I think it is
justified against the troll and the saboteur cabinet.
Kurdish forces are accused of
torturing
prisoners accused of supporting PISSI.
The article talks about "children", but it really means "minors".
Given the age range of 11 to 17, it is clear that some (most?) of the
prisoners are teenagers, but some are really children.
I point this out to avoid a frequent kind of error, but it makes no
important difference in this case. Torturing teenagers is just as
wrong as torturing children. Likewise for torturing adults.
The infant's abrupt
dismissal
of the State Department's second-level management will leave the
department on blind autopilot for weeks or months.
The Iraqi army presented a captured
PISSI
poison gas lab facility.
A court cancelled the troll's exclusion order, but
only
for those that were en route with a valid visa when the order was
issued.
This deals with the most acute part of the problem, but everyone with
a valid visa or a green card should be allowed in, unless there is
some specific personal reason which should be examined in a personal
hearing.
Pointlessly
excluding
the Iranian cast and director of an oscar-nominated film is going
to make the troll look bad.
Some in India
still
blame inexplicable mishaps on witches, and kill the witches.
This happens in
parts
of Africa, too.
The troll has done something I think is good:
long-period
bans on many federal officials from lobbying.
This doesn't cover members of Congress, since that requires a law.
Such a law is called for.
A broad and large movement to protect America from the troll
is taking shape, and got a big boost from the initial Muslim ban.
The troll's repression of Muslims
tracks the start of Hitler's
repression of Jews.
It is fair to call the troll's precipitous immigration restrictions a
partial Muslim ban because that's how he intended it. Giuliani says
that the troll asked for advice on he could make such a ban fit
legal requirements.
Hi-Tech Pharmaceuticals sued scientist Pieter Cohen for a scientific
paper
reporting an illegal and possibly dangerous chemical was present in
various
Hi-Tech "nutritional supplements".
The company lost, but its head hopes that the expense of defending it
will scare off any scientists that think of criticizing in the future.
The loser's partial Muslim ban is playing into PISSI's hands: PISSI
stated its intention to
use terrorism to provoke stupid reactions like
this.
More Than 100 Natural World Heritage Sites
Degraded by Human Activity.
Mnuchin Again Denies Robo-Signing,
Despite Yet More Evidence He Is
Lying.
Salafi Arabia has had to start taxing residents, but did it in the
worst possible way: with a value-added tax (effectively a sales tax)
that falls hardest on the poor and spares the rich.
An
Indonesian Islamist who pushed for the prosecution of Jakarta's
mayor for blasphemy is being prosecuted for defamation.
Making defamation a crime is the same wrong as making blasphemy a
crime. Freedom of speech includes the right to speak ill of any
person and any religion.
Washington DC thugs
dropped charges against some of the journalists
arrested covering a protest. But not all.
The UN warns that the troll's ban on admitting refugees
will put
20,000 refugees in danger.
Steve Bannon NSC Seat Risks Politicizing National Security, Former
Officials
Warn.
The troll politicizes all decisions — he lacks the concept that some
issues are more important in their own right than his political
tactics.
Several US Christian leaders denounced the idea of giving Christian
refugees
priority because of their religion.
Supposedly American multinationals said they would "create lots of
jobs" if given a big tax cut. But now that they think they can
actually get it, they are saying they
will
give the money to their stockholders instead.
Letting businesses abuse workers and the public treasury in your
country can sometimes convince businesses to move jobs there from
other coutries. If only one country do this, it gets an economic
boost (though probably little trickles down to the now increasingly
mistreated workers).
But when countries in general join this competition, it becomes a
policy of
"beggar
thy neighbor" which ultimately benefits businesses at the expense
of all countries.
Bill McKibben: the troll has reduced our slim chances of avoiding
global heating disaster, but they are not zero. We
must
not give up.
In addition, our efforts now might reduce somewhat the scope of the
disaster even if it is too late to avoid it. Maybe half a billion
humans could survive this century instead of a hundred million. Maybe
we could keep technological civilization going.
American plutocrats hope to survive that
disaster
in New Zealand. They think they can condemn the world to disaster
and protect their own families from the consequences.
If they knew today that they could not succeed at this, because the
dying masses would drag them back to share in those consequences, they
might change their plans and prevent the disaster.
Angela Sutton: "I am
the
woman you don't see when you walk down the street sipping your
Starbucks coffee."
Torture seen as a
system
for producing fake news.
The troll's new immigration restrictions will be a
big
boost to jihadis and Muslim terrorists around the world.
One effect of the screwy US medical insurance system is that you
can't
find out what anything will cost.
Temporarily unemployed people in the UK are more likely to be obese,
because they are rejected by many employers. However, long-term
unemployed people are more likely to be very thin, because they
don't
have enough access to food.
Americals of all political camps love the national parks. Maybe
the
troll's attack on them, and threat to eliminate them, will teach some
Americans a lesson about him.
If the UK wants a trade deal with the US, it will have to accept the
possibly dangerous products of
US
farm practices.
Citizens of Massachusetts: support the
ACLU's Freedom Agenda.
Here's the
description of it.
US citizens:
thank two senators for blocking a senate resolution
to condemn the UN for defending Palestinians' rights.
Robots in the near term will
wipe
out many of the better-paid jobs that still exist, leaving only
low-paid service jobs to repay the student loans of many graduates.
Most of the ruling class have no plan to avoid mass descent into poverty.
Now that the US has withdrawn from the TPP, what about other business-supremacy treaties?
Americans are unrealistically optimistic about their chances of getting rich. That makes them sitting ducks for right-wingers that promise them lower taxes, supposing they do someday get rich.
Most Israeli reporters repeat the lies thugs tell about Palestinians they kill.
Israeli extremists have organized a campaign to harass Arabs that drive buses.
The Women's March a week ago was a powerful act of defiance, but in order for it to lead to victory people must form and join organizations.
5000 Israeli Jews and Arabs protested Israel's demolitions of Palestinians' homes.
US left-oriented movements should unite, as the troll and his hate group attack all the areas of resistance together.
Democrats' tepid resistance to the troll's nominees reflects a mistaken strategy that will fail to inspire Americans for the struggle to come.
Mikhail Gorbachev: Appears 'The World Is Preparing for War'.
Here are some suggested rules for evaluating news stories that refer to anonymous sources like an intelligence analyst.
The Kuwaiti ambassador claims he was not pressured to move the event to the troll's hotel, but I am not sure I believe him. He argues that it is ridiculous to think that Kuwait would need to influence the US government by its choice of where to hold a reception—and that's a valid point, except that it's not a matter of influencing the US government, it's a matter of the troll's personal desire for money, which seems to be more important to him that any sense of US interest.
Another element, for me, is that I think the troll would not try very hard to conceal such things, so it is plausible to me that quite a few people could have leaked the information.
Black teenager Emmett Till was lynched in 1955 because Carolyn Bryant, a white woman, said he had grabbed her and insulted her. Much later she admitted that she had lied.
The cheater put a coal lobbyist in charge of prosecution of some environmental crimes.
The troll's executive order blocking entry to everyone from 7 Muslim countries was done in a gratuitously cruel way.
It is basically irrelevant to protection from terrorism, but will be very effective at provoking some, playing into the hands of jihadis.
The ban has stranded Iraqi refugees already granted visas, who are in danger at home because they worked for the US there.
Permanent residents who came from those countries don't dare leave the US as they might not be allowed back in.
Protesters at Kennedy Airport have brought about release into the US of one of the blocked Iraqis.
The UK has rewarded Erdogan's tyranny with a big sale of fighter planes.
Several leaders of Labour, and I think not the Blairite sellout wing, refuse to vote for leaving the UK.
Arkansas has passed a law banning the usual method of abortions in the second trimester.
Abortions in the second trimester are done only based on specific justifications, usually medical.
Sonny Purdue as Secretary of Agriculture would support "farmers" that are big corporations, and endanger the health of humans.
A nun rebukes the hypocrisy of theocratic anti-abortionists.
Public opinion is slowly turning against Big Agriculture's practices of mistreatment of animals.
The ag-gag censorship bills have been unable to stop it.
Ending these practices is important for humans' health in two ways. One is that if meat costs more we will eat less of it and live longer. The other is that keeping the animals alive in such harmful conditions requires lots of antibiotics, and using the antibiotics on them breeds resistant bacteria that already kill people.
US citizens:
call
on Senate democrats to resist the troll's saboteur cabinet.
US citizens:
call
on the troll to cancel the Dakota Access Pipeline and respect the
right to protest.
US citizens:
call
on TV networks not to show the troll's press-manipulation rallies
live.
Here's
more
information.
US citizens: phone your senators and call on them to oppose
the troll's saboteur cabinet as hard as they can.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588.
US citizens:
call on
Congress to reject H.R. 490, the bill to ban nearly all abortions.
US border thugs have
demanded
that US citizens turn over their social media names, and passwords for
their phones.
This is illegal and unconstitutional, but hey, would thugs care?
I am disappointed that the article uses the terms
"content"
and
"cloud".
California is planning to thwart the troll by
collecting
and storing less data about people.
Finally, politicians are tackling dangerous surveillance in the only
way that is really effective.
70%
of users (from a set of volunteers) could be reidentified in
"anonymized" browsing data by correlating it with their tweets.
Some Israeli officials admitted torturing Palestinian prisoners, and
we have some
details
about the practices they use.
The head Khmer Rouge torturer admitted in court that torture was
ineffective
at getting information from suspects. That was inevitable, since
most of them had no real information to give — just like most of
the prisoners in Guantanamo.
Scientists
are planning a protest in Washington against ignorantism.
The troll said he
supports
Paul Ryan's plan to destroy Social Security and Medicare.
A high school student threw a paper airplane at a teacher's head and
was arrested by the school thug. He
faces
30 days in jail.
It is dangerous to have thugs in a school.
Repealing Obama's medical insurance system would hit people from one
side while
global
heating effects hit them from the other side.
Workers File More Than Thirty
Wage
Theft, Harassment, Intimidation Complaints Against Brands Owned by
[the troll's] Embattled Labor Secretary Nominee.
Kathy Kelly was
convicted
of protesting the murder of Jamar Clark. The man's name was
hardly mentioned in the trial.
The troll inspires other deranged people to attack Muslims in the US.
Ayyadurai, the self-styled "inventor of email", sent a threatening
letter
demanding deletion of posts from Diaspora.
The letter also attempts to bully the recipient and journalists not to
publish the letter — though publishing it would surely be fair use.
The troll's statement in honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day
peculiarly
avoided mentioning Jews or antisemitism.
Zuckerberg cancelled the lawsuits that were intended to force hundreds
of
Hawaiians to sell land to him.
A special tax loophole
applies to some appointed federal officials.
I can see the reason for having an exception like this. Since they
are
required by law to sell their assets, that could impose a big tax
liability
on them, which would be somewhat unfair. But perhaps the duration of
the tax deferral should be limited to a year after they leave the
appointed
office.
The cheater, his appointees and other Republicans are
preparing
a massive attack on Americans' voting rights.
The Republicans' attacks on abortion rights are
just
beginning.
They do not seek to reduce the number of abortions; they use abortion
as an excuse to harm and repress women.
Bahraini activist Nabeel Rajab is on trial for
writing
that journalists and international NGOs are banned from Bahrain.
He could be imprisoned for 17 years for a true statement.
UK: "Theresa May's visit to Turkey
betrays
our liberal values."
Opposition to coal is
organizing
in South Africa.
The troll is undermining the Justice Department by
meeting
directly with companies that want to merge.
The Obama administration was too weak in stopping mergers. If the
troll strengthens the barriers to mergers, I will applaud that. But I
think he is more likely to do the exact opposite.
The troll's saboteur nominee for Secretary of the Interior
wants
to roast Earth's ecosphere with coal.
Another
pipeline
leak reminds us that all oil pipelines leak sooner or later.
They leak more often than necessary because the companies
skimp
on testing for flaws.
CETA, the Canadian version of TTIP (This Treaty Is Plutocratic), is
not
necessarily dead yet. It may yet undermine democracy in the
European Union.
Britons with a working-class background are
paid
7% less (on the average) than equally qualified workers in the
same job that have a privileged class background.
The troll
threatens
to cut off federal aid to cities that offer sanctuary to
unauthorized immigrants.
This would exceed his constitutional authority, and
cities
plan to resist.
Trading with other countries does not require "free trade" treaties.
Instead of "free trade", every country needs
trade
it can regulate so that business don't gain
supremacy over
democracy.
One thing we should put into international treaties is more
tax-enforcement
cooperation.
Unusual high temperatures are fueling
unusual
large wildfires in Chile.
Whatever may be the immediate cause of the fires, it is clear that
their underlying cause is global heating. That is not a matter of
negligence;
Exxon's
funded
and knowingly dishonest denialism is a form of sabotage.
Citizens of Minnesota:
oppose
the proposed state law to bankrupt protesters.
Everyone else, please tell people you know in Minnesota.
US citizens: phone senators to
oppose
confirmation of Tom Price.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588.
The troll's plan to resume torturing prisoners in secret prisons is
facing
opposition in Congress.
His official press manipulator claims that the draft executive order
didn't come from the White House, and
suggests
that the loser has nothing to do with it. However, the troll has
spoken in favor of these actions.
Why bother looking for ways to reconcile these claims. The statement
comes from someone of no credibility. The simplest explanation is
that it's another "alternate fact" (i.e., lie).
The scenarios where torture is purportedly necessary are so
strained
and unrealistic that they will probably never occur in real life.
Chelsea Manning was punished for revealing US war crimes. Obama and
his men
never
took action about them.
The troll plans to stop issuing visas to citizens of
seven
Muslim countries where the US has made hostile interventions. But
not Salafi Arabia, which is the root of Islamism world-wide.
I've proposed that requiring immigrants and non-tourist visitors to
publish a video statement in favor of human rights. They could make
the statement, reading a provided standard text in their own language,
to the immigration officials, who would publish it on a web site.
By making this statement they will publicly declare their rejection of
Islamism.
Since the troll persists in claiming that torture "works" to get
information, here's an
explanation
of why torture does not "work".
A specific example of its failure: when US agents tortured Ibn
as-Sheikh al-Libi, he
said
what he knew Dubya wanted to hear. This helped Dubya start a war
of aggression whose harmful consequences continue to ramify in Iraq,
Syria, and elsewhere.
But even if torture did "work" in a narrow sense, it would be a
vicious crime, and the harm it does would spread.
Practicing torture implants an inhumane attitude, which then manifests
itself in a range of inhumanity: general cruelty to all prisoners,
imprisonment without trial, collateral murder, and other atrocities.
These atrocities cause great suffering directly. They also provoke
hatred. How many jihadis have been provoked by Guantanamo and US
torture? Surely thousands.
The cheater said his businesses would make "no new deals", as an
inadequate substitute for selling them off; but
that
was a lie.
Betsy DeVos is
connected
with companies that collect student debts.
The troll has
declared
war on our environment and our health.
The Netherlands is
organizing
an international fund for abortion aid to compensate for the harm
done by the US global gag rule.
A medical charity doesn't need to give referrals about abortion if
there is a separate organization next door that provides abortion
information.
Judging the troll's firehose of lies against
1984.
Let's not forget that each one of the troll's lies is an implicit
threat to punish those who won't publicly support the lie.
Republicans in Minnesota
want
to impose huge liability on protesters convicted of even minor
"crimes."
Since those "crimes" mean basically whatever a thug says, civil
disobedience (and maybe all mass protest) would be crushed.
This reminds me of the
Israeli
repression method of imposing unlimited liability on anyone who
advocates any sort of political boycott against Israeli colonization
of Palestinian territory.
The loser
wants
to launch a massive investigation of the millions of imaginary
"illegal voters" that he claims gave Clinton a majority of votes.
False accusations standard Republican practice —
they
destroyed ACORN this way, and used them against
climate
scientists and
Planned
Parenthood.
I think the loser's plan is to create a lot of smoke so he can claim
it proves there was a fire. It will also be useful for deflecting
attention from
the
real election-rigging that the Republicans did last year.
Advances in production efficiency do not lead to decrease of demand for material resources.
Eventually, scarcity of the resources will raise the price for them, and that may lead to use of less resources. The problem is that if pollution and other harmful side effects are not charged to whoever extracts the resources, they will "cure" the scarcity by extracting more and more.
This is where we need a democratic state to impose taxes high enough to discourage use of the resources.
UK prosecutors are reluctant to prosecute domestic violence. Even after a man blinded Akorede Odutayo in one eye, they didn't charge him.
Several parameters that measure society's well-being.
Rumors say the troll might pull the US out of the UN.
The UN might actually become more capable of useful action without the US dragging it in the wrong direction. But it will have less influence and funds.
When Bannon told the press to "keep its mouth shut", he revealed the intention to abolish journalism, leaving the media with nothing to do but respew the sewage the troll pumps through the White Hose.
UK schools teach gender stereotypes such as "girls can't do physics" and "boys can't become writers". Children learn these stereotypes by age 6.
Right-wing governments around the world will try to match the cheater's tax cuts for the rich.
It is vital to give all children serious sex and relationship education.
The risk of getting sexually involved over the internet is one of the smaller of the problems these classes can prevent. Children and teenagers don't generally meet up with adults over the net unless their families have already caused them some damage. It's good to help those children, but it would be better to help them avoid that damage.
The biggest dangers these classes can help avoid are that of catching pregnancy or disease through consensual sex, and that of getting stuck in a violent relationship.
The troll is promising US unions to create lots of jobs.
He might actually be sincere about this, but it seems unlikely to succeed, especially if AI eliminates a large fraction of today's good jobs.
Meanwhile, state-level Republicans are doing quite a lot to undermine unions. If he is serious about cooperating with unions, he had better get make those Republicans stop that.
Eliminating the business supremacy treaties will be good for workers, simply because making it hard to move production between countries will help workers in each country organize and demand better pay, more rights, and higher minimum wage.
Australia's planet roasters plan to spend 60 billion building advanced coal plants to reduce emissions, but they could achieve the same reduction with renewable energy for half the cost.
It's clear that their highest priority goal is to burn as much coal as possible.
The troll pressured the National Park Service director for photos that would "prove" the falsehood that he attracted more people to the inauguration than Obama did.
This suggests that the troll is worse than a liar—he is going crazy.
Denver kicked out the inhabitants of a large camp of homeless people. Previously, the thugs stole homeless people's blankets.
The UK's NHS plans to limit hip and knee replacements to those patients whose need is greatest—purely to save money.
The Tories simply cannot give the NHS enough funds because catering to rich tax-dodgers is so expensive ;-{.
British children should go outdoors and play the game "Chicken, Catch a Tory", to learn what you do with a Tory when you catch one.
The Tohono O'odham tribe, whose reservation crosses the US-Mexico border, intends to block construction of the troll's wall on its land.
An Australian company decided to ignore natural gas leaks for years, and pay fines, rather than fix them.
It's obvious what to do here:
The question is, why doesn't the government do this obvious thing? Because it's been corrupted by these companies, I suppose.
The Greek Supreme Court refused Erdogan's request to extradite eight Turkish soldiers that sought asylum in Greece.
They were sent to rescue troops that participated in the coup, but they themselves were not part of the coup. For Erdogan, however, association implies guilt.
The Economic Intelligence Unit, which rates democracy of countries in general, has downgraded its rating of the US to "flawed democracy".
This is based on recognition of the flaws that existed before the last election, such as the fact that the people no longer get to decide anything much.
The troll proposes to impose a 20% tariff on imports from Mexico.
If Mexico retaliates with a tariff on US grain, Mexican peasants might be able to prosper in Mexico. A side benefit for the US would be a big drop in immigration of Mexicans.
The US grain that won't be shipped to Mexico is grown by corporations, not by family farms. (The Republicans, under Reagan, destroyed nearly all of those.) So to hell with them.
By the troll's executive order, all asylum seekers crossing the US southern border will be imprisoned.
Conditions in America's privatized immigration prisons are already cruel and dangerous, especially for children.
With many more people put in them, they will be overloaded and even more dangerous.
Executive Orders Are Normal; [the troll's] Are Only Appalling Because of What They Say.
Some of them don't actually say much in substantive terms.
Marc Short: Koch Dark-Money Operative Is Trump's Liaison to Congress.
Journalists in Germany face jail for reporting on leaked information.
SCROTUS now want to eliminate the inheritance tax, boosting the growth of inherited capital.
As Piketty pointed out, this tendency is already devastating democracy. Naturally, the plutocrats' lackeys want to make it worse.
France used torture against the independence movement in Algeria, and paid a great price for it in the long term.
The troll has imposed censorship on scientists at the EPA and some other agencies: they are forbidden to speak to the public about the results of their research without getting political approval.
Scientists met to discuss how to cope with this censorship.
The troll's wife worked illegally while in the US on a tourist visa. If you want to crack down on immigrants that break laws, why not start with her?
She will be just fine back in Slovenia—it's a safe, democratic country with a decent standard of living.
The ACLU asked the Senate to hold another hearing on Sessions before voting about his nomination.
The CIA altered the movie adaptations of Animal Farm and 1984.
It also funded exhibits of abstract expressionist art so as to decrease the popularity of socialist realism.
US citizens:
call
on the Senate to reject Sonny Perdue as head of the USDA.
Everyone:
call on Betagro
to put an end to slavery in its farms.
Naomi Klein: the troll and Republicans are planning to provoke disasters
and
use
them as opportunities for knocking people down.
Charter schools can be cheaper to run than public schools, but
the
way they do so shows why they are not a solution for society.
This chain skims the cream by not dealing with the students that need
special help. That apparently includes the increasing fraction of
students whose families are food-insecure, because these charter
schools have no cafeteria to give them meals with. With no sports,
they appear to lead students to be obese couch potatoes. The absence
of an auditorium rules out many kinds of programs.
Hell, it's easy to cut costs by doing only part of the job.
The cheater
continues
to repeat the lie that millions of illegal voters gave Clinton a
higher popular vote total than he got.
This lie is a sharp knife in the belly of US democracy. It is meant
to provide an excuse for more voter suppression, to be cited by
Republican state officials for whom truth means nothing and democracy
is to be destroyed.
Portable phones with
iris
scanners? Make sure to taoe them over!
14
Democrats voted for pro-torture Pompeo as CIA director.
Contraceptive
programs in Africa are threatened by the reinstated US global gag
rule.
"Inoculating" people about
fact-denial
campaigns can be effective at blunting their effects.
We the people saved the US from the TPP, and we will now have to save
the US from the troll's
unjust
policies.
"What if we gave
universal
income to people in biodiversity hotpots?"
Since we need to keep population growth down, perhaps the universal
income should be limited to those who have no children or use reliable
birth control (which we should provide at no charge).
US journalists should unite to
defend
each other from the troll.
Comparing the loser with the worst Roman emperors.
The American hegemony is often compared with Rome's conquest of the
Mediterranean world. History does not repeat itself, but the gradual
decay of the Roman Republic which led to its becoming a tyranny shows
it can in principle happen here too.
The Keystone Pipeline [would] Create
Just 35 Permanent Jobs.
"We cannot pollute our way to prosperity."
Germany has arrested suspected right-wing terrorist plotters.
Mnuchin told the Senate committee that his bank had not done
fraudulent
robo-signing,
but in fact it did.
The UK is
using the National Health Service to find illegal
immigrants.
The result of this is that illegal immigrants — and others who are
afraid for vague reasons — will forego treatment and die.
The troll plans to
control his Senate-approved cabinet secretaries
by means of unofficial Trumpery Party commisars.
The
IRS has demanded Coinbase surrender records of millions of
peoples' transactions en masse.
Wyoming Republicans
want to ban utilities from using renewable energy.
Israel killed Ahmad Hassan Shubeir by blocking him from leaving Gaza
for treatment for a heart problem.
He was offered permission to travel if only he became an informer.
An Israeli Jew criticized Israel's expulsion of Arabs from the Jordan
valley
and was accused of "antisemitism".
The
latest expulsion technique: seizing Palestinians' tractors.
The cheater
may provoke war with China as a distraction technique.
Everyone:
call on Citibank to stop funding the Dakota Access Pipeline.
US citizens:
tell Spicer to quit lying.
US citizens:
call for restricting use of "stingray" devices that
track all cell phones in a given area.
US media are
starting to call the cheater's lies "lies".
Juvenile prisoners in Wisconsin get
permanently messed up by solitary
confinement.
Even adults have trouble standing up to that.
The troll's infrastructure plan would construct toll roads chosen
based on how much profit the private owners hope to get from tolls.
Senate Democrats have proposed an alternate infrastructure plan
which doesn't give businesses a big handout.
Proposals for a transition to the post-scarcity society in which work
is not needed.
One problem not touched on is that resources humans need — such as
food, and potable water — are likely to be scarce later this century.
SCROTUS are
planning to prohibit Obamacare insurance from covering
abortions.
This could cause many medical plans to eliminate abortion coverage.
Governments pledged over 15 billion dollars for education of Syrian
refugee children,
then paid only 1/3 of that.
Global Public Sector Corruption Fuels Rise of Populist Politicians,
report
says.
George Monbiot's
proposals to make a democratic system that makes
thoughtful decisions.
Scientists of the US National Parks Service have set up an unofficial
Twitter account
to refute the troll's lies.
In England, women who were unable to care for their children are
offered
help for a fresh start, with the requirement that they use
contraception.
Not having more children turns out to enable many of them to learn
to make
a success of their lives.
I think that people who predictably won't be able to take care of
children have a responsibility to society not to make more of them.
Having children who will be condemned to a life of stress and want is
very bad.
The troll is considering
three potential saboteurs to put on the
Supreme Court.
Each of them could be worse than Scalia.
Don't be taken in by the myth of the suppressed cancer cure.
These so-called "cures" are quackery.
What is true is that the big pharma companies spend a lot
more on sleazy marketing (including "gifts" for doctors) than on
research, and that they direct the research more at chronic conditions
of the wealthy part of the world than at curing diseases common
mainly among poor people.
Washington DC thugs encircled a large group of protesters, then
attacked
them indiscriminately with teargas, grenades and sticks, then
arrested them all and charged them with the felony of "rioting".
I saw reports that some people were breaking windows that night. But
that can't justify indiscriminately charging everyone who was in the
vicinity. Nor, perhaps, such serious charges even against those who
broke windows.
The
targets
of repression include six journalists.
"For people sick of high deductibles,
Republicans offer
high-deductible
[medical] plans as replacements for [Obama's medical insurance
program]."
Mattel is making a device to
monitor children all the time
and report on what they say and what they do.
The troll's choice for the civil rights office at the Justice
Department
is a saboteur. He has worked in favor Republican gerrymandering
and voter suppression.
This is part of the "grab power by hook or by crook" attitude
of US Republicans.
Data brokers sell
all sorts of information about nearly everyone.
Never post any information about anyone else to an internet site
without first consulting that other person. This includes Facebook
(though in principle you
shouldn't let Facebook use you at all).
However, there's a lot of information they get from companies and
services
that you use in a non-anonymous way. Most of those companies and
services
should be required to allow anonymous use.
The few that we need to use, and that need to know who we are, should
not be allowed to give any piece of personal information to anyone.
Not even "anonymized". And that should include government agencies,
except when there is a subpoena for specific people's data.
The troll is adopting
propaganda
practices of North Korea.
Until we get the troll out of office, every day calls for patriotic
devotion. This political note is just one of my acts of patriotic
devotion for today.
The cheater resigned as director of some golf companies but is
still
the owner of them.
This is not enough to make them cease to be a conflict of interest and
a violation of the constitution. It's a mere sham.
Washington DC thugs
arrested
two TV journalists and charged them with "rioting".
The journalists were covering the riot, not rioting, but thugs don't
care about such distinctions.
The US is safe from the TPP, but
other
governments still relish the possibility of subjugating their
countries to foreign companies.
The Treacherous Plutocratic Poison
would
put dooH niboR in charge of any countries that sign it.
The
Center for Disease Control cancelled a summit on global heating
and public health, which was scheduled for February.
The troll has
frozen EPA grants and contracts.
Although the troll opposes the TPP, that doesn't mean he won't
establish harmful trade treaties. Certain
transparency principles in
the negotiation would help avoid that.
When the cheater visited the CIA, he brought along an audience
supporters, apparently not connected with the CIA, to cheer for him
and
give a false impression of support.
The troll's nominee to head the FCC is a Verizon lawyer.
Everything he does will help ISPs against the public.
Tillerson's record of pushing damaging fossil fuels.
Sad to say, he was confirmed by the Senate to head the State
Department.
A bad surveillance bill in Connecticut has a bad purpose:
repression of customers of prostitutes.
This bill would not help those women who consider practicing
prostitution, and would violate the rights of everyone who uses a
hotel in Connecticut.
The troll intends to
revive the blocked Keystone XL and Dakota Access
pipelines.
The article does not make it clear what effect today's executive
orders actually have.
The troll claims to be an "environmentalist".
Self-contradiction is
all in a day's work.
Now if only he would claim to eliminate abortions by opening 1000 new
abortion clinics.
A new tech product
offers parents the chance to impose total
monitoring and
regimentation on their children.
Some progress towards a cease-fire in Syria.
Putin seems to be serious about pushing for a settlement, and has a
chance to achieve it.
The troll may will prevent the neocons from interfering. That would
be good
for Syria.
Protesters are setting up camps to stop the Sabal pipeline in Florida.
They focus on the danger of polluting the area's rivers and lakes, but
that's the least of the worries. If we burn the gas that will be
shipped through that pipeline, those rivers and lakes won't exist,
because the land will become part of the Atlantic Ocean.
Teaching girls they are inferior
starts very young.
A prisoner in Texas was on the verge of dying of malnutrition,
before someone attacked and killed him.
Israel is
massively accelerating colonization of Palestinian
territory.
I have for years supported boycott of products of these colonies, but
these developments are making me consider taking a stronger position.
In states where judges are elected directly,
billionaires can stack
the courts.
This avenue for corruption has
existed for a long time.
It doesn't take billions to sway a judgeship election.
Facebook buys personal data from various data brokers, and correlates
that with what it figures out directly about its useds.
Facebook advises useds that they can tell the data brokers to stop
collecting data about them, but it doesn't ensure that this really
works. After all, no one will punish Facebook for false claims of
that
sort.
US citizens: call on members of Congress to
sign the Lieu-Conyers
letter, which Obama to stop refueling Salafi Arabian planes involved
in the bombardment of Yemen.
US citizens:
Call
on state legislators to oppose a constitutional convention.
US citizens:
call on Congress
to impeach the loser now.
US workers held a strike on Friday to condemn the cheater, who wants to "bring back jobs" but doesn't want the employees to get good working conditions or fair treatment.
Giving homeless people in Australia a chance to speak, while they face the threat of a crackdown.
One way or another, Republican plans to "reform" Medicare and Social Security will screw Americans that aren't rich.
The troll has officially pulled the US out of the Treacherous Plutocratic Poison.
Well, I can't say that the troll never did anything that was good. But our resistance made it possible.
Transcripts describe the torture of Xie Yang, Chinese human rights lawyer.
Jeffrey Beall used to maintain a blog that identified bogus "scientific journals", but he has erased it all, apparently facing legal threats from those predators.
A court decision in Australia narrowed the definition of "personal information" to the point where privacy laws are nearly ineffective.
True protection of privacy requires limiting the accumulation of data about people, not merely limiting how it is used once accumulated.
Tom Price helped a drug company by pressuring the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to downplay a study that reported problems with the company's product.
Clearly the wrong sort of person to be allowed any say in US health care. In other words, just the sort of swamp creature that the troll would put in charge of it.
Families arriving at the US border without a visa are put immediately in immigration prison, where children get shoddy medical care that can kill them.
Obama didn't help non-rich Americans wield political power, but he made them feel (mistakenly) that they were psychologically "empowered".
Alexey Kovalev gives advice to the press about how to cover the cheater, based on experience covering Putin.
One thing we should not do is ponder in kremlinological fashion every hint about what the cheater is thinking, as in this article.
That's a recipe for getting distracted by every little gesture.
Zuckerberg is suing hundreds of people in Hawaii to force them to sell him their land that's in the middle of his large estate.
At the current rate of deforestation, rainforests will all be gone in a century.
They are also in danger of drying out and burning up.
A state in Australia proposes laws to require nightclubs to track and record everyone who enters.
That is an injustice.
If the system checked only for certain known individuals, and did not record anyone else, it would be acceptable.
The end of China's one-child policy raised the birth rate by 8%.
These results show that the one-child policy was making a significant contribution to reducing population growth. Eliminating it was a mistake.
The low birth rate will cause short term inconvenience, but not a disaster. China's population is still increasing, and that is likely to lead to disaster.
This article proposes ways to convince the troll to support activities to help people cope with the short-term effects of global heating.
There's just one giant flaw in this proposal: working on "resilience" is treating the symptoms only. Since the disease of inducing global heating is likely to be fatal to most species and most humans on Earth, what really matters is arresting the progress of the disease, not treating the symptoms.
In the US, it has become customary to condemn parents for any freak accident that happens to their children.
The troll and his trumpettes call their factual lies "alternate facts".
How many people attended the inauguration is of no substantive political importance, but the loser's mystique is based on the claim that he always wins, so he is compelled to deny the inconvenient facts whenever he loses any sort of contest.
Romanians protested a plan to free many prisoners to reduce prison overcrowding. They fear this would be used to free people convicted of corruption.
The Republican Party is the disloyal party, opposed to democracy as well as to the Democrats.
Haldeman's notes prove that Nixon sabotaged President Johnson's Vietnam peace negotiations so as to get himself elected. This was an act of treason.
John Dean gives more explanation of Haldeman's notes and why we can rely on them.
Reagan likewise sabotaged his country (working with Iran) to get himself elected. A few years later, he ransomed terrorists' hostages with arms for Iran, from which he also got money to spend illegally to launch an underground war against Nicaragua. That too was treason, I believe.
Since 2000, Republicans have instead cheated by rigging the elections. After gaining power by hook or by crook, they use it to swindle their country.
China has
prohibited
all unlicensed VPNs.
US farmers are suing to stop the use of
Monsanto's
latest pesticide, designed for certain GMO crops.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington is
suing
to demand that the troll not receive payments from foreign
governments
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
The Dakota Access pipeline means disaster. You must consider
the threats it poses to to drinking water supplies (a likely future
disaster, as pipelines generally leak sooner or later), sacred sites
and indigenous rights, and contribution to global heating and
exacerbation of its now inevitable disaster. If the full range of
threats are included in your environmental study, I’m confident you
will determine that the Dakota Access pipeline must not be
built.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
while (policy continues)
fines *= 2;
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
Various commentators' legal analysis.
Some points to set against the loser's militarism.
There is a correction for item 4: attacks against soldiers of an occupying army are not terrorism. They are, rather, an armed uprising. We need to distinguish armed uprising from terrorism, since both do exist.
Another point worth mentioning is that the US army already is so big that no other army would mess with it. However, no army can be so big that it discourages guerrilla uprising, or terrorism.
UK immigration ignored information about repression in Eritrea in order to reject teenage refugees.
Disturbed Man Gets Past White House Security, Gives Press Conference.
Lawyers' leaders, world wide, rebuke China for arresting and torturing human rights lawyers.
3.5 million people participated in the Women's Marches Saturday, and established contacts they can use in future resistance to the kleptocratic party.
The troll has reintroduced the Reagan gag rule that prohibits US-funded organizations from referring women to abortion providers.
In the past, this rule impacted birth control provision and health care for women and for children. It is also likely to kill thousands of women by leaving them with no safe abortion option.
It will surely encourage population growth and thus increase future poverty.
English Usage is changing so fast that it has become a pitfall for most people — at least on Twitter.
Since I don't use Twitter or SMS, I have never seen most of the terms discussed in the article. Indeed, I don't even recognize, the words that the article describes as "passé". They had their 15 minutes of usage and I never noticed. I don't think I missed much.
I've always refused to adopt the latest fashionable slang words, just as I've refused to adopt the latest fashionable clothing styles. I didn't adopt them when I was young, and I see no reason to start. Why be dragged around by fads?
I still use the word "staff", because "team" means something different to me. The FSF hires staff, and some of the staff belong to various teams.
The FBI is now campaigning in favor of "forfeiture", i.e. punishment without trial.
Although the US is terribly weak on curbing greenhouse emissions, California is pushing harder.
Carmen Ortiz, the prosecutor that hounded Aaron Swartz to death, has retired.
She stretched the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to an extreme interpretation that attacks the rights of everyone in the US. It's too bad she is already gone, because it would have been great have a rally to tell her "Good riddance!"
US citizens: call on Congress to kill the F35 fighter.
US citizens: call on Congress to defend the programs to protect women from domestic violence.
Israel set a new record in 2016 for demolishing Palestinians' homes in areas it has annexed to Jerusalem.
Aggressive questioning of suspects, even if it doesn't reach the level of torture, often elicits false confessions.
So if you think someone knows where a ticking time bomb is, and you want to find it, the last thing you'd want to try is torture.
The US intentionally bombed a hospital in Mosul, saying that PISSI soldiers were firing from it. But the US did not say whether it followed the requirements of international law by warning civilians to flee the area.
Japan's inequality is growing—millions of children there don't get properly fed.
When I was a child, my relatives told me to eat because children in Japan were hungry. In the 1950s, perhaps that was still true. How sad that it is true once again. Japan has plenty of food; what it lacks is a progressive government that aims to reduce inequality.
Americans that oppose the troll must aim for more than just to stop him from making things worse.
Amazon and Google are competing for the chance to listen to people's homes.
Be wise—choose "none of the above".
Republicans in several states are passing laws to ban abortions after 20 weeks. This would force some women to carry gravely damaged fetuses to term.
The legislators cite junk science as an excuse.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe will be imprisoned for five years for working with the BBC. According to Iran, the BBC is some sort of plot to overthrow the government. Her trial was a sham.
Any Islamist government is the enemy of human rights, so overthrowing it would generally be an advance for humanity.
Interviews with participants in Saturday's Women's Protest, around the world.
The infant lies even about what we can all see: the size of the crowd at the inauguration.
The infant's press secretary repeated the lies. It is an outright declaration of war against the idea of truth.
I reject the use of the term "Groucho Marxist" to describe this. Groucho's comedy wasn't a lie, it was humorous fiction. His good name should not be tarred by association with the troll.
The proper term for overt political contempt for truth is Orwell's term, "blackwhiting".
Israel, profiting from the troll's backing, just announced plans for a large colonization project in Palestinian territory annexed and called part of Jerusalem.
Varoufakis: as nationalist trumpery disputes power with the neoliberal globalizers, only an international progressive movement can represent the people.
State-supported business globalization means that ships operating in British waters can hire Indian sailors for a pittance, and then refuse to pay them the pittance.
This is no unwanted side effect. Knocking down pay for workers is the purpose of business globalization, and governments that support it compete to undercut living standards around the world.
In response to the massacre last June, American gays are organizing to campaign for gun control.
Jewish institutions in the US are receiving lots of bomb threats.
American antisemites got a big boost from the troll's campaign.
Criticism of Israel's policy now leads people to false history such as denial of the holocaust.
It's a non sequitur, but that doesn't stop people from following it.
Israel won't end the occupation/siege of Palestine for simple justice, will it do so to avert future antisemitism?
This is comparable to the US and Guantanamo. Imprisonment without trial, whether in Guantanamo or Israel, is not only a great wrong, it also provokes hostility. In the case of the US, Guantanamo recruits supporters for jihadi terrorist movements around the world.
The White House web site now promotes Melania Trump's branded products.
That's the troll's totally shameless approach to conflict of interest.
In China, basically anyone can get full tracking data about anyone for under 15 dollars.
The loser is attacking science massively.
Right-wing disinformation includes a phony site which pretends to recruit paid phony protesters against the troll.
It is standard practice for the right wing to falsely accuse their opponents of what they themselves do. The troll's "press conference" had paid supporters.
The Tea Party used fake "grass roots" support.
A supporter of the troll wrote an essay that clearly presents his thinking, which he says his community mostly shares.
The people know the facts of their experience, but they have been sold misguided explanations for them. For instance, they blame welfare, rather than war, for high taxes, and they don't realize that they pay so much because businesses and rich people don't pay their share.
Everyone: call on NBC not to hide white nationalism behind the innocent-sounding term "alt-right".
US citizens: call on the Office of Government Ethics to release all documents about Trump's conflicts of interest.
North Dakota Republicans propose to legalize hitting protesters with cars. Ostensibly it is only for unintentional collisions, but it is easy for the driver to claim falsely that it was unintentional. Also, it would encourage drivers to be intentionally careless, and intentionally risk hitting someone.
To resist the loser's way of thinking, we should not resist his approach to language.
Half a million people protested in Washington DC today.
The Tories' threat against the EU is to make itself a puppet state of the rich and trash the lives of nonrich Britons.
The Tories are lower than vermin—Aneurin Bevan.
The troll used the inauguration as another bullying campaign rally and a way to reward the investors in his presidency. His speech misrepresented the situation, as usual.
The press must not be distracted by his bullshitting and manipulation—it must focus on the issues raised by what he does.
Five Takeaways From Scott Pruitt's Nomination Hearing That Should Worry Scientists.
Melbourne, Australia, is threatening to attack homeless people for sleeping or begging on the streets.
Where are they supposed to go? A grave?
Arguing that Facebook can't deal with the fake news problem without taking political stands.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
However, what political stands would Facebook take? It is not an upstanding organization. It is a business that aims to make more and more money.
My conclusion is that we can't tolerate a business as influential as Facebook.
The loser is encouraging nationalisms that are sure to lead to conflicts.
US hegemony kept many of these conflicts down, but it has been getting increasingly ineffective ever since Dubya's invasion of Iraq.
"The American left will be reborn under President Trump."
On the meaning of citizenship and democracy.
Immigrants are not a burden on the national treasury, because they contribute to it. There are, however, two resources that they strain: housing space and farmland.
The footprint on housing and farmland of one immigrant is no different from the burden of one native-born inhabitant. To limit those footprints is a matter of curbing the future population, not immigration as such.
Canadians intending to march in Washington today were blocked from entering the US, as immigration agents stretched the truth to generate an excuse.
French and British people coming with them were permanently barred from the US.
Agents also searched their car and phones for hours—obviously for no reason but to harass them. The agents glory in the power to harass with impunity. They are a disgrace to their country.
Don't forget the unprovoked beating of Canadian writer Peter Watts when he tried to visit the US.
The loser's first act, as president, was to raise taxes on homebuyers.
UK universities are imposing surveillance and strict censorship on student and faculty email systems.
They require users to agree to this as a condition of using those systems. It is very important for people to respond by refusing ever to connect to them, even once.
Two Britons may be imprisoned for swallowing a goldfish.
What next—prison for boiling a lobster?
Washington DC thugs attacked peaceful protesters with tear gas on Thursday evening.
Extreme weather has killed most of Spain's vegetable crop, so there will be a shortage of fresh vegetables in Europe for a few months.
Global heating makes extreme weather more common. At least this shortage won't kill anyone, but now imagine an equal shortage of grain. That will happen frequently in a decade or two.
Thugs lie, lie, and lie. It's all to protect and serve…themselves.
Blue Lies Matter!
Mallinckrodt raised the price of a drug for infant epilepsy from $50 to $34,000.
The loser wanted to militarize the US in spirit with a Soviet-style parade of tanks and missiles in Washington DC.
The UK illegally rushed deportations of 10,000 asylum seekers, some of whom were sent back to be tortured.
Constant monitoring of employees, while on duty and even when off, adds up to STASI capitalism.
In the US: join a rally on Tuesday Jan 24 against the troll's swamp creature cabinet.
A sit-in protest by "swamp creatures" against Government Sachs.
SCROTUS say they want to "replace" Obama's medical insurance plan, but their design goals lead inevitably to failure.
Over Half of World's Wild Primate Species Face Extinction, report reveals.
Protests against the Dakota Access pipeline are continuing, and so is violence by thugs against protesters.
Obama has never seriously tried to end imprisonment without trial, the central injustice of the Guantanamo prison.
He has freed 200 prisoners that were held without trial, but by accepting the idea that some 25 prisoners can't be tried or freed, he has endorsed that unjust practice.
The US has a moral obligation to try or release every single one of them, without exceptions.
The loser confused two EU "presidents".
Iraq has recaptured the eastern side of Mosul from PISSI, aside from a few pockets.
However, in Syria, PISSI forces surrounded the airport in besieged Deir ez-Zor, which will make air supply of the city difficult.
The EFF calls on Congress to limit the power of EULAs.
I take a stronger position: EULAs should be legally void.
2016 was the hottest year since at least 115,000 years ago.
We will have an even hotter year, next time there is an El Niño event.
US citizens: call on Senator Booker to support legalizing import of pharmaceuticals from Canada.
DeVos wants schools to have guns for the sake of shooting "potential grizzlies" in the school.
When it comes to protection from bears, a fence is safer for the children (and for the bears) than a gun.
Many reasons why Betsy DeVos should not be head of the Department of Education.
The Paris peace conference is not a serious effort to bring about peace between Israel and Palestine.
A serious effort would require convincing the Israeli government to be serious about peace, and that requires some sort of pressure.
Israeli soldiers attacked a nonviolent protest in Bethlehem.
I think it is foolish to make a fuss about a corpse—but even when a protest concerns a foolish issue, that doesn't justify attacking the protesters.
The Israeli army is destroying 2000 olive trees belonging to Palestinians to make a new road to one of the illegal colonies on Palestinian territory.
The US abortion rate has dropped considerably, but Republicans will not be happy about this, because it is due to more use of contraception.
And Obama's medical insurance system helped pay for it.
Republicans don't actually care about babies, they just want to punish women for having sex.
Cities are investigating how to build flood resilience.
Coping with sea level rise is a short-term approach. For the long term, it's an hopeless— excuse for not confronting the problem.
Several techniques that the troll uses to manipulate opponents.
I suggest that the first step in resisting is to ignore his empty spectacle. Don't show footage of him, and let some analyst report once a month on what he said during that time. Pay attention to what he actually does.
Israeli thugs, suppressing protests at the demolition of Arab homes, saw a Palestinian teacher driving a car. They panicked and assumed he was going to attack them, so they shot him dead.
Pudzer's restaurant chains have a particularly high level of sexual harassment, perhaps inspired by his personal attitude towards women.
A community in Puerto Rico collectivized its land to resist gentrification.
General Kelly, nominated by the loser to head the Department of Homeland Security, omitted two more business relationships from his conflict of interest forms.
Obama has commuted Chelsea Manning's sentence. She is supposed to be released from prison on May 17.
I hope the troll won't find some excuse to undo this.
I don't agree with those who say Manning has "suffered enough," because I don't think she deserved to be punished at all. Her releases to the public were a service to justice.
Obamas's War on Whistleblowers launched the US in the direction of covering up wrongdoing rather than correcting it.
This will give the troll a head start on repression.
Companies have a chance to bribe each new president by sponsoring inauguration activities. This year is no different.
The Fight Inequality Alliance.
A Republican congresscritter offered to meet with his constituents, but when he discovered they were all very unhappy with his vote to eliminate Obama's medical insurance law, he snuck out the back.
Most Americans have fallen into economic hardship, shown clearly by a wide range of statistics.
Martin Luther King, Jr., puts clearly why the laws of today's Republican-dominated states are unjust. Search for "being denied the right to vote."
As long as the loser knows he owns certain hotels in foreign countries, that will prejudice his foreign policy decisions.
Exxon's frequent business with the State Department constitutes a big conflict of interest for Tillerson.
A Pakistani mother has been convicted of murdering her daughter. The daughter had married the man of her own choice.
This crime was horrible, and convicting someone for this crime is a big step forward for Pakistan. However, no one should be executed.
Beware the perversion known as philanthrocapitalism—the idea that civil society, charity and mutual help should be conceptualized and structured on business lines.
Russia is accused of running a disinformation and confusion campaign to keep Sweden from joining NATO.
The wealthy powers, together with the Gates Foundation, have prohibited informal sale and sharing of seeds. Only registered varieties may be sold now.
Farmers who continue traditional practices face 12 years in prison and a fine that no Tanzanian farmer can afford.
It is a shame that the article uses the term "intellectual property rights", since that spreads confusion.
It also uses the term "patented", but plant variety monopolies do not work like patents. The differences are bigger than the similarities.
Several Pakistani dissidents who criticize the power of the military were kidnaped recently.
One suspects the military did it.
The internet age witnesses the loss of effective democracy, and the internet is helping the process along.
Your Private Medical Data Is for Sale.
Clinics sell it in "anonymized" form, but data brokers combine that with prescription data to figure out who it pertains to.
I think drug stores should be forbidden to release any data about prescriptions they fill to anyone under any circumstances, except to patients about themselves, to state agencies, or under subpoena.
The richest 8 people, together, now own more than the poorest half of humanity.
The article is mistaken in excusing Mr Gates. He got his money through proprietary (unjust) software, and substantial parts of his "philanthropy" are harmful meddling.
The Gates Foundation also acts as a tax-deductible marketing arm for Microsoft. It buys Windows licenses from Microsoft at the official price (though they cost Microsoft zero), then "donates" them to schools where they teach students dependence on Windows.
On building local militance to challenge elite power.
Lavabit is reopening, with new systems to protect privacy from Big Brother.
The troll's cabinet of saboteurs represent the plutocratic establishment that he said he'd protect people from.
I pity the people who chose to trust a bullshitter.
Amnesty International: European countries are imposing tyranny and injustice in the name of "security".
The incorruptible judge in charge of Brazil's corruption investigation died in a plane crash, and his replacement will be chosen by President Corruption.
Laci Taylor's baby died while she went to get a bottle for it. Now she is charged with "endangering a child" — taking her eyes off the baby while going for the bottle.
Why is a changing table a dangerous place to leave a baby for a few minutes?
Researchers are planning how to continue research about gun violence despite opposition from the NRA and SCROTUS, which prefer ignorance to knowledge.
Some of Trump's campaign team are being investigated for deals with Russia.
Thugs in Bristol, England, tased 63-year-old Judah Adunbi as he was trying to open the gate into his yard.
The thugs mistook Mr Adunbi for a criminal suspect, perhaps because the two had the same skin color, and then approached him in an aggressive way.
Ironically, Mr Adunbi was part of a program to improve relations between the thugs and the black community. No one could succeed at that task while the thugs' own behavior works in the opposite direction.
Armies from neighboring countries have entered Gambia to force the old president to hand over power to the newly elected one.
The Iraqi Kurds are permanently claiming territory that they recaptured from PISSI, and preparing to defend it if necessary.
Here's a wild idea. The Iraqi Sunni Arabs feel oppressed by the majority Shi'ites, and this hostility led them to ally with al Qa'ida and partly to support PISSI. They have learned now that PISSI is no protector for them, but if the oppression continues it will continue to breed terrorism.
I wonder if a union between the Sunni Arabs and the Kurds could work out better. The Kurds are less numerous than the Shi'ites, so in such a union the Arabs would not be at such a disadvantage.
There are many reasons why this might not work, but I may as well mention it.
Australia's Conservative Government Fiddles on Climate Policy While the Country Burns.
Farmers around the world see how effects of global heating create new difficulties for them. Occasionally there is an opportunity, but mostly the effects are negative because their farming practices were honed for the old conditions. In addition, extreme weather almost never benefits people, and one general effect of global heating is to increase the frequency of extreme weather.
Parts of Bangladesh are disappearing under the rising sea. 25 million people will lose their land by 2050 due to global heating.
The advance of the sea will not stop in 2050.
Our carbon emissions make one side of the vice squeezing the people of Bangladesh. Their own reproduction is the other. Bangladesh's population is still increasing, and most of the children born now will face a disaster before they are old. Bangladesh needs to cut its birth rate to almost nothing, and we must help.
Resistance and refusal have played important political roles in the past. They may be necessary against the troll and the saboteurs.
Republicans in many states are trying to impose harsh penalties on nonviolent protests, following Putin's example of repressing a Greenpeace protest.
SCROTUS want to give large tracts of US government lands to states, which would probably hand it to rich people.
A Republican operative fabricated a false accusation of vote-rigging against Clinton.
Now that Libyan dissident Abdel Hakim Belhaj has won the right to sue the British ministers that handed him over to Qadhafi to be tortured, the government must give him the apology that he deserves.
The troll and SCROTUS are destroying the legitimacy of the US government.
US citizens: phone the White House on Jan 23 and remind the troll he said he would protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
The White House comments line is 202-456-1111.
Rolls-Royce and other UK companies lobbied to weaken new rules against bribing officials in other countries.
Elizabeth Warren: Trump's Nominees Putting Us All at Risk by Ignoring Ethics Laws.
Google has censored a Chrome add-on that clicks automatically on all ads. The add-on is an attempt to screw advertising on the web.
Censorship is just as bad when Google does it as when Apple does it.
The troll's appointees for national "security" include people associated with face recognition software.
This is dangerous for American's security against tyranny.
The Texas law that forced many abortion clinics to close was very effective at making abortion inaccessible.
Without Path from Protest to Power, the Women's March Will End Up like Occupy.
Julian Assange promised to put himself in US hands if Obama commuted Chelsea Manning's sentence. Obama did so, and Assange confirms he is willing to face possible US prosecution.
It makes no sense at all to me.
The last interglacial period, which ended 116,000 years ago, had global temperatures comparable to today's. Sea level eventually rose by 6 to 9 meters.
That's enough to inundate many coastal cities. But our global heating will reach even higher temperatures and melt even more ice.
See New York City, Washington DC, and Boston while they is still here.
I'm not the only one who noticed that the troll committed a felony by interfering in US diplomacy. Congresscritters have called on the attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate this.
Unfortunately, if she wants to do this now, she has little time to find and appoint one.
Mnuchin tried to conceal an investment fund the Cayman Islands.
Note to Britain: "If you thought Brussels was tough, wait until corporate America writes the rules."
The article has fallen into the "intellectual property" confusion in a big way. There is no "pharmaceutical copyright" — pharmaceuticals are covered by patent law, which is totally different, and by other specialized laws that restrict generic drugs. If a statement uses the term "intellectual property", it is wise to be suspicious of it.
Scotland aims to eliminate fossil fuel electricity by 2032.
Due to global heating, the annual rate of flood disasters in Europe has more than doubled since 1980.
Meanwhile, in Egypt, Alexandria is gradually losing to the rising Mediterranean.
See global heating at work on the Arctic and Greenland ice.
Animals ranging from birds to seals to butterflies are endangered by global heating. Here are some examples, including one that is already extinct as a result.
Climate [Mayhem] Will Affect All Of Us. So Why the Lack of Urgency?
In the UK under Tory rule, poor people have to pay extra to heat their homes.
A sensible country would invest in the energy efficiency of every home as well as giving the poor what they need.
The details of the plot to murder Archbishop Óscar Romero have been found and published, but those who arranged it (and thus started the civil war in El Salvador) still enjoy impunity.
China's development of renewable energy is already massive, and it is ramping up fast.
China alone can't avoid disaster if the troll and his saboteur cabinet insist on rushing towards it.
Everyone:
call on the British
Commonwealth to take action against slavery in its member states.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
The FBI takes $5 billion per year from people it chooses to suspect of crimes, without convicting them first. It gives around 1% of that to some possibly worthwhile local projects — and that's supposed to make the theft ok.
US citizens:
call
on the Senate to reject Pruitt as saboteur-in-chief of the EPA.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
We need an independent investigation of the troll's relationship with Putin — whether the claims are true or not.
Australia has set up a computerized system to take back welfare payments from citizens who were (supposedly) overpaid. However, the system is unreliable and generates lots of false accusations. The victims, usually broke, are then cruelly dunned.
The problem is deeper than that. A whistleblower reports that the staff have been ordered not to give victims information about errors that the victims have not noticed, or correct any.
Clearly someone intentionally squeezes those poor people for money they do not owe. Maybe the errors are not entirely errors.
A senator wants to legalize such leaks.
US citizens: call on Congress to defend net neutrality.
Rich people extract far more wealth from poor countries (via tax havens and cheating) than the countries receive in aid.
The troll's "press conference" was a phony rally, with paid staff to cheer, meant to punish and intimidate the press.
Akram Shibly, US citizen, reports being attacked by US border thugs when he refused to give them the password to his mobile phone.
We should not allow public infrastructure repair to be privatized by [the loser].
The Privacy Threat From Always-On Microphones Like The Amazon Echo
The article omits to mention two elephants in the room:
US Workers Making Bisphenol-A Have Enormous Loads of It in Them.
In China, mobs of bullies now attack people that disagree with the official political line.
These mobs are organized with state support, much as Tea Party mobs in the US were supported by funds from wealthy sponsors.
The tacit support of the thugs is a dead giveaway.
Over the long term, China will weaken itself this way—through groupthink.
Several government policies that make it hard for Americans to move to the places that have jobs. One of the worst is zoning law.
Zoning that blocks development of concentrated (efficient) housing benefits those who have already got a house, while screwing those who have not. They make thousands of Americans homeless, and millions live in small rooms far from work. We should get rid of it.
The repeal of Obama's medical coverage system would give a 7-million-dollar tax cut to each of 400 very rich Americans.
It would shaft millions poor Americans, but you can't make a rich person richer without breaking somebody.
10 banks involved with the Dakota Access Pipeline are refusing to meet with pipeline opponents.
If you have any money in these banks, how about moving it out?
A study concludes that threats against sharing have little effect on how much income movies make.
Republicans in Arizona have proposed a law to prohibit public schools from teaching ethnic studies or promote social justice.
I agree that courses aimed at specific social groups have no place in public school, because public school should teach solidarity and respect across groups. Courses about specific social groups are legitimate if they are meant for everyone.
Over 11000 Australians have pledged to join in civil disobedience against the giant proposed coal mine and other businesses that support it.
This is in the face of repression by a state that has pledged itself to denialism.
GM salmon threatening wild fish populations Genetically modified salmon interbreed with wild trout to produce offspring that can drive down the wild populations of trout and salmon.
The fact that the offspring are infertile won't stop them from causing great damage.
Comey refused to speak privately to Congress about the investigation of the loser's ties with Russia.
Quite a contrast with speaking publicly about a step in the investigation of insignificant Clinton emails.
So-called master media manipulators are playing to media that beg to be manipulated.
Haiti's debt is increasing and it can't possibly pay.
France should return the money that it took from Haiti in exchange for recognizing the freedom of the slaves there.
A nuclear engineer who reads the secret trouble reports says we are lucky that we haven't had a nuclear power plant disaster since Three Mile Island.
The inspectors are made impotent by law, and plants which were designed to last 40 years are degrading so that they will be distinctly less safe.
Trump and the Dangers of Secret Law
Obama gave many agencies, including the FBI and DEA, access to raw intercepts made by the NSA of foreigners' communications with Americans.
Obama has removed US sanctions against trading with Sudan, claiming improvements in its respect for human rights.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch say there were no improvements.
Scott Pruitt, the troll's choice to run the EPA, blocked the approval of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court as a tool to raise money from polluters.
Merrick Garland was a centrist, not the sort of person I particularly want to have on the Supreme Court. But that does nothing to excuse Pruitt.
The European Parliament is considering giving some robots a limited legal status as persons.
If AI continues to advance, this and more will be necessary. I don't think we are there yet.
Tillerson illegally directed millions of dollars to ALEC's lobbying.
Fiat-Chrysler diesel cars have software that misleads emissions tests.
Shame on Democrats such as Cory Booker that voted to support high drug prices in the US.
Prisoners with disabilities are often "protected" with solitary confinement, which damages them even more than it damages other prisoners.
Russia is neither free nor just nor friendly, but neither is it a demon.
Arguing that the collapse of civilization is now inevitable.
The FBI subverted tech support employees of Best Buy to snoop on customers' data.
Performers on "reality" TV shows are being cruelly manipulated.
You have to wonder whether a man who would be the host of such a show can be trusted with public office.
6 more Volkswagen executives have been charged with fraud.
Official unemployment figures give a misleading picture of "recovery"; they don't include the people who go through low-paid precarious part-time temporary jobs.
Erdoğan is changing Turkey's constitution to increase his power permanently.
Some manufacturers are trying to impose arbitration requirements on purchasers of products.
It should be illegal to impose an arbitration requirement on either a customer or a worker (whether employee or contractor).
Whatever elements of sovereignty the UK manages to recover by leaving the EU, it is likely to surrender if it agrees to any new business-supremacy treaties.
The troll is the most fragile of snowflakes; he lashes out whenever a sunbeam falls on his continent-wide "safe space".
Martin Luther King, Jr: champion of economic equality and ending the Vietnam War.
The distraction-marketing complex can turn the name of anything important into a mere excuse for sales.
Atheist Americans of Muslim background feel threatened by the troll.
The FBI started questioning surprised American Muslims, based on no substantial grounds for suspicion, last year.
Tillerson's last line of resistance against saving Earth's ecosphere is the claim that global heating will go slower than forecasts say. However, new scientific discoveries point in the opposite direction.
Europe is moving to mass surveillance, with some terrorist acts as an excuse.
Competition has finally delivered a much cheaper equivalent for the gouging EpiPen.
That it took such a long time for this to happen shows that our system of competition in making medicines is not working very well. I speculate that this has to do with the amount of concentration in the pharma industry.
What to expect if the loser follows Putin's example of holding pressure rallies and calling them "press conferences".
What the loser says is of no importance, so the serious press should ignore these rallies the way it ignores his other rallies.
Bahrain's prison, where dissidents are tortured into false confessions as an excuse to execute them, gets help from the UK in covering this up.
Netanyahu calls the Paris peace talks "rigged against Israel", presumably because the countries involved have a serious intention to work for a two-state peace agreement. He would say that against any serious efforts. The only kind of peace talks he has ever been accepted are pretend talks, guaranteed to achieve nothing.
Since Israel's colonization of the West Bank is the biggest obstacle to peace, achieving peace must be based on convincing Israel to undo the colonization. Given that most Israelis are no longer to trade land for peace, I think only external pressure can achieve this.
In the US: if you know of a McDonald's that has replaced human order-takers with computers, stand in front for an hour handing out leaflets.
My idea for a leaflet text:
Take your business where they employ humans instead of robots.
You might have a better idea.
The troll has rejected no only truth but consistency. He bullies people weaker than him while claiming to be the victim.
I have a suggestion for the press. Ignore the specific things that the loser says — they are meaningless bullshit anyway — and focus on what he does.
US citizens: tell the loser you oppose the Bayer-Monsanto merger.
With Javascript disabled, you will need to use the Salsalabs fix.
Everyone: call on US journalists to refused to be herded or controlled by the troll.
ePrivacy: [European] Commission's Weak Proposal Forecasts Harsh Debates.
FCC Report Clearly Says AT&T & Verizon Are Violating Net Neutrality — And Nobody Is Going To Do A Damn Thing About It.
Tillerson had the gall to deny the existence of the fossil fuel subsidies that Exxon receives.
Thugs that commit crimes, in many parts of the US, are protected by union contracts from proper investigation.
A study found evidence that using a phone to get information tends to make people distrust strangers.
The article's title says "your smartphone", presuming in effect that you have one, and that you will continue to have one even after learning more reason not to have one.
The foolish author also says that we "consume" information. How silly.
If you're suffering from tech-induced isolation, the remedy is less technology, not more.
Fanatic "child protectors" in California have convicted a father of "child endangerment" for punishing his son by making him to walk a mile (on a path he walks frequently).
Assad, with Iran's support, is colonizing parts of Syria from which Syrian Sunnis have fled.
Uber could destroy public transit, leaving many people no choice except to be tracked.
We can make this less likely by boycotting Uber now.
Russian yoga teacher Dmitry Ugay has been charged with "illegal missionary activity". Apparently Russia's mad crackdown on human rights had gone insanely far.
The self-styled "inventor of email" is suing Techdirt for publishing the true history of email, which existed many years earlier.
He claims to have made this invention in 1979. I developed software for email in 1974 or 75: the program Rmail, a reimplementation of which I am using now to read my mail.
Techdirt could be destroyed by the costs before it can win, and we would all losts.
Does Betsy DeVos Understand the Impact of Poverty and Trauma on Children's Learning?
US citizens: tell the Senate to oppose Mnuchin.
The Greek and Turkish parts of Cyprus are basically ready to reunite. However, Erdoğan spoiled it.
He could be using Cyprus as a bargaining chip.
US citizens: call on the EPA to
ban Chlorpyrifos.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
The Netherlands will veto any trade deal with the UK which makes it a tax haven.
Why not demand in addition that the UK force its dependencies, such as Jersey, to stop acting as tax havens?
Contempt for truth and fact has undermined many areas of life; that it has done so in politics is perhaps the crowning achievement.
US citizens: call on NBC to cut its business relationship with the troll.
EU citizens: support SaveTheLink.
The Justice Department has launched an inquiry into whether FBI director Comey violated official policy with his premature announcement about Clinton.
Too bad they waited till after the election.
The Justice Department made a consent decree with the Baltimore thug department to reduce violence against citizens.
Sad to say, the troll and Sessions might cancel it.
Tillerson wants to give more "intelligence" support to Salafi Arabia's bombardment of Yemen.
However, Salafi Arabia uses such intelligence to attack civilians.
Salafi Arabia's world-wide Islamist propaganda engine is at the root of today's Islamist threat.
The troll's "plan" to deal with conflicts of interest is a failure on all levels.
Buzzfeed published the Trump-Putin dossier knowing and saying that it was unsubstantiated. This has raised a controversy about what the press should do.
Its author has now been identified and is a former UK intelligence officer generally considered credible.
That is no proof that it is true, but I do think that gives it some more credibility. The author does not claim that every point is a certainty, only that they are credible intelligence.
An additional point in favor is that the troll seems to be giving Putin exactly what those documents say Putin wanted.
The troll, in his first press conference after stealing the election, bullied reporters and threatened to have one thrown out of the room.
When the troll bullies people, his aim is to intimidate. "I'm so powerful that I can break every rule and no one can stop me."
Hong Kong's respect for human rights deteriorated in 2016, to the point where the government now refuses to talk with Amnesty International about rights issues.
The corruptor's nominee for head of Homeland Security forgot to mention that he is an executive in a lobbying firm.
Tillerson is talking about a sharp military confrontation with China in the disputed South China Sea.
My proposal to resolve that dispute is to get all the countries involved to agree not to extract any oil from the region. With that in place, I think they will have little trouble agreeing about sovereignty.
The coral in Sekisei lagoon in Okinawa has been devastated by bleaching which killed 3/4 of the coral there.
Australia wants to replace a very dirty coal power plant with a plant to use it to generate liquid hydrogen.
Burning the liquid hydrogen won't emit any CO2, but the process of generating the hydrogen will, so this may not do any good for avoiding global disaster.
Mexico's president vows not to pay for the wall that the loser wants to build on the frontier.
I don't see anything wrong with building a wall there. (I doubt it is a good use of the money it would cost.) However, demanding that Mexico pay for it is something that no proud people could stand.
Employees of Microsoft, whose job is to monitor and delete videos of violence, say they have got PTSD from the experience.
I can believe it, but it may not be easy to avoid. Perhaps if each person does this for just an hour a day it would be easier to bear.
The troll threatens to put big tariffs on US companies that produce their goods in other countries, but his daughter's company is mysteriously exempt.
The UK proposes to start bombing people based on vague information, as the US does.
Giving money directly to poor people in poor countries is an effective part of foreign aid.
Progressives in Congress asked Obama to finish up closing the Guantanamo prison.
Obama should simply release all the prisoners there—including the handful that have been tried and the few that might be tried. Giving them fair trials for their crimes would not be wrong, but it is better to release them just to get the prison closed.
Supposing 10 or 20 of them would join PISSI or al Qa'ida, their contribution would be insignificant compared to the thousands that have already joined those organizations based partly on rage at what the Guantanamo prison represents—or compared to the thousands that continue to join them for the same reason.
Department of Energy finally releases new guidelines to protect scientists from political pressure.
The troll can abolish them, but it will be one more step to discredit him.
Proposed Secretary of State Tillerson says he doesn't know anything about Putin's human rights record and partially denies global heating.
Trump's trainwreck press conference ushers in a clueless presidency.
By putting his children in control of his businesses—children that sometimes join in policy discussions—the big debtor continues to retain effective control over them. Thus, the conflict of interest remains fully active.
The Philippines has rejected building a theme park on an unspoiled island.
Bravo!
Chicago thugs officially found to frequently use unlawful force, especially against blacks, and then cover it up.
WhatsApp has a back door that the company can use to read the plaintext of messages.
This should not come as a surprise. Nonfree software for encryption is never trustworthy.
Billionaire Polluters has been found to have caused the big spill through recklessness.
US citizens: tell the troll: Sell your assets, put them in a blind trust, and release your tax returns.
US citizens: phone your senators (both of them) at 877-959-6082 and call on them to vote against Sessions for attorney general.
One reason to cite is that he wants to escalate the war on marijuana. Another is that he threatens to undo the progress on restraining the violence of local thugs. And he doesn't care about sexual assault. And another is he concealed a private business interest. There are more.
Democrats can turn the Democratic Party progressive again by participating at the local level.
Some humans are born intermediate between male and female. In the 20th century, standard practice was to do surgery on them as infants to make them resemble one or the other.
The UK's immigration bureaucracy is driven by the goal of excluding as many foreigners as possible, grasping for any possible excuse to make procedures hard to satisfy.
I think the words used by the UK about the negotiation sound worse than the position policy really is. It is valid for the UK to say, "We will recognize the rights of EU citizens already living in the UK to stay in the UK if the EU recognizes the same rights for UK citizens already living in other EU countries." If the EU says the same, they could sign a preliminary exit agreement to this effect. Whichever side refuses to sign would bear the moral onus.
It was difficult to be a neutral journalist in Donetsk, where each side was inclined to punish those who reported stories embarrassing to it.
Christians in India face increasing persecution by the dominant Hindus.
New York Governor Cuomo plans to eliminate tuition fees for non-rich college students in state universities.
I agree that we must make it feasible for all capable students to go to college, but a substantial fraction of people are not capable students, and they still should be able to have a decent life.
Sessions is considering undermining court orders aimed at protecting citizens from thugs' violence.
The water supply in Flint is not yet lead-free, but Republican officials are rushing to skip required tests and declare it safe.
US citizens: phone your senators in favor of Sanders's budget amendment to prevent cuts in Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid.
Progressives have abandoned the fight against offshoring, so that now the troll gets to claim credit for whatever good happens.
But there is another angle. The whole idea of plutocratic globalization is that countries compete to draw business away from other countries by bowing down ever more to business. The roll proposes to do that, and businesses expect it. In the short term, this will draw more business to the US.
In the long term, the concessions that achieve this will reduce the funds that the government needs to build infrastructure, help the poor, provide medical care, and so on. And not just in the US, but globally, as other countries compete with the US.
An executive of VolksWagen is being prosecuted for cheating on emissions tests.
Prosecuting individuals is crucial to convincing companies to stop the abuses. The fact that the person being prosecuted is an executive makes it even better.
The troll intends to let China have potential good jobs in green energy that the US could have had.
The article is mistaken in equating China's creation of 13 million jobs to a loss of 13 million jobs in the US. I expect most of those jobs will be in China simply because they are setting up local facilities in China.
But the overall point is valid: investing in green energy is a very effective way to make jobs, and some of those jobs are up for grabs to the country that invests to take the lead.
Food not Bombs activists have been arrested for giving food to homeless people in Tampa.
An upper limit on salary can effectively promote equality. A high tax rate on high incomes, as under Republican President Eisenhauer, also works.
More about Corbyn's proposal, which would apply to government contractors.
Many US businesses implore the troll to take action to curb global heating.
Medical marijuana rescues some people from a life of hell.
The UK's supposed "economic recovery" applies only to homeowners in London and the southeast.
The Afghan State no longer officially represses women heavily, but they still face lots of repression there.
Romania's anti-corruption campaign has a 92% conviction rate because the trials are faulty.
The guards at Rykers Island jail have a tendency to grope women coming to visit prisoners. It's illegal, but the guards don't seem to learn that.
Corbyn calls for radical action to limit rapidly growing inequality of incomes.
Global heating denialists still refer to the so-called "pause" that never really happened.
Jill Stein reports on how her requested recounts were stymied by a series of bureaucratic obstacles, often arbitrary and inexplicable, as well as high fees.
Using computers to count paper ballots is reliable if they can be checked with a recount. At present, in the US, that is impossible if local politicians (usually Republicans) want to stop it. As a result, rigging an election by fiddling with a ballot-reader is as effective as rigging it in a direct-voting machine.
US citizens: On Jan 23, phone the White House at 202-456-1111 and call on the loser to keep his promise to protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
SCROTUS displays blatant support for corruption in multiple ways.
A change in House rules allows congresscritters to conceal some of their papers from ethics investigations.
Leaked memos say that the troll has been feeding Putin intelligence for 8 years, partly because he is being blackmailed, and that his lawyer helped arrange the cracking of Democratic Party sites.
That lawyer says the memos are phony.
I have insufficient basis to reach a conclusion, but the idea of blackmailing the troll by threatening to show that he had sex with prostitutes in a bed Obama had slept in seems implausible to me. I'd expect the troll to crow about that as if it were some sort of victory for him.
More analysis of the credibility of this report.
Changes in society, especially in the nature of work, discourage people from joining organizations which meet physically and can take political action. That's super-convenient for the rich.
The Luddites destroyed high-efficiency weaving machines because the factory owners used them to cut wages and starve the poor.
The same thing is happening today. Worker productivity in the US has soared since 1980, but the rich take all the benefit.
I've read that some McDonalds outlets in NYC have replaced service personnel with keyboards. If you see one, take your business to a place that employs humans rather than robots.
The only way to avoid the violent fight against robots is to win by nonviolent resistance now.
Rex Tillerson is big oil personified. The damage he can do is immense.
The infant wants to put more people in Guantanamo and torture them.
Why? Perhaps the same reason other infants tear the wings off butterflies.
In a setback for freedom of the press, persistent government harassment has pressured Backpage.com to shut down its adult advertisement page.
Kamala Harris failed in one prosecution, so she constructed another excuse, and the company couldn't continue to resist.
Under the most pessimistic scenario, we have just one year to take stong action to avert an eventual 1.5C of global heating.
A more optimistic scenario says we have 4 years, which means the troll can assure the collapse of civilization (some while after his lifetime) either way.
Poor countries don't adopt measures to reduce smoking, because tobacco companies pressure and mislead them.
In Racists Anonymous, people work on trying reduce their own personal racism.
It is common for landlords to offer women a lower rent in exchange for sex. Some of them try to go beyond just offering.
I don't think it is wrong to offer a room in exchange for sex, if it is offered honestly. The problem is when rents get so high and unaffordable that many people have no real option to decline such offers.
The troll has chosen Monica Crowley for a White House PR job just as her 2012 book has been withdrawn for plagiarism.
What's more, it criticized Obama for things that happened under the Bush regime.
Facebook plans "stronger ties" with the news venues that it is slowly strangling. In particular, Facebook may be "more open" with its useds' data.
The author of the article seems to have reported that with a straight face, not realizing that it could mean increased trackinge.
The UK is replacing foreign aid with "investment".
This means that they can't just give food to hungry people; they have to make it profitable for someone. Businesses will skim money off this, and those businesses push for the change. Suck-up-to-the-rich politicians approve it.
Meryl Streep, accepting an award before a large audience, rebuked the troll for publicly mocking a disabled reporter.
The troll responded with an irrelevant personal insult, then proceeded to try to distort and deny the visible facts.
But why was the loser attacking that disabled reporter? Because the loser had misrepresented his reporting about Sep 11, 2001, to try to justify an major campaign lie. The reported objected to this and pointed to his real text, so the troll mocked him.
Streep's speech treated the troll's offensiveness as a performance and condemned it as one — which may really rile him.
If people stop using cash, how can street performers, musicians, food carts etc. survive?
Of course, digital payments oppress those who use them, because they track everything. I don't use my credit card except with airline tickets and fees, and car rental. For the rest, it's cash or nothing, and if I business doesn't accept cash, I don't buy there.
You can help defend privacy every day simply by firmly telling businesses "cash or no sale, and no you may not have my name."
Most city Americans have little understanding of the lives, attitudes and behaviors of rural Americans (such as supporters of the troll).
If the loser's net worth is positive, he can divest himself of interest in the running of his businesses without actually selling them in a hurry.
This method won't work, however, if the worth if his businesses is negative.
There are two aspects of Republican rule we need to resist: policies that are cruel to the poor and weak, and attacks on democracy itself.
In the latter, conservatives might join in.
Ethics lawyers for Dubya and Obama called for delaying confirmation hearings so the ethics reports could be delivered.
Wisconsin Republicans threaten to censor teaching at the University of Wisconsin.
The US lists polar bears as threatened, but the program to protect them is ineffective, since it fails to address the fatal threat.
Hate sites such as Breitbart depend on advertising from companies that don't know where their ads will appear. A movement to show companies how their ads appear on Breitbart has convinced many companies to exclude their ads from that site.
The big loser's choice for Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, loves imprisonment without trial, hates Snowden, and helped to cover up torture.
A court case will decide whether the big loser can remove Richard Cordray as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Netanyahu was recorded
trying
to buy more support from a major Israeli newspaper.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
In Missouri, children of any age that fight in school can now be jailed for years.
We have to fight the troll and the plutocrats in ways that can change politics, not merely enable us to say we tried.
In many parts of the world, menstruating women are subject to taboos, and persecuted more or less.
The Israeli diplomat who wanted to "take down" UK MPs that criticized the occupation/siege of Palestine also set up a hidden political group within the Labour Party.
The Democratic Party stopped really supporting unions decades ago, so union are weakened and their members have often become Republicans. Part of political organizing today includes recovering the strength of unions.
Eliminating anonymity is no guarantee of civility. In practice, trolls and haters often choose to state their real names.
SCROTUS will find it difficult to "replace" Obama's medical insurance program with anything different that actually works.
They don't really want to continue to give Americans access to medical care. They just don't want to be blamed for stopping it. So here is what I think they will do.
They will come up with something that appears to work, a disguise that will hold up for a year or two, and lie to claim that is a solution. When it becomes obvious that it doesn't work, they will duck the issue by distraction and use standard tobacco/sugar/petroleum obfuscation techniques to deny the problem.
Arguing that the US is descending into an authoritarian regime.
The title says "totalitarianism", but that seems to be an incorrect choice of words.
US citizens:
oppose
fracking near Chaco Canyon.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
Haitian warlord Guy Philippe has been arrested for US drug charges.
Philippe fronted the US-backed coup that overthrew elected President Aristide.
With the REINS act, SCROTUS would make all new federal regulations require specific approval from Congress.
The troll "accepts" the claim that Putin interfered in the election on his behalf, based on non-published evidence.
Based on this, I think I should accept it too. He would not have taken this stand if he thought he could deny it.
Craig Murray said that he received the first (DNC) leak material from an intermediary who said it was an insider leak.
I have confidence in what he says.
Perhaps Russians were involved in the phishing attack on John Podesta.
Vicious right-wingers are attacking progressive organizations and artists' centers by getting them raided and shut down.
Right-wing organizations, often secretly funded by rich people, can afford to rent space that has no flaws.
The US economy is worse for workers now than in 2008, for the bottom 50% of earners. They get no more pay, and more of them are in precarious work.
Meanwhile, in many cities their rents have gone up, and millions had their houses taken fraudulently by banksters.
Facebook snoops on surfers via disqus comments: when a page uses disqus for comments, the proprietary disqus software loads a Facebook software package into the browser of every anonymous visitor to the page, and makes the page's URL available to Facebook.
How the plutocratic system manipulates Americans to support it even as it squashes them.
I think it is a mistake to equate "capitalism" with the plutocratic type of capitalism that we have now. There are various kinds of capitalism, and the one we had in 1970 worked tolerably well in the US. It coexisted with the public sphere and didn't propagandize that wealth was the measure of everything.
Public schools are the largest remaining sector that hasn't been turned into a business. Thus, the sect of the invisible hand wants to privatize it.
Americans' support for plutocracy is not complete, as many have come to see a conflict between the plutocratic system and Christianity.
Will 2017 Be the Year We Get Serious about Sustainable Food?
One step most Americans can easily take is to eat less beef.
Everyone: call for firing the thug that threw Jasmine Darwin on the floor and gave her a concussion.
Netanyahu wants the Israeli soldier convicted of murdering a Palestinian to be pardoned.
That would mean, in effect, that Israelis could murder Palestinians with impunity.
US national parks will henceforth be turned into sales and promotion schemes for businesses.
Allowing companies to "sponsor" parks, or stadiums, or any other civic institution, conveys a message: "everything here is for sale." The right way to get these companies' money for civic uses is to tax them properly.
Public response blocked SCROTUS from neutralizing the ethics committee. It may be possible to do the same to protect Americans' health care.
This applies to Medicare and Medicaid, too.
A scientific report showed that many forms of forensic identification are scientifically bogus and produce many false accusations. The Obama administration rejected the report, preferring to let miscarriages of justice continue.
Racially biased predictions about the risk of recidivism come from an inherent conflict between two ideas of fairness — not from specific implementations.
Former Texas governor Perry gave out billions to corporations.
Bad climate news: a careful comparison finds that the most authoritative measurements of global heating so far is the set from NOAA, which shows more heating than the other measurements.
Everyone: call on Obama to pardon Snowden now.
US citizens: call on your governor and state legislators to oppose the troll's registry of Muslims.
Overfishing has knocked down the bluefin tuna population by 97%. Due to continued human pressure, 95% of bluefin tuna caught are under 3 years old.
A respite could allow fish stocks to recover; in 10 years, we might be able to fish sustainably and catch more tuna per year than we now catch unsustainably. But this requires long-term thinking, which is in short supply when a government bows down to business.
Americans Can Spot Election Meddling Because They've Been Doing It for Years.
Rohingya Plight Making Myanmar a Target for [PISSI], Malaysia Warns.
A study found that teenagers given a little alcohol by their parents are less likely to drink excessively a year later.
Handicapped people face big problems in any place where there is no toilet for them, and it's not unusual to find them.
Apple used its censorship system to enforce China's censorship by blocking distribution of the New York Times app.
More about Apple's censorship of apps and other malicious functionalities in Apple software.
Scrapping EU Rules Won't Save UK Farming. Supporting Small Farmers Will.
Scientists have learned how river valleys and floodplains participate in the ecology of a river, and how dams and nearby human activities can damage it.
The UK needs more inheritance tax. So does the US.
If the wealthy tend to have more successful children, or even smarter children, there are so many obvious social causes that there's no point getting distracted by possible genetic contributions. When they go to school, they go to a better school, with other good students, and they make good connections. They have a calm place to study, and enough food to eat. Even before they start school, they are probably taught a better approach towards learning and success.
These are things that we can give to children in poor families. All we need to do is tax the rich to a fair extent (much more than now).
Teenager Slammed to Ground Raises Fresh Concerns About [thugs] in Schools.
At the time she was attacked, that teenager was trying to break up a fight between others.
Unless your school is very violent, you will be safer if they get the School Havoc Officer out of it.
One of the principle prosecutors of Leonard Peltier has called on Obama to give him clemency.
Record-breaking extreme weather in Australia caused fires in areas which don't normally have them.
40% of the "suspicions" IP addresses that US agencies attribute to Russian crackers are simply Tor exit nodes.
Either US intelligence agencies are trying to snow us with meaningless factoids, or they don't have enough intelligence to recognize them as meaningless.
The jihadi terrorism in Turkey is fueled partly by Erdoğan's support for Turkish Islamists, and partly by foolish purges of officials responsible for security.
When the PKK attacks the forces of the state, that's not terrorism; that's rebellion. There are some civilian casualties, but the PKK does not target them. They are what the US calls "collateral damage".
There is no way to fight and completely avoid civilian casualties. What the Geneva Conventions require, for the US or for the PKK or any other combatant, is to make sufficient efforts to avoid and minimize them.
I can't judge whether the PKK makes a sufficient effort, but it is pretty clear that the Turkish state isn't trying to.
It's a shame Erdoğan terminated the many years of cease fire with the PKK.
US citizens: call your senators at 1-866-985-2543, and ask them to support a review of Trump's financial arrangements AND to support Sen. Warren's bill requiring the president to divest and disclose all business affairs in order to avoid serious and unconstitutional conflicts of interest.
The Tories have almost completely eliminated UK investment in renewable energy. Their policy has been to eliminate it step by step, and they are now reaching the end of the process.
The Tories are lower than vermin — Aneurin Bevan.
An Israeli soldier has been convicted of killing a wounded, disabled Palestinian suspect.
I'm glad the Israeli legal system can at least occasionally give Palestinians justice, but it only rarely tries.
Right-wing extremists lionized that soldier, taking a racist position in favor of killing Palestinians.
The troll is begging for funds to pay his transition team.
This lends support to the conjecture that his net assets are far less than zero.
Everyone: call on tech companies to refuse to help the loser build a registry of Muslims.
Pakistani religious fanatics are out to murder Shaan Taseer for criticizing the law that punishes "insulting Islam" with execution.
That law would be a great evil if it were enforced carefully, but it's even worse because they are sloppy about it. It provides an all-purpose excuse to execute people based on unverifiable accusations.
Mnuchin's bank repeatedly broke California's foreclosure laws.
SCROTUS threaten all aspects of reproductive health care, and don't mind if mothers and babies die for the principle that the state shouldn't do any good for individuals that aren't rich.
SCROTUS made a plan to very quickly inactivate the Office of Congressional Ethics, but was dissuaded by public disgust from various people including the loser.
It is ironic that the troll helped pressure them to do it, given how corrupt and corrupting he is in other ways.
Some of the Republicans expressed a preference to do the same plan but at a later date when it would not be noticed as much.
Drought, probably caused by global heating, is making Mexican peasants flee their land; some flee to the US.
Don't blame them, trumpets. They didn't cause the drought; the US did.
US citizens: Call on the Senate to reject Pudzer as Secretary of Labor.
US citizens: phone your senators to grill Pompeo, nominated to run the CIA, about respecting human rights.
This includes surveillance of you and me, and torture.
US citizens: call on Senate Democrats to fight hard against Betsy DeVos.
Right-wing budget cuts have strained the UK's medical system to the breaking point. Patients can't get urgent treatment, There are not enough beds available for patients. It takes a long time for an ambulance to arrive when needed.
Doctors feel that their relatives are not safe in a hospital, and are thinking of quitting.
An Israeli embassy official in the UK was caught scheming to "take down" certain members of the UK parliament that are insufficiently subservient to Israel.
SCROTUS are rushing to confirm the troll's proposed cabinet officials without waiting for the ethics review.
Businesses create or take over NGOs to use as front groups, even in the UN.
For instance, CORE, the Congress On Racial Equality, which was a real and important civil rights group in the 1960s, has been turned into a puppet.
Even groups that are not puppets can be co-opted on a side issue by businesses that in exchange offer some support for the cause. This happened to the NAACP.
The FDA has a new rule to limit the indiscriminate dosing of farm animals with antibiotics. But it is a weak rule, and it's not clear how much good it will do. Since our lives are at stake here — resistant bacteria could kill anyone — we need a strong rule.
A proposed natural gas pipeline from Pennsylvania to North Carolina is facing increasing local opposition.
Aside from whatever local problems it will cause, the pipeline would act as inertia for extraction of natural gas. The owners, having built the pipeline, will do all in their power to make sure it gets used for a lot of natural gas. That will speed our fall over the climate cliff.
A large fraction of US employees are tracked in their movements 24 hours a day by their employers. Most states have no laws against this. Basically, if your employer gives you a portable phone, or software to run on one, don't trust it!
If you have a union, it can help you fight against being tracked when there is no valid reason.
If you don't have a union, you need one.
A Palestinian in Jerusalem used a truck as a weapon to attack Israeli soldiers.
I am sure Israel and its supporters will call this "terrorism", but attacking soldiers of an occupying army is properly called "rebellion", "resistance" or "guerrilla war". If the targets had been civilians, it would have been terrorism.
The World Wide Web has become dominated by a few web sites, most of which are run by businesses and designed to addict and mistreat their visitors. A book puts this into the historical perspective of the "attention industry".
You can personally escape this if you don't visit those sites. I don't log in on any of them, and I rarely visit them at all. But we can't individually escape from the harm they do at the social level.
Thick multi-year ice is rapidly diminishing in the Arctic, leaving an ice cap made only of thin one-year ice.
The many schemes for corruption of apparently authoritative truth have made the teaching of information literacy a challenge.
Evgeny Morozov: the epidemic of fake news is a symptom of the digital system that makes fake news profitable, but focusing on it serves as distraction from recognizing the deeper origin of today's real political problems.
Global heating is undermining localized rules to protect fish stocks because it makes the fish move to different areas. Combined with widespread overfishing, the result is that the total seafood catch has decreased drastically in 20 years.
This matter much if ocean acidification wipes out the sea life we catch.
Clothes workers in Bangladesh that participated in the strike are not just blacklisted, they are harassed by thugs as well.
What this means is that the Bangladeshi state represses citizens on behalf of foreign businesses.
Japan's admirable tradition of designing systems and structures to be considerate to their users.
Several state legislatures controlled by Republicans are determined to crush unions.
Sessions's reactionary views, harshness for harshness' sake, are rejected by many Republican politicians.
Benevolent sexism and hostile sexism work together, like the good cop and bad cop, to keep women under men's power. Many women, when they see hostile sexism, turn to benevolent sexism for protection.
Large companies now own and rent out lots of houses in the US. They are much quicker to evict tenants that get in any sort of trouble.
I think it would be wise to charge a higher tax rate to a landlord that owns lots of rental housing.
The most important step to help victims of domestic violence is to provide a place for them to go to safety. Right-wing governments are cutting that.
Acción Ecológica is struggling to stop the Ecuadorian state from shutting it down.
Poles in the UK are often the target of hate crimes by bigots that hate immigrants. They are afraid to report the crimes because it could affect the political pressure to make them leave.
The military-industrial complex could be responsible for persecution of Rohingyas, in support of a land-grab that has kicked millions of people (of various ethnic groups) off their lands.
Fossil fuel workers whose jobs will (we desperately hope) disappear can oppose decarbonization. Also, planet-roaster politicians cite them as a reason to keep using fossil fuels. If we can help these workers get new jobs, that will facilitate decarbonization.
But we don't dare choose to slow decarbonization for this. Avoiding global heating disaster, which could kill 2/3 of all living humans and 2/3 of all living species, is desperately urgent.
Donald Trump Didn't Save the Ethics Committee. The American people did. The troll only chimed in with a weak statement.
Several state legislatures controlled by Republicans are determined to make life difficult for transsexuals.
In the long run, transsexuals can push back simply by obeying the bathroom law and refusing to be embarrassed. "Don't blame me — right-wing jerks passed a law that says I have to use this toilet. Will you join me in campaigning to vote them out?"
Many Americans that voted for the troll are nostalgic for 1950s America, with its good jobs to support a family on, with women and minorities in their place, with gays invisible, and transsexuals not yet invented.
A six-hour work day can make society better for people overall, in countries that don't let the rich crush the rest.
It is one way to cope with the problem of technological employment for millions of people.
The troll's threats seem to have convinced Ford not to increase production in Mexico.
I see nothing wrong about importing products made by Mexicans in Mexico, but moving production to Mexico should not serve as an excuse to cut workers' pay. US companies that move US production to Mexico should pay the Mexican workers US-style salaries.
The newly published report on alleged Russian involvement in cracking Democratic Party servers has no new evidence to show that Russia was involved.
Some of the report was leaked to the Washington Post by the CIA. The troll is scandalized.
Wikileaks points out that the CIA is leaking top secret documents to the press to manipulate US public opinion, just as Wikileaks is accused of doing.
Why Workers Everywhere Should Be Scared by Kentucky's Assault on Unions.
The Israeli soldier convicted of killing a helpless Palestinian is not a "rotten apple". He's a typical sample of the whole rotten barrel.
Historian Stephen Cohen, who has studied Russia for decades, criticized in 2015 the confrontational and domineering policy that the US has taken towards Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Here's the second half.
I think we can have some confidence in Cohen's judgment, because he is not one of the Putin pets you find so many of nowadays. He doesn't start from the assumption that Putin is good and the US is bad. He regards the US government and the Russian government both as playing the same kind of power game, but Putin's aims are more modest and his strategy more coherent.
One point in the articles requires correction. The referendum in the Crimea was imposed by "pro-Russian gunmen" who had captured the parliament building and ordered the vote at gunpoint. We now know that they were capable of mounting a "well co-ordinated military operation" because they were Russian soldiers not wearing their usual uniforms.
But this is a small error and I still trust the articles overall.
The UK ambassador to the EU has resigned. He reported to the Tories that they wouldn't be able to get a favorable deal when leaving the EU, and they did not like what they heard.
Speech-recognition devices that keep recordings of what people say — even if only some of the time — threaten constitutional rights.
An ethically designed speech recognition device will not save any voice recordings (or transcripts) of actual use, except when the user explicitly commands that it save one. Training the device to understand particular people's voices better should be something that users explicitly request.
The troll owes 1.5 billion dollars to Wall Street companies, adding up to a giant corruptive force.
SCROTUS have a plan to distract and impede press coverage of the vital confirmation hearings for the troll's saboteur candidates.
14,000 people have implored the UK not to deport Bashir Naderi to Afghanistan, where he knows no people and none of the local languages.
People who have lived in a country for many years, since childhood, should always be given citizenship. If the citizens want to reduce the number of immigrants, there is no need to do it in a cruel way.
Uri Avnery: don't despair about getting the Israeli colonies out of the way of a viable Palestinian state.
Suggestions every American can put into effect for resisting the troll.
SCROTUS protect their disinformation from comparison with: their new rules package tells the Congressional Budget Office not to report on the likely costs of repealing or changing Obama's medical insurance program.
One estimate is that it would cost the economy almost a trillion dollars a year, and eliminate 3 million jobs. And that's not to mention the suffering of people who can't get medical care.
Earth is on track towards more than 2C of global heating by 2050.
US citizens: oppose the troll's
cabinet of polluters.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
Kentucky's new Republican legislature is passing laws to destroy unions, so fast that there won't be time for the victims to react.
It appears the UK will exit the EU with no agreement at all — a "train crash".
Britain still has hope. If the train is operated by a lousy privatized UK train company, such as Southern Rail, it may not run.
Facebook provided personal data to Mastercard.
The data was provided in anonymized form, but Mastercard could reidentify the data by correlating it with other data.
Sessions wants more private prisons.
He says privatization "seem to work better", but better for whom? Perhaps for his future employers, some years from now.
Chinese ivory carvers are coming to grips with China's decision to ban the ivory trade.
It makes no sense to eliminate elephants so that Africa can accommodate more humans.
Shutting down the legal ivory trade will not stop the illegal trade.
The FCC's weak ISP privacy rules are too much for the trumpets. They plan to eliminate them.
ISPs should respect customers' privacy by not taking any note of their traffic, except pursuant to a specific court order.
Thugs in Alabama killed Robert Earl Lawrence for refusing to show identification. All he did was refuse.
He brought a stray dog to an animal shelter, but refused to show a driver's license, so the staff called the thugs. How gratuitous. They could just as easily said, "We won't take the dog from you without your identification, so just let it run loose outside the door." It would have been stupid, but no more stupid than what they did.
More US states have fallen under the control of Republicans and ALEC.
They generally gerrymander the districts so that they subsequently always "win" even when they don't get most of the votes.
SCROTUS want to eliminate or neutralize the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, because it does a good job of protecting people from banks that would cheat them.
SCROTUS have expanded their power to harass and intimidate Americans by giving congressional staff the power to interrogate people under oath.
Congressional investigations have a legitimate function, but Republicans are not interested in pursuing real abuses. Their goal is to crush despised climate defenders and abortion providers, by hook or by crook.
A US thug that is dismissed for misconduct can easily get another job as a thug, because there is no firm system to prevent it.
Many states do absolutely nothing, when thugs are fired for violence against the public, to stop them from getting hired somewhere else.
Shawna, in her 19th birthday party, had sex with a younger teenager. She was sentenced to register as a sex offender for her whole life.
Zineb El Rhazoui has quit working for Charlie Hebdo, rebuking the magazine for no longer daring to draw Mohammed.
Roughly 10,000 people die in London each year from air pollution, much of it from diesel engines.
The UK government attacks everyone's freedom, supposedly to reduce the already tiny danger of terrorism. But terrorists would find it exceedingly hard to kill even 1% as many people as the diesels do.
Britons should demand that the government end to massive surveillance and focus on the greater danger of cars. But this lesson is not limited to Britain.
How many thousands do diesels kill every year in France? I don't know, but it must be thousands. So why have a "state of emergency" that tramples human rights supposedly to protect against the secondary danger of terrorists, instead of against car companies?
Now that El Niño has ended, 2017 may not set a new heat record. Denialists are likely to start spreading the myth that "global heating stopped in 2016."
China has become dominant in the manufacturing of renewable energy generation.
China is making a big investment, while its potential competitors are dominated by planet-roasters and denialists.
US citizens: call on Senate Democrats to go all-out to block Tom Price from Health and Human Services.
US citizens: phone your senators to oppose Resolution 6, which would condemn the recent UN resolution rebuking Israel for colonizing Palestinian territory.
If you can't phone (or after you phone), sign this petition.
Homeless people are "spat on and ignored."
Outside the US, the TPP is marching on, threatening to subjugate other countries to the power of foreign business.
Japan Recalls Envoy after South Korea Puts "Comfort Woman" Statue Outside Consulate.
This is political posturing on both sides, but South Korea is posturing on behalf of a real injustice, while Japan is posturing on behalf of military nationalism.
Most Israelis support cold-blooded murder of Palestinian suspects.
The World Wildlife Foundation faces accusations of helping to establish and patrol a wildlife reserve in Cameroon. The land was inhabited by hunter-gatherers.
As humans overpopulate Earth and overrun all wild areas, more and more the survival of some humans will come in conflict with the survival of specific species, and then the survival of entire ecosystems.
Human population growth will stop, one way or another, in this century, because too many factors stand to limit it. The question is, what will be left of the natural world at that point?
I think therefore that preserving species and wild areas has to take precedence over human claims, when they cannot coexist.
It ought to be possible to do this without violence against unarmed trespassers, though.
Former congressional staff recommend local organizing methods to fight the right-wing agenda, learning from the success of the Tea Party.
In order for this to work, we must do another thing that the Tea Party did: replace nonprogressive Democrats.
President Do-dirty of the Philippines joins lies to murder; his campaign to make Davao City by killing all the criminals, which he claims made it a safe place, actually left it with a high rate of crime.
UK thugs surrounded Yassar Yaqub's car as it was exiting a highway, then shot him dead. They said that the operation was pre-planned.
His father asks whether it was a pre-planned assassination.
If Yassar Yaqub was a gangster, that was grounds to arrest and prosecute him, but not to assassinate him.
Of course, the effective way to put an end to drug gangs is to get the War on Drugs off drugs.
How Washington DC resists gentrification to protect low-income residents.
Canada plans to work with the loser to resurrect the Keystone XL pipeline.
Los Angeles proposes to follow New York City's absurd law prohibiting unaccompanied adults from playgrounds, but now there is resistance.
If the goal is to protect children from sexual abuse, it would be more effective to keep them away from adults in private places, since that is where abuse almost always occurs. For instance, there could be a law to prohibit children from spending time at home with just one adult. A single parent arriving home with children should call Child Protective Services and wait for an agent to arrive before entering the home. When the agent has to depart, the family must leave the house.
I had better state that the proposal above is meant satirically.
US citizens: tell the Democratic National Committee you support Keith Ellison as leader.
Everyone: call on Senator Murphy to stop criticizing the UN resolution in support of Israeli annexationists.
US citizens: call on senators Warren and Murphy to resist bipartisan pressure for military confrontation with Russia.
Putin is a smarmy tyrant, who has crushed opposition and the free press in Russia. He engages in military aggression, though in a more measured way than the US does. I think it is sick to suck up to him as the troll does, but that doesn't mean we need a military rivalry with Russia.
More U.S. Workers Have Highly Volatile, Unstable Incomes.
That means they are at risk of homelessness, hunger, and dying from lack of medicine. Their children are at risk of growing up under stress that will impair them for their whole lives.
Multinational megacorporations can use the forced arbitration of business-supremacy treaties to overturn even convictions for crimes.
They also
invest
in potential lawsuits to be arbitrated under these treaties.
With the help of business-supremacy treaties, corporations that made a
deal with a corrupt dictator
can
force a democratic successor government to pay whatever the dictator
promised. This encourages dictators to cheat their countries.
We need to change the legal system at all levels so that corrupt deals
can be cancelled and even undone. For instance, a predatory
privatization should be cancelled, and the privatizer should be
compensated with the money it paid minus whatever profit it
has extracted.
Most privatizations of state operations are
predatory.
US citizens:
support the
National Popular Vote Act.
A
proposed US pipeline company merger would reportedly create so
much
market power that the combined company could raise prices for oil and
natural gas.
If it could do that, it might discourage consumption, but not enough:
we need heavy taxes on petroleum products and an end to all subsidies
to raise the price enough to avoid disaster.
The better reason to oppose this merger is that bigger companies have
more lobbying power. We need to make large companies split up, except
for those that are natural monopolies and ought to be regulated
utilities.
The ACLU warns that bill HR 6421, the misnamed "Anti-Semitism
Awareness Act",
would impose unconstitutional censorship on debate
about
Israel and its occupation policies.
The
Free Market Isn't Working — And Labour Now Dares to Say
So.
The troll
provides
growing authoritarianism in the US
an opportunity to potentially supplant democracy.
The
15
Warnings Signs of Impending Tyranny — as seen through the
troll.
People in the US are supposed to be able to buy copies of their credit
reports, but
Equifax
and Transunion have been lying — sending people
doctored reports that are not what businesses get.
It's
a fundamental mistake to make a fuss about the national debt,
disregarding other systems that will make the public pay in the
future, such as toll collection and drug patents.
Pressuring restaurant chains
to stop causing antibiotic resistance.
The Jack in the Box pledge is an example of, "We will stop using
certain antibiotics in certain animals for certain purposes, several
years from now." Which is more show than reality.
We shouldn't need to campaign to pressure restaurants or companies. A
government that gives companies the value they deserve, and human
health the value it deserves, would have made this a firm law many
years ago.
Don't these legislators realize that antibiotic resistance can kill
them or their children?
Tom Price, the troll's choice for a cabinet post,
appears to have
committed insider trading.
The US abolished direct military conscription, but has replaced it
with an
indirect system of economic conscription: young people from
poor backgrounds often see no opportunity to get ahead except
through the army.
The article is mistaken on a couple of important points. First, Nixon
did damp down the movement to end the Vietnam War, by pulling the US
army out of Vietnam, but that was not the permanent effect that the
article presents. The US antiwar movement was quite strong for the
first few years of the occupation of Iraq.
It also omits another, deeper blindness about thanking troops for
"serving their country" — for the most part, that's not what they are
doing. And, in Iraq, many of them figured that out; (then) Bradley
Manning was far from alone. A soldier wrote to me, responding to
what he saw in stallman.org, saying that the troops in his unit
felt that they were in Iraq to support an empire.
I think we should offer troops condolences rather than thanks.
Many of them joined up intending to serve their country, and
they were cheated of the opportunity.
The
Chicago Review of Books will boycott publisher Simon & Schuster
because of its book deal with a hate guru.
Nuclear Experts Warn [the troll]:
Do Not Torpedo Successful Iran Deal.
It not only keeps Iran non-nuclear, it indirectly helps keep other
countries non-nuclear.
A
school thug in North Carolina picked up a student, then threw her on
the floor, momentarily stunning her.
We should refuse to call these thugs by the euphemism, "school
resource officer". These thugs are the suction end of the
school-to-prison pipeline, and their presence in a school creates
a danger of more than physical injury.
Anti-Surveillance Clothing
Aims to Hide Wearers from Facial
Recognition.
The idea is good, but does it do the job effectively? It may be hard
to determine that. However, at least it will serve for public
education
about the danger of surveillance.
NAACP activists held a sit-in in Senator Sessions' office to oppose
making him Attorney General.
US citizens: join rallies on
Sunday
Jan 15 against Republican cuts to medical care and Planned
Parenthood.
US citizens: phone your senators to
oppose
Resolution 6, which would condemn the recent UN resolution
rebuking Israel for colonizing Palestinian territory.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588.
Australia is full of introduced feral cats, which have
wiped out 20
native species and could wipe out many more.
Another
Tory politician has been connected with hidden offshoring of
profits.
A
last-ditch plan to protect the remaining vaquita porpoises: find
them
and move them to a protected area.
It could wipe them out, or it could save them. But since they are
being
wiped
out anyway, I think it is better to try it than not to.
Amnesty
International is campaigning for Obama to close the Guantanamo
prison now.
The injustice of the Guantanamo prison is not which prison those
prisoners are in, but that they are held in prison without trial.
Releasing all the prisoners that don't face charges, and giving the
rest real trials, would end that injustice. That's what needs to be
done.
Obama can do the first part, and he should. As for preventing the
troll from imprisoning more people without trial, Obama can't do that
now. If he had firmly opposed imprisonment without trial for years,
as he should have, he might have made it difficult for a future
president to restart it.
18-year-old Idress Wazeer
faces deportation from the UK to
Afghanistan, where (he reports) his family was murdered by the
Taliban. He says he would rather die than be sent there, and he means
it: he has tried twice to kill himself in immigration prison.
Both times he was saved by a meddlesome cellmate who is too mentally
rigid to realize that saving Wazeer was only making things worse.
It takes courage to end your life today in a way that might achieve
some good, rather than hang on a while so that it ends later in a
useless way.
Israeli doctors, in the name of medical ethics,
defy the state and
refuse to force-feed Palestinian hunger strikers.
Israeli
Home Demolitions Break Records, Shatter Lives in 2016,
Rail
passengers protested in many UK train stations against high
fares
and unreliable trains.
This is the natural result of privatization.
An infectious disease, buruli ulcer, has become more common among
humans
because humans have wiped out carnivorous wildlife.
Peter Dahlin reports on his 23 days in a brainwashing Chinese prison.
A year later, he has not recovered.
The Tories plan to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights
endangers human rights in the UK and globally.
It appears that the loser must have debts that he can't pay.
Relating the violence of US thugs in the US to the violence of US soldiers
in other countries.
Kerry's last speech acknowledged in detail the oppression of Israel's
occupation of the West Bank.
If Obama had made this point persistently for 8 years, and insisted on it,
we might have a peace deal by now.
In France, everyone is now an organ donor by default.
You can opt out, but I can't see any rational reason to do so unless
for some special reason you are likely to murdered for your organs.
E-cigarettes are much less dangerous than smoking, but if you are not a nicotine user you should not start using it
in any form.
Oakland, California, provides ordinary public services to a homeless
encampment instead of trying to drive them away.
A leak showed that Jean-Claude Juncker, when PM of Luxembourg, worked
actively to protect tax dodging by thwarting EU efforts to reduce it.
The EU is set up to give the executive power to playthings of the
rich, such as Juncker. That means it is corrupt at the root.
Austerity in Greece means sick people die who ought to be cured.
Why Oil Is the Glue That Bonds Trump and Putin.
Express lanes in security are a clever idea to make Americans want to be
biometrically tracked.
It is fairly predictable that once the gentry are eagerly doing this,
it is likely to be pushed on everyone else.
Please use your moral strength to resist biometric tracking
to the best of your ability.
The UK should not follow China with state control of universities.
The rising US stock market constitutes a big bet that the new
president is a conman, and won't really do anything to benefit the
working-class people that voted for him.
All that money wagered will generate pressure for him to be a conman
so that the bettors win the bet.
The cease-fire in most of Syria is holding.
We have 100 months to curb global heating or face probable catastrophic
change in climate.
Three Miami thugs were fired for a racist discussion in which they joked
about shooting blacks for target practice.
That's far beyond unconscious racism; that's real hatred.
Previous presidents opposed Israel's land grab much more forcefully;
Obama has been mostly subservient.
And when, at last minute, he dares to show a sign of opposition,
Netanyahu vilifies him.
Matt Taibi distrusts the accusations of Russian meddling in the US
election. It's not impossible, but there seems to be more propaganda
than evidence.
Large companies that buy consumer debt has made debt collection an
unbearable burden for millions of Americans.
Since the debt-buyers are more aggressive, one solution is to forbid
that activity. Legislators are constantly pestered by companies for
laws that let them make more money … often at society's expense.
Australian volunteers tag and measure the loggerhead sea turtles every year
as they lay eggs on the beach. They rarely find a mature turtle they had
not already tagged, which indicates the species is dying.
Several cities in the San Francisco area have rejected "predictive
policing".
Using a proprietary program such as PredPol to guide policing means,
in effect, outsourcing the data analysis and policy decisions of the
state to the proprietor of the software. That's never justifiable.
One of the singers in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir has quit rather
than perform for the loser.
I've decided to call him "the loser" for a while
rather than "the troll".
Is Civilian Control of the [US] Military in Jeopardy?
The new American segregation, like the American segregation of 50 years ago,
is created by a system of institutionalized bigotry.
The most effective way to radicalize Muslims is to display bigotry
toward them.
Faux News wants to eliminate food stamps because allegedly .1% (one
part in a thousand) gets fraudulently put into buying drugs.
When dooH niboR wants an excuse to hurt the poor, the smallest excuse
will suffice.
Oil companies are blocking research into the effect of spills of
diluted bitumen into the sea, by keeping the composition of the
diluent fluid secret.
I don't believe in prohibiting companies from keeping secrets, not in
general. But companies are not persons and they are not entitled to
human rights. Any time their secrecy interferes with some public
need, the state should require publication. The companies that don't
like this are welcome to shut down or go away — good riddance to
them.
Turkish writer Aslı Erdoğan has been released from jail
but still faces political charges.
Tiny irukandji jellyfish, whose sting can kill a human, are spreading
along the Australian coast, far beyond the equatorial areas where they
have lived in the past.
Global heating is cause of this, as well as so many larger dangers.
The Republican plan to destroy medicare works by letting hospitals and
doctors charge whatever they like, and bill the old people for
whatever Medicare doesn't cover.
Although the Rockettes have been told that they have the option of
not performing for the troll, the dancers fear getting fired.
I have a suggestion: they should perform in the park that day, in
street clothing rather than their costumes, as a protest.
If the troll stretches the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force
the way Obama did, he could bomb or invade nearly anywhere.
The troll claims credit for 5000 jobs that are moving to the US
under a business agreement made before the election.
Assange was smeared with distorted quotations claiming that he
supported Trump and supported Putin.
Looking at his actual interview, the main reference to Trump, which ends with
I think Assange exaggerates a little when he says that the tolerated
Russian opposition press constitutes an alternative to Wikileaks.
Those publications may be tolerated for now, but if they published
leaks they might be shut down.
However, his point that Wikileaks can't publish effectively to
Russians because that needs to be done by people with a Russian
background is valid — and a far cry from what the smear article
claimed.
Burger King says it will cut out use of "critical" antibiotics
in raising its chicken.
That is a significant step forward, but it has to be spread to all farming
of all kinds of animals.
Cartoonist Eaten Fish, imprisoned by Australia on Manus Island,
will be sent back to Iran, where he faces imprisonment or execution.
Jeffry Wagner is charged with "child endangerment" because his child
started walking to school on Saturday morning while Jeffry was asleep.
Naveed Baloch, who was temporarily suspected of being responsible for
the terrorist attack in Berlin, reports that the thugs brutalized him
while he was in jail.
The security of "smart meters" is very stupid. Crackers can find out what
devices you own, in many cases take control of them, bankrupt you with a false
electric bill, and even make them explode.
The crackers can learn an awful lot by watching out how much electricity
you use from second to second.
Even worse, the electric utility can learn it, too — and tell
big brother.
The obvious "solution" to this problem would be "better security in
the smart meter". That way, only the electric utility and big brother
could snoop on you, invade your other devices, etc.
The real solution is to design smart meters so that they can't do this,
at all, for anyone.
Al Qa'ida is slowly growing by seeking support locally and being less
bloody.
Perhaps it will morph into something we could make peace with.
Any Islamist group advocates oppressive Shari'a law, and thus aims to
violate people's human rights. But it's not usually necessary or
legitimate to respond to every such regime with war. The US has not
started drone attacks in Poland and Hungary, let alone Belarus,
Thailand, and Malaysia, nor even in Bahrain, Egypt, and Salafi Arabia,
for their violations of human rights.
When thugs kill a dog, that's not as grave as killing a person. But
the frequency of killing dogs highlights bad values in training, and they
endanger humans too.
One lesson we could learn from the killing of Philando Castile is
that, in some kinds of traffic stop situations, the thug should stay
in the car and avoid risk to the driver and to the thug.
Tory bigotry has sown bigotry in UK elementary schools.
Activists are attacking the funding of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Some banks have pulled out, and the company may soon have to renegotiate.
Duterte said that he killed a man by throwing him out of a helicopter.
Such an act is murder, no two ways about it.
I don't think it matters much whether Do-dirty's claim is true or false.
Someone who boasts of murder is despicable whether it is true or not.
Jewish Voice for Peace: Kerry's last-minute push for peace between
Israel and Palestine had the right goals, but it wasn't a serious plan
for overcoming the obstacles.
Electing the troll was effectively a big temper-tantrum, and it presents the
US as infantile. It will have trouble inspiring respect or admiration
anywhere in the world.
The partial vote recounts confirm the previously reported counts, but
show vulnerabilities that need to be fixed.
French President Hollande pardoned a woman who was imprisoned for
killing her violently abusive husband.
Self-defense should apply to spousal violence just like violence by a
stranger.
In Every [US] State, Minimum Wage
Falls Far Short of a Living Wage.
A Texas thug
shot a black man in the back, as he was walking away, and
left him paralyzed for life.
Even supposing that the story about the box cutter was true, the thug
didn't need to shoot him at that time. But you can't believe the
accusations
thugs make against their victims.
How Propaganda Works — repeating a simplistic slogan until the
zombified
followers don't want to try to think.
Israel's response to the UN's condemnation of colonizing the West Bank
is
the usual stupid attempt to put the blame on its critics.
It would be appropriate now for other countries to adopt a first stage
of sanctions, to start pressuring Israel to make peace with Palestine.
Obama should give Palestine US recognition now.
Israel can kick Palestinians around with impunity because they are
stateless. I agree with Juan Cole that the Palestinians must be able
to be citizens of a state that will try defend their human rights,
just as Israelis are.
The troll said he was so rich he could not be bought, but it appears
that his billionaire donors
bought cabinet offices.
Growing Mega-cities Will Displace Vast Tracts of Farmland by 2030,
Study
Says.
Poland shows how a repressive right-wing party can build public
support for repression and tyranny based on subsidies for ordinary
people.
In East Palo Alto,
right near the wealth of Silicon Valley,
1/3 of the children in public school are in families that don't
have a home of their own.
Most of them don't have to live on the street. They live in someone
else's
house, or in a vehicle.
Turkey and Russia have agreed on a limited partial Syrian cease-fire
between Assad's men and non-Jihadi Arab rebels.
PISSI and al-Nusra are excluded. So, at Turkey's insistence, are the
Kurds.
Nonetheless, I think this will be a step forward,
as long as Turkey doesn't turn it into an opportunity to launch
renewed
war against the Kurds.
US progressives are
organizing behind Sanders.
Tony Fullman has been effectively exiled from New Zealand for
talking
with Fijian democracy campaigners. New Zealand brought in Australia
and
the US NSA to spy on him in ways that were illegal for New Zealand to
do.
Sabrina Siddiqui, a Muslim reporter who doesn't dress as one,
encountered violent hatred while covering the troll's campaign.
Prisoners in US prisons are excluded from work safety standards. They
can be maimed on the job due to lack of safety equipment and training,
and the US government covers it up.
Global heating, by changing the seasons, is causing birds to arrive at
their
summer breeding grounds too early. Some find an absence of food.
How the CIA
manipulates the US media.
A fear-spreading city council member in Los Angeles
proposed to make
it a crime for an adult to enter a playground if not accompanied by
children.
Doesn't that fool realize how easy it is for the hypothetical
stranger-molester to arrange to bring a child? One child would pave
per way to meet other children.
Nearly all adults that have sex with children are their relatives or
friends of the family. What could be more natural than to bring that
child in order to meet another?
It would be more logical to prohibit adults that do bring children.
Fortunately the LA Times rebuked this stupid idea.
The US Export-Import Bank
lent over 8 billion dollars to Pemex,
Mexico's
state oil company.
Even if it oil extraction were not dangerous to the world,
that certainly counts as corruption.
American adults under 64 have a 40% higher chance of dying
if they
don't have medical coverage.
This means that
SCROTUS and
the troll, when they plan to cancel Obama's medical care plan, are
planning to kill tens of thousands of people. And if they eliminate
Medicare, they will kill even more.
This article, a couple of years later, suggests that the number
increased
over that time.
Because Fox Asked,
Here Are Examples Of [Americans] Who Were Denied
Health
Care.
To teach your children discretion about what to post on social media,
you have to respect their privacy.
This article recommends a rule: never post anything personal about
family members or friends without explicitly asking permission.
I suggest not posting photos of anyone else, except people who
have sought public attention (me, for instance).
Paying for digital services
through surveillance can do people a lot
of harm.
China's kidnapping of publishers has
crushed the Hong Kong publishing
industry.
Bookstores have been privately censored, or shut down, so that books
that criticize China are now hard to find, if they are published at
all.
Angela Gui, daughter of a kidnaped publisher, has been
warned not to
go to Asia lest she too be attacked by Chinese agents.
Everyone:
urge
Protonmail to make its Javascript code free
such that LibreJS can recognize it.
Gingrich argues that the president's power to pardon is so powerful
that it permits making anyone whatsoever completely above the law.
He didn't urge the troll to do this; it seems he was rather warning
that the troll might do this.
Ever since President Ford pardoned President Nixon, I have believed
that we should amend the constitution to reduce the president's
power to pardon crimes connected with the federal government.
Specifically, the president should not have the power to pardon crimes
that were committed by anyone holding elected or appointed federal
office at the time of the crime, or any crime carried out as part of
working for the federal government or cooperation with the federal
government.
New York State will not allow the Trump Foundation to dissolve
because it is being
investigated for alleged corruption.
Shi'ite Iraqi Ali Amin Abdullah
survived 2 years in Mosul under the
rule of PISSI by pretending to be Sunni.
He did this so effectively that the Iraqi army put him in prison
and his family cannot find him.
There is a rational need to do something to prevent PISSI supporters
from remaining underground in Mosul and setting up cells to try to
take power again. But it has to be done without terrorizing masses of
people because they appear to be Sunnis, or even because they are
Sunnis.
Obama's last blow against the US independent press: establishing an
"anti-propaganda center" for "recognize, understand, expose, and
counter" foreign propaganda.
In principle, that's not a bad thing to do; in practice, almost any
sort of US state propaganda could be described as "countering" some
sort of foreign propaganda. A single foreign article published
anywhere in the world could serve as the excuse for a mammoth US
government propaganda campaign.
Looking back over the history of American journalism, we find, about a
century ago, that articles based on
rumors
and lies were common.
The imperialist war against Spain was started through such pressure.
The slogan for the war was "Remember the Maine", alluding to a US
warship
that exploded mysteriously in Havana. The most recent investigation
concluded it was an internal explosion.
Movements for independence in Cuba and the Philippines were both
crushed by the US, which turned Cuba into a puppet government, and
reduced the Philippines to a colony after years of war and repression.
The rain in Spain
fell mainly on fresh vegetables for sale to the UK,
so UK supermarkets will fly in fresh vegetables from the US.
The heavy rain was probably a result of global heating, and flying the
vegetables will surely cause more global heating. This is one little
example of how civilization can fall.
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is going to be
threatened again
by the troll and his extractivist cabinet members.
A
guide
to the planned US protests on Jan 21.
Bangladeshi clothing factories crushed a week-long strike and protest
with
the
help of thugs.
They fired 1500 workers and blacklisted them. This is "free trade"
at
work.
The article calls this a "blow" to the Bangladeshi clothing industry,
but I disagree, because it appears to me that the bad guys won.
(Nonetheless, it was a good try!)
A real blow to the industry will be if the workers win.
How far has sexual repression in the US gone? A
proposed law to
establish a 5-year maximum penalty for sex involving teenagers (in
certain limited cases) is actually a reduction in the
repression.
Cheetah numbers are
dropping fast.
Global heating
threatens
the survival of reindeer. They can dig through dry snow to find
food, but they can't break a surface of ice from rain that froze on
the ground.
Gingrich argues that the president's power to pardon is so powerful
that it
permits
making anyone whatsoever completely above the law.
He didn't urge the troll to do this; it seems he was rather warning
that the troll might do this.
Ever since President Ford pardoned President Nixon, I have believed
that we should amend the constitution to reduce the president's
power to pardon crimes connected with the federal government.
Specifically, the president should not have the power to pardon crimes
that were committed by anyone holding elected or appointed federal
office at the time of the crime, or any crime carried out as part of
working for the federal government or cooperation with the federal
government.
New York State will not allow the Trump Foundation to dissolve
because it is
being
investigated for alleged corruption.
Shi'ite Iraqi Ali Amin Abdullah survived 2 years in Mosul under the
rule of PISSI by
pretending
to be Sunni. He did this so effectively that the Iraqi army put
him in prison and his family cannot find him.
There is a rational need to do something to prevent PISSI supporters
from remaining underground in Mosul and setting up cells to try to
take power again. But it has to be done without terrorizing masses of
people because they appear to be Sunnis, or even because they are
Sunnis.
The rain in Spain fell mainly on fresh vegetables for sale to the UK,
so UK supermarkets
will
fly in fresh vegetables from the US.
The heavy rain was probably a result of global heating, and flying the
vegetables will surely cause more global heating. This is one little
example of how civilization can fall.
Looking back over the history of American journalism, we find, about a
century ago, that
articles
based on rumors and lies were common.
The imperialist war against Spain was started through such pressure.
The slogan for the war was "Remember the Maine", alluding to a US
warship that exploded mysteriously in Havana. The most recent
investigation concluded it was an internal explosion.
Movements for independence in Cuba and the Philippines were both
crushed by the US, which turned Cuba into a puppet government, and
reduced the Philippines to a colony after years of war and repression.
Obama's last blow against the US independent press: establishing an
"anti-propaganda
center" to "recognize, understand, expose, and counter" foreign
propaganda.
In principle, that's not a bad thing to do; in practice, almost any
sort of US state propaganda could be described as "countering" some
sort of foreign propaganda. A single foreign article published
anywhere in the world could serve as the excuse for a mammoth US
government propaganda campaign.
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is
going
to be threatened again by the troll and his extractivist cabinet
members.
A
guide
to the planned US protests on Jan 21.
How far has sexual repression in the US gone? A proposed law to
establish a
5-year
maximum penalty for sex involving teenagers (in certain limited
cases) is actually a reduction in the repression.
Bangladeshi clothing factories
crushed
a week-long strike and protest with the help of thugs. They fired
1500 workers and blacklisted them. This is "free trade" at work.
The article calls this a "blow" to the Bangladeshi clothing industry,
but I disagree, because it appears to me that the bad guys won.
(Nonetheless, it was a good try!)
A real blow to the industry will be if the workers win.
Cheetah numbers are
dropping
fast.
Everyone:
urge
Maine legislators to impeach the governor of Maine.
Zimmerman was acquitted of killing Trayvon Martin because the crucial
witness spoke a strongly nonstandard dialect of English, typically
found among blacks, and the jurors
interpreted
her testimony wrong by taking it as standard English.
More analysis confirming that Rachel Jeantel spoke in a typical form
of
African-American
Vernacular English, though with a little influence from Haitian
Kreyol, and that she consistently followed the grammatical and lexical
rules of her dialect. The jurors (none of whom knew that dialect)
frequently misunderstood her testimony.
I support the idea that courts should use interpreters whenever
witnesses appear to be speaking in a dialect that many jurors will not
understand.
This also demonstrates how important it is for everyone in the US to
learn to speak a more standard form of English — standard enough
that you won't be systematically misunderstood. Not that you
shouldn't ever speak some other dialect that you grew up with —
but don't let that be the only one you can use fluently.
The US government has
started
asking visitors to give a list of their social media accounts.
Although the answer is not required, many visitors will fear to
decline.
A
link
between Michael Flynn and the KGB.
Amazon has so much market share that its sheer size
distorts
the market.
We should not allow a company to have a share over around 10% of any
market. If in a certain field a single dominant company is beneficial
for society, that means it is a natural monopoly, and should be
served by a regulated utility.
The Scandal of
Vast
Inequality in Retirement Pay.
The CEOs pushed their income way up the same way they pushed US
workers' wages down.
Americans'
customary
response to small harmful freak event: demand someone turn the
world upside down to make sure it "never happens again".
This American Fought [PISSI]. Now He's Trying to Get Washington to
Untangle Its
Syria
Policy.
Afghanistan's
military
aid funds support local militias, ostensibly to fight the Taliban,
but they also fight each other and the central government.
Because of overpopulation,
millions
in Manila live in areas that often flood. But hurricanes are
getting stronger and in the future will flood nearly all of Manila.
Meanwhile, crop failures will mean food is scarce.
How to cope with this in the future? Condoms and sterilizations will
help.
Due to global heating, major floods in the UK are
likely
to happen every year.
The ministers not only don't have a plan to deal with it,
they intend to continue the policies that created it.
It would be
useful
in schools to teach adolescents to think critically about porn.
The FBI has collected photos of half the adults in the US, and many
city thug departments feed cameras on the street into this data base
to recognize
everyone walking by.
More
information.
We need laws to restrict putting faces with names into a face
recognition data base.
Schooled in Terror: The Tactical Trainings Where Cops
Militarize
Their Brutality.
Sexist sexual repression in the US starts in school with a
dress
code.
One way girls can push back is by wearing oversize yellow shirts
and making it a new style.
US citizens:
call
on Obama, once again, to pardon Snowden now.
The troll's
proposed
ambassador Israel would be better suited for Israeli ambassador to
the US, but only under a virulent racist extremist government of the
farright.
Egypt Arrests [vacationing] Al-Jazeera Journalist over
"Provoking
Sedition".
Egypt is one of the few countries I have never seen, that I would
specifically like to visit. But I wouldn't go there now; I am afraid
of the repression. I don't suppose the Egyptian regime hates free
software, but it might object to something I say on this site. In
addition, the Egyptian government is so random about its repression
that anyone there could be imprisoned for years
simply
for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I urge tourists to punish Egypt by boycotting it.
A fake news site published a report that Israel threatened a nuclear
attack against Pakistan. The report was false, but
Pakistan's
counter-threat was real.
Focusing on mental illness and failed relationships as causes of
misery
should
not be used to excuse policies that cause poverty.
Poverty has a tendency to cause stress, which can exacerbate mental
illness and provoke relationship problems.
Many mammals can see ultraviolet light. The reason they won't walk
under an electric power line is that those cables
emit
flashes of UV.
Israel threatens to punish the UN by
breaking
off ties with it.
Factory Near Carrier Sends Jobs to Mexico, But
Trump
Just Tweets.
Identity politics is valid opposition to bigotry, but when its
supporters are
not
also the poor and downtrodden, it can turn into "It's ok for
people to be poor as long as it's not due to bigotry."
"You don't build the left by figuring out which victim has been most
victimized; you build it by organizing all the victims."
It seems Betsy DeVos advocates using government money to
subsidize
religious inculcation. Privatizing schools may be a covert scheme
to achieve this.
Campaigns against torture tend to overlook the
everyday
torture of poor people — those who, lacking fame or foreign
supporters, can be tortured with impunity.
Boycott Dr Seuss the greedy, grasping
copyright
bullying.
Thomas Piketty: We Must
Re-Think
Globalization, Or Trumpism Will Prevail.
Thousands of Chinese ships
travel
long distances to fish illegally all around the world. They will
surely wipe out all fisheries that are not protected from them.
Protests (as such) can't take power away from right-wingers.
Only an
electoral
movement can do that.
Madison, Mississippi, passed a law
requiring
every store, business and professional office to run a security
camera. This includes doctors' offices and lawyers' offices.
There's a danger that the city will make this even worse, by requiring
businesses to hand over the recordings without a warrant. Though that
might be overturned as unconstitutional.
Why
Christmas
Time in China Means Jail for Human Rights Activists.
The troll has nominated a man with
no
diplomatic experience to supervise peace negotiations with Israel
and Palestine.
The nominee is well suited to that sinecure, since Netanyahu has
already rejected peace and
has
not held any serious negotiations for many years.
Dishonest publishing lobbyists are
trying
to recruit the troll to make the DMCA even worse.
I was delighted to see that the article recognizes the
absurdity of the
term "intellectual property". I've been explaining this to people
for 12 years now.
The article refers to misrepresentation of the US Constitution
regarding copyright law.
See
https://gnu.org/philosophy/misinterpreting-copyright.html
for how I treat that point.
In 2015, two Turkish members of parliament accused the Turkish state
of shielding
people who provided Sarin gas to Syrian rebels.
This was originally published in the newspaper Today's Zaman, which
was
shut
down arbitrarily by the Turkish government earlier this year.
This accords with claims made by
Seymour
Hersh.
Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst, describes how Obama
recognized
these facts and cancelled the plan for military intervention in
Syria.
Now Yemen gets its cluster bombs
from
Brazil.
The US Department of Justice is
letting
banks off the hook for giant frauds with inadequate fines.
US citizens:
call
on the Senate to reject Pruitt as head of EPA.
US citizens:
call
on Obama not to start an arms race in space.
The troll said he would stop foreign workers from taking jobs in the US,
but his family's vineyard has
applied
to bring in foreign workers.
Republicans are striving mightily in various states to
block
local laws and even state-level referendums to raise the minimum
wage.
Unauthorized immigrants in the US pay
lots
of taxes, including Social Security tax, although they can't get
Social Security benefits.
George Lakeoff: we who
oppose
the troll should show that he is a loser, corrupt, and a betrayer
of trust. That undermines his message. But we should focus, not on
the troll himself, but on what policies make a nurturing society.
Rick Perry is accused of corruption as governor of Texas, and he
could
easily carry this forward to the US Department of Energy.
US right-wingers make a fuss about religious freedom, but really it's
only when Christians want to
impose
their religion on others.
Republicans in Congress are
frightened
to disagree with the troll on anything. His mob of extremist
supporters, organized through Breitbart, keeps them in check.
This could be the reason why the troll
continues
to hold rallies of the same sort he did during the campaign.
Charter schools in the US are
businesses
subsidized by public funds with very little accountability. They
are now going through a wave of mergers.
The troll, naturally, wants to unleash them to drain even more funds
away from American children's education.
The Nigerian army has
captured
the last Boko Haram camp in the Sambisa forest, which they used to
control.
Alas, this doesn't automatically wipe out Boko Haram. A permanent
camp is useful for operations, but they can surely survive moving
around in the forest.
Kamala Harris is
trying
again to prosecute Backpage and its owners for publishing ads for
escorts, who are probably prostitutes, because some of them may in
fact be minors.
Prostitution should be lawful. Prohibiting the advertising of
prostitution does no good for prostitutes, and tends to force them to
work on the street, which hurts them plenty.
The principal way to prevent women and girls from being forced into
prostitution is to reduce poverty.
Some women are forced into prostitution by violent threats by pimps.
It is hard to prevent that — banning advertising won't do it.
Maybe targeted surveillance could be made to work.
Thailand's new "computer crime act" includes
punishment
for violating vague censorship rules.
Thailand is one of the countries that I won't visit, because of the
repression there. I encourage everyone to boycott Thailand.
The troll's plan to
move
the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem would be an explicit
endorsement of Netanyahu's intention for a permanent occupation of
Palestine.
As more children in the UK fall into poverty, the Tories handled it by
eliminating
the special government program meant to reduce the causes of
poverty.
Perhaps the government want to reduce them — since the main
cause of poverty in the UK today is the Tory party.
Another refugee died after
months
of being denied access to Australian medical care. The refugee
was imprisoned by Australia on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea.
The refugees that die are a small fraction, but they are all subject
to grave mistreatment every day.
Former president Rousseff fights to clear her name of the
charges
used by the right wing to seize power.
A House committee prepared a report to smear Snowden, but
couldn't
demonstrate anything bad about him. Snowden called it
"accidentally exonerating".
It is
full
of falsehoods and distortions.
I speculate that the purpose of this report is to influence the
general climate of public opinion against Snowden, and thus oppose the
campaign asking Obama to pardon him.
Sad to say, that tactic sometimes works. I know someone who is
generally sensible, who has been persuaded by the parade of lies to
call Snowden a traitor.
Obama finally stood up to Netanyahu,
allowing
the UN to rebuke Israel's colonization of the West Bank. This is
a reversal, because Obama has
bent
over backwards to prevent UN criticism of Israel.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu has been
accelerating
the colonization, while completely shutting down the possibility
of a peace deal with Palestine.
Netanyahu has displayed
overt
arrogance towards the US, and mostly Obama has swallowed this,
because Congress gives Israel almost bootlicking support.
All this
as
American Jews become increasingly critical of Israeli occupation
policies.
US citizens:
protest
on Jan 9 against the troll's worst saboteur nominees for cabinet
positions.
If necessary, you can hand-edit that URL, substituting your zip code
into it.
Haitian warlord Guy Philippe has been arrested for US drug charges. Philippe fronted the US-backed coup that overthrew elected President Aristide.
With the REINS act,
SCROTUS would
make all new federal regulations
require specific
approval from Congress.
Nothing
is too ugly for a trumpet to say.
The ACLU has got a court order to
stop
schools from arbitrarily demanding drug tests of students.
There is no justification for making people take tests of whether they
have used recreational drugs in the past few days or weeks.
In certain special circumstances it is justified to require someone to
take a test of whether per functioning is currently impaired by a
drug; but that's a different kind of test. And doing schoolwork
is not one of those special circumstances.
Irish homeless people, with support from the community,
occupied
a vacant building to make places they could sleep.
Naturally, the government took the side of the future and past rich
owners rather than people who need a place to sleep. That's a sign of
fundamental callousness: those politicians should spend some months
sleeping on the street to understand what is at stake here.
North Carolina Republicans said they would repeal the "bathroom bill"
if Charlotte repealed its antidiscrimination law which said that
people could use the bathrooms of their own gender identity.
Charlotte did so, upon which the state Republicans
did
not repeal the "bathroom bill".
Republicans are like Trump: cheaters! Never make a deal with
Republicans — if you care whether they keep it.
I suggest that Charlotte pass its bill again, just to show those
cheaters for what they are.
The EU is
considering a plan
to take fingerprints from all visitors. It has no specific
grounds for this violation of privacy, just a vague handwaving that
this is good for "security".
How the group Hope not Hate
teaches
people to have calm discussions to diffuse the anger that promotes
bigotry.
A Breitbart internet mob latched on to a rumor and bullied a Jewish
family with
threats
that made them fear violence.
The Daily Mail attempted a hatchet job against the people behind
snopes.org. Fortunately, without causing much damage. But it raises
the suspicion that the Daily Mail
doesn't
want facts to be checked or myths to be busted.
The troll seems to have
pressured
Egypt to delay a UN resolution to condemn Israel's colonization of
Palestinian territory.
Has the troll violated the Logan act? Could he be prosecuted for this
now? Could that prevent him from taking office?
Apartheid is imposed by the Israeli government on
70%
of towns in Israel: Arabs are entirely excluded.
Right-wing extremists in Israel's government are
setting
their repressive sights on academic freedom. No one, they
believe, should be allowed to question their politics in school.
Unlike the still-risible Professor Witchlist in the US, this will
be state-imposed, enforced censorship.
Israel still claims to be a democracy, but it allows ever less
in the way of human rights.
There were Israelis that predicted after 1967 that occupation of
Palestine would destroy Israel's spirit. I have to say they were
right. The reason the occupation continues is the Israeli colonies
constructed in Palestine by Israelis that want to expel the
Palestinians, slowly.
The current Israeli government has sped up the construction, and the
expulsion. Most Palestinians have
given
up hope of ever having a state of Palestine.
Now that California kicked out Uber's crash-risking driverless cars,
citizens
of Arizona must organize to do likewise.
The Philippine Commission on Human Rights
will
investigate Duterte's confessed killings.
The rate of use of marijuana by teenagers in Colorado is the
same
as it was before the state legalized marijuana sales in stores, to
within the margin of error for surveys.
The
"half-blind
trust" that the troll proposes for his conflicts of interests
would be an absurd parody of a solution.
Workers in the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas
won
a new contract, but the troll is likely to sabotage the NLRB so
that unions can't win any more.
SCROTUS have
another
plan to cut Social Security. In typical right-wing dishonesty,
the plan tries to camouflage the cuts with smaller increases for a
fraction of workers.
Craig Murray says that he received the leaked Democratic Party emails,
from an intermediary who told him that they were
leaked
by an insider.
Ecuador is
acting
to forcibly shut down Acción Ecológica, which
opposes oil drilling in the Amazon.
A future climate lawsuit against Washington state
parallels
the federal future climate lawsuit.
Many of the plaintiffs, now teenagers, could live long enough to see
the years when climate mayhem kills lots of Americans, and be killed
by it.
North Carolina's civil rights campaign, the Moral Mondays, has
succeeded so well that it
elected
a Democrat as governor.
Its success is helped by appealing to universal goals rather than a
specific identity — like the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
A minority that is the target of prejudice and bigotry is entitled to
demand better treatment, but it is hard to get majority support for
changes by setting yourself against the majority. A campaign for
universal values, such as justice for all (so that the minority is no
longer an exception) is more likely to succeed.
The Moral Mondays could win the election for governor because that
runs by simple popular vote. But it can't win back the state
legislature, because that election is
rigged.
Now that thugs have killer robots to use, we have to consider the
danger
that their use will become attractive and frequent.
Does concern about that eventuality seem like borrowing trouble? In
1970 it might have seemed silly to worry that SWAT teams would be used
50,000 times a year, and often against suspects not known to be armed.
Where other large banks have agreed to pay billions in penalties for
cheating millions of American homeowners,
Barclays bank decided to fight the charges.
I wonder if Barclays Bank has made a deal with the troll. Perhaps to
lend one billion dollars with no collateral as part of a scheme
like the one
he did decades ago,
in exchange for being let off the hook.
I don't have enough faith in the honesty of either party to regard
this as impossible.
I expect the penalties are insufficient to deter banks from doing such
things in the future. I don't have any specific knowledge about that,
but it's the usual weak practice of the US.
Arleen Matthews worked for a local government in the UK taking care of
temporary housing. She couldn't pay her own rent, and became
homeless, so she made arrangements with one of those tenants to let
her sleep in a garage.
When her employer found out,
it fired her. What callousness.
CO2 released by melting permafrost could
add .5C extra heating in this
century. The methane released could add even more, for the short
term.
Chopping down (or drying up) a large forest
can alter the climate all around the world.
Everyone:
call on
Democrats in Congress to skip the troll's inauguration.
US citizens:
call
on states to adopt the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact,
so that presidential elections will be decided by the popular vote.
US citizens:
call on the
Senate to reject Tillerson as Secretary of State.
For
more
explanation.
A video shows a Texas thug
attack
and arrest a woman and her teenage daughter, because she raised
her voice to the thug.
Per standard practice, the thug made false accusations against the two
of them.
The troll said he
wants
a nuclear arms race.
Assuming nuclear weapons continue not to be used, this will be a
bonanza for weapons companies and an excuse to further cut social
programs that people depend on for their lives.
A tribe in the Brazilian Amazon fights violent illegal deforestation
with
their
own traditional arms, as well as modern technology.
Nearly all people who sleep on the street face
frequent
attacks from passers by. The get as bad as kicking them in the
head, and rape.
4000 rebels and civilians were
calmly
evacuated from Aleppo, and Assad's forces took control.
I think this means that the bloodbath and torture fest that some had
feared will not take place.
Obama has
ordered
the elimination of the inactive NSEERS tracking program which was
set up under Dubya to track Muslim visitors to the US.
Tracking 80,000 Muslim visitors must have created plenty of
resentment, but it did exactly zero to reduce terrorism.
Hope not Hate, in the UK, demands an apology from the
right-wing
politician who launched an internet mob attack.
This is "a David v Goliath struggle, where the other side portrays
itself as the underdog, yet in reality is backed by an online army and
millionaires in the wings."
The latest (presumably) Chinese counterfeit food product: fake rice,
made
of plastic.
Facebook lurkers are
likely
to feel happier if they stop being used by Facebook for at least a
week.
If you want to "engage with others" more, how about doing it
outside of Facebook? That would provide the same benefits
and would avoid giving Facebook any more information about you or the
others you engage with.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter (on Jan 4 if possible) to
oppose cuts in Medicare and Medicaid.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588.
The giant new Adani coal mine in Australia was funded by the World
Bank through a program that is
supposed
to fund "sustainable development".
Why
Time Management Is Ruining Our Lives.
If the work you do is essential for fighting injustice or preventing
disaster, perhaps it is really desirable for you to work as much as
possible. Otherwise, you shouldn't have to work so hard, and the
reason you do is because an exploitative system wants to extract as
much as it can from you. Rather than working hard for it, better to
organize against it.
Oracle executive George Polisner has resigned in protest against the
CEO's
acceptance of a position in the troll's "transition team".
Joseph Stiglitz describes how the IMF and the US fixed the Russian elections
in the 1990s
in
favor of Yeltsin.
Kuwait's annual diplomatic reception was scheduled for some other hotel,
but the troll's staff
pressured
Kuwait to move it to the troll's hotel.
The best defense against truck-ramming terrorism is with simple
physical
barriers. There is no need to panic.
Especially there is no need to authorize increased surveillance of
people in general. The Berlin truck attacker was a known known
terrorist sympathizer who
had
been investigated and was facing deportation soon.
This specific suspicion could have been used (and, I expect, was used)
to obtain orders for surveillance and searches targeted at him
personally. Increases in surveillance of everyone in Germany would
have provided no more information about him.
It looks like they have
lots
of possible suspects (only a tiny fraction of whom will actually
commit any crime) that they can't keep close tabs on all of them.
Many
places in the US have high levels of lead in the water, enough to
be a real danger to children growing up there.
A proposed EU directive to reduce tax-dodging by businesses has been
undermined
by officials in favor of continuing the tax-dodging.
Trumpery doesn't replace the neoliberal mindset (society is nothing
but business); rather, it takes that mindset to a
further
extreme.
The new FCC commissioners
intend
to eliminate network neutrality rules so that ISPs can mistreat
and manipulate their customers more.
Thousands of retired Americans are having their social security payments
confiscated to pay the
interest
on student loans.
For 2/3 of them, the confiscation pays only interest, so the principal
of the loan does not decrease. They will go on paying this way until
they die, or they elect progressive officials.
It will be hard for the troll's children to avoid
insider
trading charges, if they buy and sell stock and are involved in
policy matters.
The troll's sons
plan
to sell meetings with him for a million dollars, to anonymous
"donors".
India is
investing
heavily in renewable energy and expects to make 57% of its
electricity that way in 10 years.
The European Union is
talking
about taking action against Poland's nondemocratic changes in law.
The year 2016 in
American
child-protection mania.
The Clintons
Turned
the Democratic Party Over to Donors. Can It Recover?
Alas it wasn't just the Clintons. Plenty of Democrats in Congress
still stand for the same center-right positions.
A Nauru refugee has been
denied
medical treatment for a heart attack for a month now.
We urgently need to reduce emissions of soot, so as to stop
blackening
and melting ice.
We wouldn't be grasping at these straws if we had started acting
rationally 15 years ago.
Who disagrees with the studies that show sugar causes obesity?
Researchers
funded
by the sugar industry.
Those sugar-funded scientists will give the sugar industry a way to
claim that there is doubt about the question. Does this seem familiar
to you?
Obama has finally placed a
permanent
ban on oil extraction on most of the Atlantic and Arctic coasts.
The end result of UK austerity is now visible in
the
people sleeping on the streets.
The European Court of Justice ruled that states
may
not collect people's emails indiscriminately.
This could
force
revision of the UK's massive snooping law.
Temporary agencies in the UK profit by
systematically
cheating the employees.
The corrupt Brazilian government is
planning
to legalize massive deforestation.
George Monbiot: Celebrity Isn't Just Harmless Fun — It's the
Smiling
Face of the Corporate Machine.
It is especially disappointing that what young people desire
most is to be famous.
An Israeli politician
wishes
that Arab citizens didn't vote.
In fact, the government
wants
to find an excuse to ban the candidates they elect.
Compare this with the troll, who said he was
glad
many black Americans didn't vote. As usual, he was bullshitting,
since they tried to vote but his party dishonestly
stopped
them from voting.
Torture of Palestinian prisoners is common in Israel. There have been
1000
complaints since 2001, and Israeli officials have dismissed every
one.
Israel has declared half the land area of the West Bank for ethnic
cleansing, and is using a
broad
campaign of repression to drive Palestinians out.
Israel is
confiscating
parts of an old Palestinian cemetery just outside Jerusalem, with
the excuse of making the land into a park.
The troll's proposed ambassador to Israel
viciously
insults Jews that disagree with his politics.
Israel is
threatening
to expel an Australian journalist, but Palestinian journalists get
imprisoned instead.
A business in the UK will have to pay a
million
pounds to some of the workers it enslaved.
Isn't it a crime to imprison people and threaten the with violence
using attack dogs? Why are those abusers being allowed to get off
with a monetary payment?
A UK woman is suing the thugs for having an undercover infiltrator
seduce
her and break up her previous relationship.
The troll is
continuing
to hold campaign rallies, apparently to stir up his supporters
with the latest bullshit.
That he praises them for being violence-maddened suggests to me that
he intends to use them as a kind of private army, for some sort of
harassment that he won't be able to get official thugs to do.
More
officials have been charged about the Flint lead poisoning.
It is good to prosecute the individuals that are responsible, but we
must also get rid of the system that is responsible: the
"emergency
manager" system that Republicans in Michigan created so they could
set aside democratic local government in Detroit and Flint, so as to
screw the residents there.
Workers in the UK should unite against "free trade" that means
moving
jobs to places where workers can be paid a pittance.
And then they should insist that all workers get enough pay, and
enough hours, to
make
work pay.
"Taking back control" does not mean people should get offered
a
few horrible alternatives to choose from. That's like choosing
between a proprietary Microsoft system, a proprietary Apple system,
and a mostly proprietary Google system.
The EU accuses Facebook of
lying
when it applied for permission to buy WhatsApp.
If Facebook is fined $100 million, that won't be enough to deter it
from lying again the same way. Laws should be changed so that mergers
approved as a result of fraud can be undone, with fines far larger.
A poll reports that
most
Americans, even most Republicans, support clean energy and
reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Yet Republican politicians regularly, almost without exception,
convince those same Republicans to choose denialist candidates.
The European Commission has done next to nothing to enforce emission
standards against the
car
companies that have cheated on tests.
Finland will try giving money
for
two years to some currently unemployed people.
Islamist terrorists and right-wing extremists
want
the same thing: to create social hostility that they can profit
from. Don't help them.
The Professor Witchhunt web site (to call it what it is)
mixes
false rumors with some true facts to create a potential threat to
intellectual freedom in the US.
Several New Orleans thugs were
convicted
or pled guilty to killings, beatings and false accusations made
against innocent people who were trying to flee New Orleans after
Hurricane Katrina. Now the city has paid millions to the victims.
It is exemplary that thugs were prosecuted for the more frequent
lesser crimes, and not solely when they had killed someone.
Polish protesters
made
the regime withdraw planned restrictions on journalists in the
parliamemt building.
As the ice melts, the
polar
bears of Hudson's Bay head towards extinction.
US citizens:
call on
Obama and Feinstein to publish the CIA torture report.
Many unions are striking in the UK. Other workers should
follow
their example.
The US Protects Its Wealthy Professionals Financially While
Throwing
Workers to the Wolves.
Salafi Arabia has acknowledged
dropping
UK-made cluster bombs in Yemen. This puts pressure on the UK to
stop selling arms to Salafi Arabia.
The melting of Arctic ice has deranged the jet stream,
causing
strange weather all around the northern hemisphere.
It
endangers
the way of life, and the language, of some indigenous peoples, as well
as the land they live on.
Everyone:
Call
on tech companies to refuse to help the troll register US Muslims.
Instead of identity politics, let's campaign for a government the
provides
justice
and a good life for all.
Also, we can oppose bigotry (whether conscious or unconscious) and
work against it without identifying with a particular identity.
A Jew
condemns
the troll's choice for ambassador to Israel.
The UK Labour Party calls for
regulation
of algorithms used by servers in some cases.
If you can't resist obligatory gift holidays, at least give gifts that
don't
take a lot of resources and don't produce permanent trash.
The Republican
Sabotage
of the Vote Recounts in Michigan and Wisconsin.
Poland Is "on Road to Autocracy",
Says
Constitutional Court President. When his term ends, soon, Poland
may reach the end of that road.
Various Republican-dominated states are trying to propagandize for
their idea that fetuses are human beings with rules requiring
hospitals to
treat
fetuses as dead human bodies.
It is possible to identify at age 3 a fraction of people who will
place a big burden on society, from a few
measurements
of "brain health".
How many such people there are is partly under our control. It is
clear that lead poisoning can put people into that fraction, so the
amount of lead that gets into people will make that fraction bigger or
smaller.
If people get bothered by the fictional all-seeing eye of the
"Elf
on the Shelf", maybe they will start being concerned about
real
systems that do pervasive surveillance.
Tillerson is a director of Bahamas-registered Exxon subsidiary that is
involved
with Russia.
Companies in the Bahamas usually exist to hide income or dodge taxes.
Maybe that is what this one is for. Exxon claims that it doesn't
dodge taxes in one particular way. The denial is phrased in a
legalistic way that makes me suspect it's a word game. Maybe this
subsidiary dodges taxes in some other way.
Identifying the
15
tax havens, measured by the amount of harm they do.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter on Jan 4
to oppose cuts in Medicare. Say that includes
anything that reduces benefits or increases costs,
such as "balance billing".
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588.
With automation reducing the number of well-paid jobs, most remaining
jobs pay next to nothing and employers prefer
trafficked
workers.
Google says that it's not to blame that its algorithm
makes
a denialist site the number one answer to questions about the
holocaust, but Google tunes that algorithm to serve its own
interests.
Note that what the author reports buying is an ad to appear in the
search results page, not an actual search result.
Xu Hongci was a member of the Chinese Communist Party, campaigning
idealistically for a better world. Eventually he learned the hard way
that
it
had set up a tyrannical regime.
Meanwhile, back in the US, the tyrannical side of the troll is
not
hidden behind goodness.
Giving or receiving gifts on an obligatory gift holiday is an
emotional
minefield.
I recommend you do as I've done, and say, "Please don't give me gifts
for any holiday."
A consortium of German universities will
reject
Elsevier's licensing for journals.
It is good to see a sign of resistance, but it isn't clear whether
they are going to demand a real change, or only a lower price.
Japan's peace movement is
growing
in strength, stimulated by a government oriented towards
militarism.
NPR systematically
substitutes
neuropsychology for political debate.
People's actions are decided by how their brains respond to
circumstances. In areas where people frequently make ineffective
choices, it may be interesting to ask, "What leads people to make that
choice?" But the question that will help us is, "What should we do
instead?"
I think the article is mistaken in equating "progressive" thinking
with a focus on the individual rather than organizing society. What
NPR does is one thing, and what progressives do is another. NPR is
not particularly progressive. I stopped listening to its news
programs in the late 90s when I noticed how often they criticized Bill
Clinton by presenting him as leftist, which I came to recognize is
standard right-wing tactics.
Once, in the 1990s, there was an NPR call-in discussion about how
workers could get raises and improve their work environment. I called
it to suggest they should form unions, but the phone answerers told me
that this was outside the scope of the discussion. People (other than
the rich) were supposed to be divided, not united.
Congresscritters and senators that owned bank stock were
more
likely to vote to give money to banks.
Reportedly
the FBI agrees that Russia was behind leaks that targeted the
Democratic Party.
This is still not proof; but it is clear enough anyway that the troll
is the enemy of American democracy and should not become president.
Ariel Dorfman, Chilean exile,
compares
the possibly Russia-imposed government in the US with the US-imposed
government that made him flee Chile.
Tsipras is defying the banksters,
giving
funds to poor people that the banksters want Greece to starve.
Apparently he sees a crack to exploit.
Those banksters, and the banks they run, are everyone's enemy.
I hope to see them ruined.
In Nebraska, where begging has been declared a crime, beggars are
jailed for
weeks
or months until they are tried.
I have an idea. Homeless people should picket, every day, a store
whose owner advocates repression of the homeless.
Michigan made tens of thousands of
automatic
accusations of unemployment fraud. Investigation of 22,000 of
them found that 93% of the accusations were false. The victims were
hit with fines up to 100,000 dollars.
Of the 20,000 victims, I wonder if some of them were jailed because
they could not pay the fine, or lost their homes, or died because
they could not afford medical care.
Michigan is ruled by crush-the-weak Republicans. I won't say that
they intentionally designed the algorithm to make false accusations,
but it's clear that they went to great lengths to uphold them.
Punishment of the poor, justified or not, serves their politics. It
gives them an excuse to demonize the unemployed and, by extension,
anyone who gets government assistance and isn't rich.
Mass Atrocities Feared in South Sudan as Ethnic Violence Is
Stoked
by Hunger.
President Maduro of Venezuela
cancelled
the invalidation of 100-bolivar bills.
Apparently he is more ready to admit a mistake than
Modi.
Amazon Workers
Sleep
in Tents Near Firm's Scottish Depot to Avoid Travel Costs.
ACLU: The California Transportation Department Is
Cruelly
and Unconstitutionally Destroying Homeless People's Belongings.
The troll's "tech summit" was a
thinly
veiled business negotiation.
Conservatives evince more concern for environmental destruction when
it is presented as a
campaign
to restore the world as it was.
You don't have to be overweight to get type II diabetes. There are
other
causes.
Tis the season to be
sweated,
for those who make Christmas presents.
I recommend rejecting
obligatory
holiday purchases entirely.
US citizens:
call
on the EPA to finalize the new fuel economy standards.
US citizens:
Support
the proposed law to require presidents and cabinet officials to
avoid conflicts of interest.
US citizens:
call
on the EPA to ban neonics now.
To sign this with Javascript disabled, you need to employ the
salsalabs method.
The troll's success by broadcasting lies creates a problem
for bringing up children:
how
can parents teach them to be honest?
there are opportunities for change in the
United States: change for the worse and change for the better.
is a cool evaluation of an unknown factor, not support.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
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