Marie Newman will challenge conservative Democrat again

The Democratic party establishment has announced a crackdown on insurgent candidates challenging incumbents in primaries, warning that any vendors who support such candidates will be blacklisted by the party. It is clear that they are so scared of the energy of the new young progressives that they will go to any lengths to support neoliberal and even conservative incumbents. An excellent test case of this is Illinois congressman Dan Lipinksi. If you did not see the (D) after his name, you could be excused for thinking of him as a Republican based on his views and voting record.
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The Extinction Rebellion protest in London

Over the past nine days, a group known as Extinction Rebellion has been blockading central London to highlight the problem of climate change and to protest lack of action on it. They just ended the protest.

Extinction Rebellion, which has been backed by senior academics, politicians and scientists during nine days of peaceful mass civil disobedience, said it would leave its remaining blockades, but added: “The world has changed … A space for truth-telling has been opened up.

“Now it is time to bring this telling of the truth to communities around London, the regions and nations of the UK, and internationally. In this age of misinformation, there is power in telling the truth.”

The group said it would like to “thank Londoners for opening their hearts and demonstrating their willingness to act on that truth”.

The statement added: “We know we have disrupted your lives. We do not do this lightly. We only do this because this is an emergency.”

The activists said protesters had “taken to the streets and raised the alarm” in more than 80 cities in 33 countries. “People are talking about the climate and ecological emergency in ways that we never imagined,” they said.

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The ‘Stop Bernie’ movement tries to regroup

Bernie Sanders has shown that his popularity during the 2016 election is not ephemeral and is continuing this time around too. This has caused considerable consternation in the Democratic party establishment at this threat to the dominance of its neoliberal orthodoxy and they are scrambling to find ways to derail the Sanders campaign. The Center for American Progress and ThinkProgress, both closely affiliated with the party leadership, has made no secret of its desire to derail the Sanders campaign.
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The TurboTax ‘free’ tax software rip-off

According to the deal that the IRS has with the private tax preparation companies, the IRS will not develop its own free software provided that the companies offer free software to people earning less than $66,000 per year. Congress is now about to pass a measure making that agreement an actual law. But Justin Elliot and Lucas Waldron at ProPublica tried to file free and found that TurboTax has made it incredibly difficult for people to even locate the free service.
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Jimmy Carter calls the US ‘the most warlike nation’

The former president said that this was true not just for the current time but in the history of the world and backed up his assertion with facts.

Carter then referred to the US as “the most warlike nation in the history of the world,” a result, he said, of the US forcing other countries to “adopt our American principles.”

Carter then said the US has been at peace for only 16 of its 242 years as a nation. Counting wars, military attacks and military occupations, there have actually only been five years of peace in US history—1976, the last year of the Gerald Ford administration and 1977-80, the entirety of Carter’s presidency. Carter then referred to the US as “the most warlike nation in the history of the world,” a result, he said, of the US forcing other countries to “adopt our American principles.”

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Update on Sri Lanka

I have been trying to keep abreast of the bombings in Sri Lanka that have led to global condemnation. There are reports of a armed stand-off at an apartment building where three police officers were killed. The government has reportedly made some arrests but they are not revealing the names of those taken into custody and have urged the media not to do so either. This is likely because in Sri Lanka one’s name is an almost certain indictor of one’s linguistic/ethnic group and they likely fear that there will be vigilante retaliation against innocent members of that community. One should also be wary of any early reports. Sri Lankan police tend to depend upon the ’round up the usual suspects and see if they confess’ method of investigation, not the best way of getting reliable information.


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Carnage in Sri Lanka

I was woken up this morning by a phone call from my daughter alerting me to the horrific news from Sri Lanka where a coordinated set of eight attacks at multiple locations, reportedly involving suicide bombings, had claimed over 200 lives and 450 injured though those numbers will change. The government has ordered a nationwide curfew and shut down all social media platforms, a source of many incendiary rumors in the past. Sri Lanka is prone to fact-free speculations spreading like wildfire even before the age of social media and these platforms have made this problem much worse
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