A judge in Italy has issued what can only be described as bizarre reasoning in acquitting a school caretaker of groping a 17-year old student. There was no doubt about what the groper had done. The attacker did not deny it.
The case involves a 17-year-old student at a Rome high school.
She described walking up a staircase to class with a friend, when she felt her trousers fall down, a hand touching her buttocks and grabbing her underwear.
[Read more…]
The one-note nature of Ron DeSantis’s campaign is becoming increasingly apparent.
We can probably expect him to ban certain fish in Florida as well.
I had been reading about an ad put out by the DeSantis campaign that has political observers scratching their heads in mystification. I took a look at it and it was decidedly strange. It starts with what looks like an attack on serial sex abuser Trump for saying things in the past that are supportive of LGBTQ+ rights and then veers off into some high volume, frenetic, macho imagery, and drum-like sound, interspersed with images of bodybuilders striking poses and gladiators in helmets, all the while making the point that there is no one who hates transgender people more than him and taking pride in criticisms of him for his harsh actions against them.
It is bonkers. It is so over-the-top that it could easily be mistaken for an anti-DeSantis parody ad.
I am not the target demographic for this ad so the fact that it did not appeal to me does not mean much. But I am puzzled as to which groups might find it appealing, other than virulent transphobes. This was not put out by the official DeSantis campaign but by a group supporting him and there is no sign that the campaign has tried to disassociate themselves from the ad. It is a clear sign that DeSantis thinks that his path to the nomination is to run on an even angrier, harder-line right-wing stance on hot button social issues than all the other Republicans in the field.
To wrap up “Pride Month,” let’s hear from the politician who did more than any other Republican to celebrate it…
— DeSantis War Room
(@DeSantisWarRoom) June 30, 2023
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. epitomizes the modern American success story. He has no notable achievements of his own but because of inherited family wealth and the well-known Kennedy name (he is the son of the late Robert F. Kennedy), he has the kind of influence that is so helpful in staying relevant. In fact, the ‘success’ of the entire Kennedy clan can be traced back to the ambitions of his wealthy grandfather Joseph Kennedy who paved the way to elite education and political success for his descendants.
Kennedy has now entered the contest for the Democratic nomination for president. He is a notorious anti-vaccine crusader and this will simply give him a platform to further propagate his views, while the family name will give him more publicity. Indeed his anti-vaccine misinformation got him banned from Facebook and Instagram and he used the loophole of his candidacy to get back on those platforms. He is also a hypocrite. While making all manner of outlandish and offensive claims about the dangers of vaccines, when he hosted a party at his home, he urged all guests to be vaccinated or be tested for Covid-19. He has also profited greatly from his anti-vaccine stance.
[Read more…]
The US Supreme Court has struck down the use of race as a factor in considering applications for all colleges and universities in the US. This was not entirely unexpected given the court”s ideological leanings, but it was disappointing nonetheless.
But when it comes to elite educational institutions, there is one very large group of people who have been getting preferential treatment in admissions but the legitimacy of which has not been subject to legal review and that is the preference given to so-called “legacy admissions” (applicants whose families have attended that school) and children of wealthy donors, all of whom are able to gain admission with lower academic performances. Preferences are also given to students who have athletic or other extra-curricular success. And the overwhelming majority of such people are white, making this, in effect, affirmative action for white people.
But those preferences are now coming under greater scrutiny.
[Read more…]
While much of liberal ire with some of the decisions of the US Supreme.Court has focused on justice Clarence Thomas’s opinions, I have long felt that justice Samuel Alito is the most reactionary member of the court, the one most likely to offer tortured reasoning to justify what seems like pre-ordained conclusions based on his extremely conservative ideology.
Both Thomas and Alito have been the targets of investigative reports by ProPublica about the gifts and lavish vacations that they have been given, including travel on private jets, by wealthy individuals who, directly or indirectly, have had cases before the court. They did not disclose these trips and the private jet travel in their financial disclosure forms.
In the case of Alito, though, he went one step further than Thomas. As is customary with good journalistic outfits, prior to publishing their story, ProPublica informed Alito that they were preparing a story and sent him a list of questions to make sure they were being fair and accurate. What was unusual was that Alito used that to publish a ‘prebuttal’ in the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal the day before the ProPublica piece even appeared.
[Read more…]
Fox News has announced that Jesse Watters will be the permanent host occupying the time slot formerly held by the fired Tucker Carlson, the reasons for whose abrupt departure remain a mystery. Watters has been with Fox News for a long time. He has a juvenile sense of humor and no compunction about saying stupid, bigoted, and incendiary things.
The key question for Fox is whether he can get back the ratings that Carlson used to get and which have slumped since his departure. This will be a test of the model developed by the late Roger Ailes that their shows are based on a template and that the personalities who front them are just types who have specific roles and know they must follow the template because they can and will be replaced by another would-be clone if they fall short.
The template for the Carlson slot is the same as that of most other shows on Fox and that is to promote conspiratorial fear mongering with racist overtones. It is not clear if Watters can suppress and conceal his sophomoric frat-boy personality sufficiently, as Carlson was able to do, so that the dark vision will taken seriously by the typical Fox viewer.
I posted recently about how Amazon is being sued by the Federal Trade Commission for unfair practices that include tricking people into signing up for its Prime services and then making it hard for them to get out of it. The Prime subscription costs $14.99 per month and accounts for $25 billion of its annual revenue. The Prime subscription gives you ‘free shipping’ though that is an illusion since you have essentially pre-paid for shipping whether you use it or not.
Amazon also provides Prime Video, which is a subscription-based streaming service, at a lower cost but although it is possible to sign up for just that, the company makes it hard to do so. After being informed that they were being sued by the FTC, Amazon made some changes. (You can read the FTC press release here and lawsuit here. Paragraphs 23-79 and 149-216 are heavily redacted.))
The extent of their devious practices is really is quite breathtaking. First up is how they manage to get people to sign up.
[Read more…]
Texas gets very hot in the summer, with temperatures rising well over triple digits and making manual outdoor labor not just uncomfortable but downright dangerous. As a result, some municipalities such as Dallas and Austin have passed ordinances that require employers to give a 10-minute water break every four hours. That seems to me to be nowhere close to enough but even that is too much for the governor Greg Abbott who has signed into law a measure passed by the Republican legislature that bans local governments from enforcing such ordinances.
The measure, which will take effect later this year, will nullify ordinances enacted by Austin and Dallas that mandate 10-minute breaks for construction workers every four hours. It also prevents any other local governments from passing similar worker protections.
Just days after Greg Abbott, the governor, ratified the law, officials said a 35-year-old utility lineman working to restore power in Marshall, Texas, died after experiencing symptoms of heat illness. The heat index – which takes into account both the temperature and humidity – was 100F (37C) while he was working.
