It comes from a political satire group in Australia on the eve of their elections to be held on May 18. It is part of their series called Honest Government Adverts. Hard as it is to believe, it looks like the Australian political leadership is as bad as the one we have here in its corruption, devotion to the oligarchy, climate change denials, lying, and religious pandering. (Language advisory)
Ryan Grim profiles New Jersey Democratic congressman Josh Gottheimer, who seems to see himself as a Democratic ‘centrist’ (which really means ‘right winger’) enforcer to keep the new young progressives in line, especially when it comes to their criticisms of Israel and Saudi Arabia and the big banks from whose lobbies he has received plenty of money. He is also disgustingly condescending towards the new crop of women progressives. He is closely associated with the ‘Problem Solvers Caucus’ and the dark-money group ‘No Labels’, all of whom are deep-pocketed neoliberal groups seeking to maintain the status quo by pretending to be above politics and only interested in pragmatic solutions.
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A Kentucky teen who sued his school because they required all students to be vaccinated has now been diagnosed as having chicken pox.
A US teenager who took legal action against his school after he was banned for refusing the chickenpox vaccination now has the virus, his lawyer says.
Jerome Kunkel, 18, made headlines last month after he unsuccessfully sued his Kentucky school for barring unimmunised students amid an outbreak.
His lawyer, Christopher Weist, told US media that the teen’s symptoms developed last week.
The student had opposed the vaccine on religious grounds.His lawsuit argued the vaccine is “immoral, illegal and sinful” and that his rights had been violated.
…“These are deeply held religious beliefs, they’re sincerely held beliefs,” Mr Wiest said.
Just because a belief is ‘deeply’ and ‘sincerely’ held does not make it reasonable. People can deeply and sincerely believe all manner of absurd and even harmful things.
Donald Trump has used his pardon power on a US soldier who was convicted of murdering an Iraqi man in 2009 while he was in US custody.
First Lt Michael Behenna was sentenced to 25 years in prison for the murder of Ali Mansur, a suspected Al Qaeda terrorist shot during questioning.
Mr Trump signed a full pardon of Mr Behenna, who has served five years for unpremeditated murder in a combat zone.
Mr Behenna, released on parole in 2014, has said he acted in self-defence.
Some time ago, I discussed how a car’s differential works to allow the outer and inner wheels to rotate at different speeds when going around curves. Along with that I discussed how trains manage to go around curves even though they do not have differentials and the two wheels rotate at the same rate. Via Mark Frauenfelder, I came across this video demonstrating it even more clearly.
Many readers will remember the case of Aasia Bibi, the Pakistani woman who went through hell as a result of that country’s infamous blasphemy laws and was given the death sentence. That sentence was overturned but the vindictive religious mobs demanded her public execution and opposed any attempt to get her out of the country. Today comes welcome news that she has finally left that country and gone to join her family in Canada where they will live under assumed names with security.
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Alfred Sole has loved films all his life and has made a career in it. At the age of 75, he is still working as a production designer at major studios. In a highly entertaining article, Ashley and April Spicer describe how he got his start in films.
As I approach him, Alfred smiles broadly and extends his hand. He has a boyish face and a soft-spoken, warm manner. He’s of average height with salt-and-pepper hair. He’s like your friendly uncle, or your favorite person to sit next to at the neighborhood bar.
But looks can be deceiving, so I have to ask myself: Is this really the man who in the early 1970s was at the center of a national scandal about a pornographic film titled Deep Sleep? A film he was rumored to have shot in his parents’ home in Paterson, New Jersey using a cast and crew made up of family and friends? And it wasn’t just those close to him who participated in the movie—it was alleged that many in his suburban town had taken part, including a local lawyer, banker, police officer and funeral home director. Hell, even the mayor’s wife, high-school teachers, and Alfred’s mother were said to have been part of the erotic production.
What followed was one of the most notorious national prosecutions of adult film in American history.
Is this the man once described by the government as ‘Public Enemy Number One’?
Thanks to a series of reports by ProPublica about how the tax preparation companies are thwarting efforts to provide free tax filings, the IRS has launched an investigation into TurboTax and H&R Block.
Amid calls for investigations from members of Congress, the IRS announced late Friday that it has convened a team of senior leaders to review concerns raised about its Free File public-private partnership with the tax software industry, following a series of ProPublica stories.
…[A]s we have reported, use of the free option, which was never high, has dropped sharply in the past decade. Insiders say that Intuit and H&R Block deliberately steered users away from the Free File option and to paid products. At least five of the companies in the Free File program added code to their free websites effectively hiding them from Google and other search engines.
The move is a sharp break for the [IRS], which as recently as April 26 defended Free File as a “successful program and partnership that’s benefited millions of taxpayers.”
It remains to be seen if this review is just a means for the IRS to mollify critics until this fuss goes away or if they will take meaningful action.
The Trump administration is currently beating the drums of war on two fronts: Venezuela and Iran. The US media love war and war talk since that drives up ratings. One of the surest signs of preparation for war is when the US media falls in line whenever the US government starts issuing threats to other nations about possible invasions. The media then uncritically parrots the government’s talking points and even goes further and makes stuff up. Take this report from CNN from Sunday that has this sentence.
It comes as pressure is mounting on Maduro to step down, following elections in January in which voters chose opposition leader Juan Guaido over him for president.
There are two falsehoods in just that single sentence. There were no elections in Venezuela in January and in the last election in 2018, Guaido didn’t even run. Furthermore, Maduro was elected as president in the last election while Guaido has never been elected president. As Jason Ditz writes:
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