It is clear that China is slowly changing that balance of power on many fronts. Last week saw the Chinese hosting a summit on its Belt and Road Initiative in which China invests heavily in infrastructure and other development projects in countries around the world, cementing economic links. Despite heavy US lobbying against participating in it, 125 nations attended and signed on.
[Read more…]
I just watched this documentary that follows four insurgent women candidates who bucked the Democratic party establishment by challenging long-standing incumbents in primary elections in 2018. The four are Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York City, Amy Vilela in Las Vegas, Nevada, Cori Bush in St Louis, Missouri and Paula Jean Swearingen in West Virginia. The film follows them from the time they declare their candidacies until the primary results are announced.
[Read more…]
… elections were held for local offices and the Conservatives took a major shellacking, losing 1,269 seats leaving them currently holding 3,559. Labour lost too but just 63 seats, leaving them with 2,020, but they must be disappointed that the disgruntled Conservative voters did not switch to them. The big winners were the Liberal Democrats, the Greens, and assorted others who gained 676, 185, and 285 seats respectively. This is a resurrection of sorts for the Liberal Democrats, who had been given up for dead after being thoroughly repudiated in the last national elections following their disastrous coalition with David Cameron’s Conservative party.
[Read more…]
Tim Dickinson and Andy Kroll at Rolling Stone have done a deep dive into the infighting within the NRA that resulted in the ouster of Oliver North as president and the multiple investigations and lawsuits now underway. At bottom is the familiar story of top executives (such as CEO Wayne LaPierre), contractors (such as its public relations firm Ackerman McQueen and outside counsel William Brewer), and board members (such as president Oliver North) of a big tax-exempt organization abusing their tax-exempt status by living high off the hog at the expense of their members and taxpayers.
[Read more…]
We are familiar with the ‘express checkout lines’ at supermarkets and elsewhere meant for those with fewer that a certain number of items. People who violate this rule can arouse a great deal of hostility. Some violate the spirit of the rule by claiming that multiple items of the same product should count as one. But there is a difference between ten cans of tuna and ten bananas in a single bunch. Most people would think that the former consists of ten items and the latter one item. But what if you have ten bananas in two bunches? Should that be considered one item or two? Would it matter if the two bunches are weighed and rung up separately or both placed on the scale at once and rung up as a single item.
[Read more…]
I have written before about how Ohio congressional districts are so gerrymandered that election after election sees 12 Republicans and 4 Democrats being sent to Congress even though the popular vote is much closer to a 50-50 split. In the statehouse, Republicans won 62% of the seats while getting slightly fewer votes than Democrats
In a major victory today, a three-judge panel of federal judges unanimously ruled that the Ohio congressional map was unconstitutional because of blatant gerrymandering and had to be redrawn by June 14.
[Read more…]
Abigail Disney, the great niece of the famous animator Walt Disney, has added her voice to those who criticize the excessive salaries paid to the CEOs of companies, including Disney CEO Bob Iger. His salary is 1,424 times the median salary of a Disney employee. It is interesting that she too uses the term ‘neoliberal’ as a pejorative, something that I wholeheartedly endorse.
[Read more…]
Addictions are frighteningly easy to acquire and tremendously difficult to get rid of. While no single treatment method works for everyone, the punitive approaches of harsh penalties such as prison time for possession and use of drugs for what essentially has become an illness seems misguided. But in the US, the heavy hand of the private profit-seeking pharmaceutical sector that benefits from creating drug addicts and the private prison system that benefits from incarcerating large numbers of people prevent more enlightened and humane methods from being widely used.
[Read more…]
For those of you like me who do not watch Game of Thrones, here is my favorite Sesame Street character Grover to explain what the story is about and who wins the game.
And here is my least favorite Sesame Street character Elmo trying to play the role of peacemaker.
I am pretty sure there are allusions in both clips that only those who have followed the series closely will get.
The sacked defense secretary of the UK Gavin Williamson said that he was the victim of a ‘kangaroo court’ that unfairly blamed him for a leak from the National Security Council. The term ‘kangaroo court’ is so common that its strangeness slipped past me and until now I had never wondered where such unusual turn of phrase might have come from. It is only after I had made that post that the thought occurred to me: Why kangaroo? What has that animal done to become synonymous with an unfair judicial proceeding where the normal procedures of justice are perverted so that the outcome is determined is even before proceedings start?
You would think that the term originated in Australia but its first recorded use in print was in the US back in 1853. The origins are unclear but Merriam Webster has some theories.
[Read more…]