[UPDATE: Barrett Brown released again after four days in federal prison.]
I have written previously about outspoken journalist Barrett Brown, who was arrested by the government and sent to prison and even spent time in solitary confinement as a result of his insouciant attitude towards the prison authorities. While there, he wrote some excellent insider accounts of what prison life was like and its arbitrary and cruel nature, for which he won awards. As Alex Emmons writes:
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The US Supreme Court heard an interesting case on Wednesday, April 26 involving the conditions under which the US government can strip away the citizenship of a naturalized citizen. The details of the case Maslenjak v. United States (it involved a Bosnian Serb who was granted refugee status) are not as interesting as the question that the court wanted the parties to address, which was: “May a naturalized American citizen be stripped of her citizenship in a criminal proceeding based on an immaterial false statement?”
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As predicted, when things are not going well for him, Donald Trump returns to the campaign-style rallies that he loves, because they have crowds cheering for him and his fragile ego needs these kinds of periodic affirmations, however artificial and staged, when he is feeling like a failure. But as I said some time ago, at some point the audience will not be that enthusiastic because the campaign is over and one cannot maintain that kind of energy over a long time. The crowd will increasingly consist of people like Trump who also need these events to affirm to themselves that they made the right choice.
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The really, really upscale (by which I mean so expensive that I would never shop there) supermarket chain known as Whole Foods is cutting back and closing stores because people are shopping there less and its reputation for selling ‘good’ stuff is seen as overblown.
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Jenn Budd used to work for the US Border Patrol and has written about her experiences and why she left. She says that, “USBP is unfortunately still the most immoral and corrupt agency in the federal system”. Her descriptions of what she observed and endured are horrifying and the rot starts right from the beginning of the training program and goes all the way to the top.
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One of the recurring issues that come up in discussions about politics and religion and other areas in life where people hold strongly entrenched views that we think are harmful and wrong is how to persuade them to change. So it is always interesting to hear the story of someone who switched their views and describe what led them to do so.
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US politicians love to boast about how this country is exceptional and unique in its goodness. This is, of course, utter nonsense but there is one area where the claim of uniqueness might be valid in that it seems to be the only country, as far as I am aware, in which prominent politicians and media personalities openly advocate for the invasion of other countries or the murder of their leaders. The latest example of this comes from Ohio governor John Kasich, one of the failed contenders for the Republican nomination in 2016.
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The liberal commentariat is abuzz over the news that former president Obama is getting paid $400,000 for a speech to the Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald despite earlier calling those firms ‘fat cats’. I don’t know why they are surprised. Obama has always been friendly towards the big banks and anyone who followed his career could see that even before he was first elected. All his talk criticizing them was just talk, the usual populist posturing of Democrats.
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Nature documentaries are not easy to make, involving patiently watching for hours, days, and weeks on end in very difficult conditions to get the footage they need. But they cannot simply show the footage. To get people to watch, they need to create some kind of story arc with animal characters and protagonists who seem to play roles within it that the audience can identify with.
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