Daily political notes about what is happening in the world.
US citizens, call on the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services to expand the practice of negotiating lower prices on prescription medicines. We need to counteract massive lobbying by Big Pharma. Deadline for commenting, Aug 17!
US citizens: call on your senators to save funding for Medicaid . US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue. To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121 . Please spread the word.
E-scooters turn out to be especially dangerous to ride — much more dangerous than bicycles.
Comparing the magats' efforts to seize power , and embed themselves irreversibly in it, with the efforts of Nazis in 1933.
*Why making Anthony Fauci the enemy will harm US public health for years .*
*US senators urge crackdown on wildfire betting amid warnings of arson risk.* Betting on other government actions is dangerous too, because it can offer magats the temptation to burn down good government.
*While many leaders compare the wildfire crisis to the second world war , governments fail to adopt the real lessons of pre-emptive wartime action.* Extreme weather and extreme climate are *attacks on our soil. They are a call to mobilize.* But governments today are barely beginning to mobilize for full action to slow and stop the slowly developing climate disaster. I conjecture that the reason…
Many restaurants and pubs in the UK have banned wearing of snooper glasses . Theaters, too.
*Human Rights Watch and Amnesty* accuse Israel of knowingly attacking journalists in Lebanon — a war crime.
Pakistan has prohibited anyone from reporting internationally on what happens there. It has also blocked access to Al Jazeera's web site from Pakistan.
*[Progressive Democrat] Abdul El-Sayed offers a model for successfully turning a non-progressive opponent's richly funded campaign against that opponent's rich backers, and thus against the opponent.
Many butterfly species are shifting their habitats — some as fast as 135km per year. Some species' habitats have expanded, and others have shrunk. All of this measures the rapidity of potentially dangerous ecosystem changes caused by global heating .
*[In Europe,] droughts that were once a century now happen every year , and the impact on wildlife, industrial output and culture itself is catastrophic.* Underlying the random fluctuation from year to year, the trend (as long as global heating continues) is to get worse.
Joseph Stiglitz: the bully's new tariffs, supposedly meant to pressure for an end to forced labor, hypocritically omit two countries that do enormous amounts of that: China and the US .
Rebecca Solnit: *We launched a war on nature. Now we are in a climate war zone . George Monbiot: *Murderous heat, an endangered food supply and no [efforts to slow the disaster]: this is the life the radical right wants you to have .
How the Cockroach Janata Party overcame the power of Modi's captive mass media .
* El Niño could push 50m people into acute hunger before end of next year.* If so, it will mean that the disasters that climate scientists have forecast for many years are arriving.
Madison Square Garden uses surveillance cameras to recognize people. It specifically tracks people on its enemies list, such as journalist Rachel Maddow. But it normally tracks everyone who enters and perhaps recognizes them all. However, they made an exception for the audience at Taylor Swift's wedding, apparently because she had the clout to demand this. People must be free to take photos in…
A grass-roots campaign is pressuring Democratic candidates to stop avoiding the issue of growing climate disaster . Focusing on "affordability" of everyday life is partly a mistake, and partly a response to pressure from billionaires who figure that will lead towards weak palliative measures rather to any big change to transfer wealth. The increasing cost of living is a consequence of deeper…
*Andy Burnham signals he will scrap plans to curb jury trials [in the UK].* This is a victory, even though it only prevents a plan to make things worse. The supposed "need" for restricting the right to a jury was a shortage of funds. I think Burnham has some plan to increase taxes on non-poor people so as to pay for this and other things to make the UK better.
(satire) *[ The bully ] Warns Iran To Accept His Ultimatum Or Face Wrath Of Next Ultimatum .*
*A senior policymaker at the European Central Bank has said the climate emergency and the breakdown of nature poses a dramatically growing risk to the global economy .* If we are unable to grow enough food, or if calamities substantially reduce the life expectancy, it is going to be hard for anything to be stable or predictable. What we need to make sure of is that the billionaires won't be able…
Ben and Jerry sold their ice cream company to Unilever under an agreement to preserve the company's independence and social activism. They now say that Unilever has violated the agreement in several ways, and finally by reselling it to Magnum (as far as I can tell, without any ethical requirements). They call on supporters to boycott Magnum to pressure for it to sell Ben and Jerry's to someone who…
John Davidson, who has Tourette's syndrome, said the taboo word "nigger" with no conscious intention while two blacks were on stage. People freaked out. A few decades ago, antiracists understood the word as an unjust insult — when it was meant to characterize someone. But people could contemplate the word in the abstract, and discuss its meaning and implications (such as, a racist attitude)…
(satire) *Small Town’s Make-Out Point Purchased By Multinational Make-Out Conglomerate .*
(satire) *U.S. Instates Military Wife Draft.*
An underground report from Iran about torture and killing of imprisoned protesters.
Ticketmaster was required by law to stop adding certain junk fees to ticket prices, so in some cases it increased the base price so that the total remained the same. Is this a scandal? I don't think so. The scandal is that they would tell you a lower price, not including the junk fees, then charge you a higher price which includes the junk fees. Now they have to be more honest about the real…
The corrupter , seeking to have his personal lawyer Blanche confirmed as Attorney General, made sham promises to the Senate that Blanche would not approve the corrupter's slush fund and tax return immunity deal. The promises are a sham because they are only temporary — if the Senate approves Blanche, he and the corrupter can cancel these promises and approve the deal anyway.
* Pupils who open [antisocial media] accounts [at the age of] 11 to 12 score lower in some subjects [at age 16] than those who wait a few years [to open such accounts], study finds.*
"Climate change kills": [Prime Minister] Pedro Sánchez speaks plain truth to Spain's deniers .
Israel is prosecuting one of the violent right-wing "settlers" for killing a Palestinian journalist in the West Bank. Such a prosecution ought to regularly follow their crimes, but instead it is news, because Israel generally protects those killers.
US citizens: call on news media to cover the subpoenas to Breakthrough News as an attack on freedom of the press.
US citizens: call on Congress to block the bully's scheme for making deportation profitable for some of his backers. US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue. To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121 . Please spread the word.
US citizens: call on Congress to terminate the bully's NSPM-7 political persecution crusade . US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue. To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121 . Please spread the word.
US citizens: call on Congress to investigate military contracts in which the corrupter and his family would personally profit. US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue. To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121 . Please spread the word.
US citizens: call on Florida's legislature to stop the state from spying on wildlife advocates .
US citizens: call on Congress to block the Paramount media takeover . US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue. To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121 . Please spread the word.
US citizens: call on Congress to stop the bully's illegal bombing of civilian boats . US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue. To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121 . Please spread the word.
US citizens: call on Amazon to end its contracts with the deportation thugs . See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
US citizens: call on the House to pass the Stop CHEATERS Act to restore Biden's increased funding to making rich people and corporations pay their taxes. See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard. US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue. To phone your congresscritter about this, the main…
US citizens: call on Tell Congress to defund Flock's Orwellian camera network ! See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard. US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue. To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121 . Please spread the word.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Social Security 2100 Act . US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue. To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121 . Please spread the word.
US citizens: call for no Pretend Intelligence data centers on federal lands ! See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
US citizens: call on Congress to block the proposed autocratic grant rule , protect scientific independence, and stop political appointees from turning federal funding into an ideological loyalty test. US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue. To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121 . Please spread the word.
US citizens: Thank the New York Times for Fighting Back against the magats' subpoenas against journalism.
US citizens: call on Tell Congress: vote to keep DACA going so that people who grew up in the US can stay here. See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard. US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue. To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121 . Please spread…
US citizens: call on the Dept of Transportation to release the billions of dollars already appropriated by Congress for public transit projects. See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
US citizens: call on news media to cover the bully's Department of Injustice as a rule of law crisis.
US citizens: call on Congress to end the corrupter's tax breaks for millionaires, billionaires, and big corporations. Take action .