Priests & Politicians – the Mafia of the Soul

“These politicians and these priests have been constantly in conspiracy, working together hand in hand. The politician has the political power; the priest has the religious power. The politician protects the priest, the priest blesses the politician – and the masses are exploited, sucked; their blood is sucked by both.”¹ Osho

We are asking three questions:

One, if this is illegal, why is no one prosecuted?
Two, if it is legal, who made those laws?
Three, then whose action or inaction allowed those lawmakers to have that power?

The Unfolding Story – Updated Regularly:

Read the 2023 Edition HERE

October 14, 2024
How Trump allies are sowing election doubts
Rightwing organisations have spent months and millions of dollars contesting ballot procedures and voter eligibility
“Tina Barton will never forget the moment someone threatened to kill her and her family. It was November 2020; Barton, then a city clerk in the battleground state of Michigan, had just administered the most stressful election she had ever experienced. Her team had accidentally sent in a vote count to county officials twice; though the mistake was rapidly corrected — during a period dedicated to accuracy checks — a Republican official claimed the mix-up had given Democrats more votes. Days later came the terrifying voicemail, which said Barton deserved a knife to the throat. ‘You frauded out America of a real election,’ the caller said.” – Financial Times

October 14. 2024
Killing of Japanese Boy Leaves Chinese Asking: Is This My Country?
Angry at what they view as China’s state-led xenophobia, taught in schools and prevalent online, some people are taking action, even at personal risk.
“Some Chinese people believe the boy was a victim of surging anti-Japanese sentiment fueled by China’s government with a virulent nationalism that is taught in schools and reflected online and in state media. The evening the boy died, more than 50 Chinese attended a candlelight vigil in Tokyo and issued a statement: ‘The longstanding extreme nationalism and anti-Japanese education in China have misled some people’s perception of Japan, enabling ignorance and wrongdoing. We are committed to changing this troubling situation.’… The anger people feel at the hatred education is more palpable now than anytime since China’s leader, Xi Jinping, put the country in an ideological straitjacket made of nationalism more than a decade ago…. Chinese people are repeatedly told that they should hate Japanese, Americans, Hong Kong democracy protesters, pro-independence Taiwanese and any critics of the Chinese government. It’s the only correct thing to do…. In June, a middle-aged Chinese man attacked a Japanese mother and her son with a knife at a school bus stop in the eastern city of Suzhou. They were injured while the bus attendant, a Chinese woman, died trying to stop the man. Many people cheered the attack on social media — ‘They deserve it’ and ‘Well done!’ — while calling the Chinese woman ‘Traitor!’ The problem in China is how strictly the government controls speech, said Tomoko Ako, a sociologist focused on China at the University of Tokyo.” – The New York Times

October 10, 2024
One in eight girls sexually assaulted or raped before turning 18, says Unicef
First global estimates of sexual violence against children reveals ‘abhorrent magnitude’ of the human rights violation
“More than 370 million women and girls alive today – or almost one in eight – experienced rape or sexual assault before they turned 18, according to the first global estimates of the problem. A new Unicef report describes sexual violence against children as an ‘overwhelming’ human rights violation, with survivors carrying the trauma into adulthood. It says the scale of the violation is ‘abhorrent in its magnitude.; If ‘non-contact’ forms of sexual violence are included, such as unwanted sexual jokes or comments, exposure to pornography or exposure of sexual organs, the rate rises to one in five, researchers found. The agency said that while girls and women were the worst affected, approximately one boy or man in 11 had also experienced rape or sexual assault during childhood.” – The Guardian

October 9, 2024
Trump White House ‘helped steer investigation’ into Brett Kavanaugh’s sexual assault allegations
The Trump White House put restraints on the FBI’s investigation into claims of sexual assault against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his 2018 confirmation process, according to a report from the office of a Democratic senator. Then-President Donald Trump said the FBI would have ‘free rein’ to investigate the allegations and that the agency was ‘talking to everybody.’ ‘I want them to interview whoever they deem appropriate, at their discretion,’ he wrote on social media at the time. But a report from the office of Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, which was shared with The Washington Post, has revealed that Trump’s claims didn’t fit with the agency’s interpretation of events…. However, the Trump administration chose not to give the agency the authority to independently investigate the claims, which Kavanagh consistently rejected. The report outlines how the White House strictly controlled the FBI report even as Trump made his comments about the agency having ‘free rein’ to do as they pleased.” – Independent

October 5, 2024
Bassem Youssef & Amjad Al-Nour – Bibi’s Trial – YouTube

October 4, 2024
Met officers allegedly took hampers and cash bribes to help Fayed persecute staff
Exclusive: Scotland Yard faces claims corrupt officers helped Harrods owner quash potential complaints of abuse
“Scotland Yard is facing claims that corrupt police officers helped Mohamed Al Fayed in persecuting members of his staff, including a young woman who allegedly rebuffed the Harrods owner’s sexual advances…. One alleged victim of the corruption is said to have been a young nanny to Fayed’s children, Hermina da Silva, who was was dismissed in 1994 after apparently rejecting the billionaire’s advances. She was arrested on trumped up allegations of theft after threatening a sexual harassment case but was later released without charge.” – The Guardian

October 4, 2024
India government says criminalising marital rape ‘excessively harsh’
“The federal home ministry told the Supreme Court that ‘a man does not have a fundamental right’ to force sex on his wife, but there were enough laws to protect married women against sexual violence. The top court is hearing petitions seeking to amend a British-era law that says a man cannot be prosecuted for rape within marriage. Violence within marriage is rampant in India – according to a recent government survey, one in 25 women have faced sexual violence from their husbands.” – BBC

October 3, 2024
DEA ignored waterboarding, torture by Latin American police partners, says watchdog
The US Drug Enforcement Administration allegedly failed to properly report flagrant human rights violations which also included pistol-whipping, and Tasing suspects until they blacked out or vomited
“That’s according to a management advisory memorandum released on Tuesday by the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG), an internal watchdog that investigates potential wrongdoing within the ranks. The 10-page memorandum highlights five specific instances in which foreign police officers working in specialized DEA units abroad confessed during routine vetting to having committed ‘gross violations of human rights.’ However, according to the OIG, DEA officials withheld that information from the State Department for up to nine months, contrary to a regulation known as the ‘Leahy Law.’” – Independent

October 2, 2024
‘The Earth is crying out for help’: as fires decimate South America, smoke shrouds its skies
Huge tracts of land have burned from largely man-made blazes in Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Brazil and other countries, with people suffocating from its fallout – The Guardian

September 27, 2024
Stand News editor becomes first journalist jailed for sedition in Hong Kong’s history
“A Hong Kong court on Thursday sentenced a former editor of the now-defunct Stand News to 21 months in prison in a sedition case, making him the first journalist to be jailed under the colonial-era law since the erstwhile British possession was returned to China 27 years ago.” – Independent

September 25, 2024
Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan on Israel-Hamas war: ‘The world has failed’ – ABC News

September 24, 2024
The Global Oil Bribery Scheme Caught on Tape
“The commodity trading industry has long been known for its shady behavior. But the trial of Javier Aguilar has brought to life the inner workings of a modern-day bribery scheme like never before.” – Bloomberg

September 24, 2024
Putin Is Doing Something Almost Nobody Is Noticing
“Hundreds of thousands of Russians who left home because they did not want to have anything to do with Vladimir Putin’s war — or were forced out, accused of not embracing it enough. These low-profile dissenters are subjected to surveillance and kidnappings, too…. It’s a terrifying thing: The Kremlin is hunting down ordinary people across the world, and nobody seems to care.” – The New York Times

September 23, 2024
New State Laws Are Fueling a Surge in Book Bans
“Books continue to be removed from shelves in schools and libraries around the country. Two new laws, in Florida and Iowa, have had a particular impact this year…. Books have been challenged and removed from schools and libraries for decades, but around 2021, these instances began to skyrocket, fanned by a network of conservative groups and the spread on social media of lists of titles some considered objectionable…. PEN America, a free speech group… said that over 10,000 books were removed, at least temporarily, from public schools in the 2023-24 school year. That’s almost three times as many removals as during the school year before.” – The New York Times

September 21, 2024
Pregnancy Deaths Rose 56% in Texas Under Abortion Ban
“Maternal mortality rates have risen across the nation—at an 11% clip from 2019 to 2022, CDC data show. In Texas, the number of women who died while pregnant, during labor, or soon after childbirth jumped 56%, NBC News reports. The state instituted a ban on abortion care in 2021. ‘There’s only one explanation for this staggering difference in maternal mortality,’ said Nancy L. Cohen, president of the Gender Equity Policy Institute, which based its analysis on CDC data. ‘All the research points to Texas’ abortion ban as the primary driver of this alarming increase.'” – Newser

September 21, 2024
US is on track to set a new record for homeless people with over 650K living on the streets
“Data collected and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal from more than 250 homeless organizations have counted at least 550,000 homeless people so far, a 10 percent rise from last year’s reports. The numbers gathered from cities and rural areas show homelessness as it was on a single night earlier this year. The upward trend means that the US will probably reach and pass the 2023 estimate of 653,000 homeless people. It’s the highest number since the government began sharing such data in 2007.” – Independent

September 21, 2024
Louisiana Catholic church turns to federal court to attack law aiding abuse victims
‘If anyone could undo … the will of Louisiana … the Catholic church can and will,’ says survivor whose case is targeted
“The plaintiff said he considered it hypocritical for a prominent Catholic leader like New Orleans archbishop Gregory Aymond – who heads the state’s conference of bishops – to publicly profess his moral support for the efforts by victims of clergy molestation to be made whole while his attorneys are simultaneously “continuing to fight” maneuvers that improve the potential value of survivors’ claims for damages.” – The Guardian

September 21, 2024
Did Reagan pave the way for Trump? ‘You can trace the linkages,’ says Biographer
The 80s president known for sunny optimism also has a darker legacy on issues like race and Aids. ‘I don’t think you can just say, wow, Trump arrived from Mars,’ says Max Boot
Time and again in his early political career, Reagan was on the wrong side of history. He opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act. In his race for governor of California in 1966, he opposed the Rumford Fair Housing Act, which prohibited discrimination in the sale or rental of housing. In a 1971 phone call with President Richard Nixon, Reagan made racist remarks about African delegates to the United Nations, calling them “monkeys” and saying they were still “uncomfortable wearing shoes”. He did not attend Martin Luther King’s funeral, even though many Republicans did, and opposed the Martin Luther King Jr public holiday right up until the day he signed it into law…. Boot comments: ‘He had a double standard on human rights abroad, where he was very tough, and rightly so, on human rights violations in the Soviet Union but he was very weak on human rights violations in South Africa and in fact vetoed a tough sanctions bill on South Africa.’… Boot comments: “When you look back at his presidency, the fact that he completely ignored Aids and it was killing tens of thousands of people, that’s a major blot on his record. He even speculated that Aids could be God’s punishment for gay people and so forth – things that were commonly said, I guess, in straight society in the 1980s.” – The Guardian

September 20, 2024
New study links brain network damage to increased religious fundamentalism
“A new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that specific networks in the brain, when damaged, may influence the likelihood of developing religious fundamentalism.” – PsyPost

September 16, 2024
First conviction under Hong Kong’s new national security law for wearing “seditious” T-shirt
“Chu Kai-pong, 27, pleaded guilty to one count of ‘doing with a seditious intention an act.’ Under the new security law, the maximum sentence for the offence has been expanded from two years to seven years in prison and could even go up to 10 years if “collusion with foreign forces” was found involved. Chu was arrested on June 12 at a MTR station wearing a T-shirt with the slogan ‘Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times’ and a yellow mask printed with ‘FDNOL’ – the shorthand of another slogan ‘five demands, not one less.’” – Reuters

September 13, 2024
One in six children sexually abused in Jesus Army cult
“A scheme to compensate members of a defunct religious cult known as the Jesus Army has identified 539 alleged perpetrators of abuse, and revealed about one in six children had been sexually abused. It is thought some of those accused, including 162 former leaders, may have taken up roles in different churches and Northamptonshire Police is liaising with relevant local authorities to see if any safeguarding action is required.” – BBC

September 12, 2024
Climate Lawsuits Are Exploding. Are Homicide Charges Next?
Lawsuits against fossil fuel companies over climate change are piling up. Legislators and activists are pushing prosecutors to pursue criminal charges. Children are suing governments, arguing that their right to a healthy environment is being trampled on….. At the same time, the fossil fuel industry and its allies have powerful new legal grounds at their disposal to challenge climate rules. A number of cases could be taken up by the highest courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court and The Hague…. At least 86 lawsuits have been filed globally against the world’s biggest oil, gas and coal producers, according to a report published Thursday by the advocacy and research groups Oil Change International and Zero Carbon Analytics…. About 40 percent of the lawsuits examined by the group sought compensation for climate-related damage to the environment or communities. Others challenged what they called misleading advertising claims, or alleged that the companies had failed to sufficiently reduce their emissions.” – The New York Times

September 11, 2024
Religious groups ‘spending billions to counter gender-equality education’
Report reveals how US Christians, Catholic schools and Islamists fight sex education, LGBTQ+ and equal rights
“Extreme religious groups and political parties are targeting schools around the world as part of a coordinated and well-funded attack on gender equality, according to a new report. Well-known conservative organisations aim to restrict girls’ access to education, change what is on the curriculum, and influence educational laws and policies, according to Whose Hands on our Education, a report by the Overseas Development Institute. Tactics include removing sex education from schools, banning girls from learning, reinforcing patriarchal gender stereotypes in textbooks and rejecting gender-inclusive language in schools.” – The Guardian

September 6, 2024
Why fascists hate universities
Authoritarians and would-be authoritarians are only too aware that universities are primary sites of critique and dissent – The Guardian

September 5, 2024
Georgia school shooting suspect struggled with mental health, aunt says
“The 14-year-old suspected of a mass shooting at Georgia’s Apalachee High School had been ‘begging for months’ for mental health help before his deadly attack on Wednesday, according to an aunt of the suspect. He ‘was begging for help from everybody around him,’ the aunt, Annie Brown, told The Washington Post. ‘The adults around him failed him.’… The shooting at Apalachee Wednesday morning left four people dead, two staff members and two students.” – The Washington Post

September 4, 2024
Who Gets to Kill in Self-Defense?
He Punched Her and Dragged Her by the Hair. Why Wasn’t His Killing Self-Defense?
“Stanford researchers surveyed 649 women incarcerated in California prisons for murder or manslaughter; 134 of them were convicted in the deaths of their partners. Of the women convicted in the deaths of their partners, 110 experienced domestic abuse in the year leading up to their offenses. 85 reported their partner had controlled most or all of their daily activities. 83 said their partner had forced them to have sex. 69 said their partner had tried to choke or strangle them. 91 said they believed their partner was capable of killing them. In all, 80 of 110 were in extreme or severe danger in the year before their crimes. The Standford Study runs to 230 pages and provides important new evidence about the role of domestic violence in homicide convictions…. Out of the 649 women included in the study, nearly three-quarters of them experienced intimate partner violence in the year leading up to their homicide-related convictions. The abuse was often directly related to the deaths, a phenomenon Ms. Mukamal calls the “abuse to prison” pipeline: Several were in the midst of suicide attempts when a loved one trying to stop them was accidentally killed.” – The New York Times

September 3, 2024
House Democrats ask Trump if he illegally accepted $10 million from Egypt
“In early 2019, as Mueller was preparing to deliver his report on Russian interference and close his office, his team obtained records from Egyptian banking officials. The records revealed a cash withdrawal of nearly $10 million — an amount almost identical to what the intelligence indicated — from an account tied to the Egyptian General Intelligence Service, The Post reported. The withdrawal occurred in January 2017, five days before Trump took office….. The Post’s investigation found, prosecutors and FBI agents were blocked by top Justice Department officials from obtaining those records…. Though the $10 million Trump injected into his election bid in 2016 was reported as a contribution, Trump privately signed papers to structure the funding as a loan, according to FBI interviews with campaign aides. BuzzFeed later reported that aides said the president forgave the loan after taking office.” – The Washington Post

September 3, 2024
Schoolboy chased for 30km and shot dead by ‘cow protection’ vigilantes in India
“An 18-year-old schoolboy was shot and killed by so-called cow protection vigilantes in India after they chased him for miles over suspicion of being involved in cattle smuggling. The incident took place in Faridabad in the northern Indian state of Haryana on 23 August, days after a migrant worker was beaten to death by another cow vigilante group in the state’s Charkhi Dadri district over suspicion of consuming beef. Cows are considered sacred and worshipped by many Hindus, the religion that makes up a large majority of India’s population. Cow vigilante groups are accused of enforcing, often violently, Indian laws banning cattle slaughter and beef consumption.” – Independent

September 3, 2024
How China extended its repression into an American city
“Chinese diplomats and pro-China diaspora groups based in the United States organized demonstrations in San Francisco that harassed and silenced protesters opposed to Beijing’s policies, including through violence, during Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s visit to the city in November, a six-month investigation by The Washington Post shows.” – The Washington Post

September 1, 2024
How China’s internet police went from targeting bloggers to their followers
In recent months, followers of influential liberal bloggers have been interviewed by police as China widens its net of online surveillance
“Two other popular Chinese bloggers, including Wang Zhi’an, a Chinese journalist based in Japan, also said that their followers were questioned by police this year. ‘Part of this has to do with deepening repression – police have gone from harassing activists and people ‘out there’ active in physical spaces to harassing those online because much of activism and dissent is now more deeply hidden,’ says Wang.” – The Guardian

August 31, 2024
The kleptocrats aren’t just stealing money. They’re stealing democracy
“In the years since Trump’s 2016 election, a lot has been written about his autocratic instincts, about his scorn for ethical norms and about his attempt to retain power after losing the 2020 election. But as illustrated by the story of his real estate company’s reliance on dubious shell companies, Trump was already operating in an alternate ethical universe long before he became president, a world where the rules that most ordinary people live by are easily broken. Inside this domain, anonymously owned companies and funds based in offshore tax havens hide what could be as much as 10 per cent of the world’s GDP. This is money earned from organised crime or narcotics operations, stolen from legitimate institutions, or simply hidden, legally, with the aim of avoiding taxation, alimony or embarrassment. In this world, theft is rewarded. Taxes are not paid. Law enforcement is impotent and underfunded. Regulation is something to be dodged, not respected.” – FT

August 28, 2024
US police use force on 300,000 people a year, with numbers rising since George Floyd: ‘relentless violence’
Exclusive: groundbreaking Mapping Police Violence data estimates scale of physical force and civilian injuries
“Police in the US use force on at least 300,000 people each year, injuring an estimated 100,000 of them, according to a groundbreaking data analysis on law enforcement encounters. Mapping Police Violence, a non-profit research group that tracks killings by US police, launched a new database, policedata.org, on Wednesday cataloging non-fatal incidents of police use of force, including stun guns, chemical sprays, K9 dog attacks, neck restraints, beanbags and baton strikes.” – The Guardian

August 16, 2024,
Turkey parliament descends into chaos as dozens of MPs take part in fistfight
Staff were left cleaning bloodstains from the floor after brawl which started when one MP called the ruling majority ‘terrorists’ – The Guardian

August 14, 2024
‘Two-tier justice’ in Britain is real – but it’s not what the right says it is
Compare the rioters’ prison sentences with those of Just Stop Oil. How can our justice system claim to be blind?
“Let’s make a couple of obvious comparisons. One was highlighted this week by the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi). Had those sentenced for their part in the riots this week – who heeded the calls of racist organisers and rampaged through England’s cities – been Muslims inspired by Islamists, they are likely to have been prosecuted as terrorists, potentially facing much longer sentences. Assaulting people in the name of Islam appears to be treated as a far graver crime than assaulting people in the cause of Islamophobia.” – The Guardian

August 14, 2024
Modi made over 100 Islamophobic remarks during India election campaign, says Human Rights Watch
“Narendra Modi made Islamophobic remarks in more than 100 campaign speeches during India’s general election in his desperate bid to return to power for a rare third term, a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) said. Out of a total of 173 campaign speeches, the Indian prime minister allegedly made inflammatory remarks targeting Muslims and other minorities in at least 110, the international human rights group claimed following a survey of Mr Modi’s campaign speeches released on Wednesday.” – Independent

August 14, 2024
Ex-US air force specialist with Christian nationalist ties leads combat trainings
Michael Caughran’s history raises questions about extent to which his far-right and survivalist activities overlapped with his enlistment
“But this is not Caughran and Olson’s first venture in this field. The Guardian reported in 2019 on a previous survival and combat training enterprise, Team Rugged, which Caughran and Olson promoted with the help of former Washington state representative Matt Shea. Team Rugged was publicly advertised as a way for young people to develop ‘good character and skills to perform in leadership roles.’ In private emails to Shea, however, Caughran wrote that its real purpose was ‘to provide patriotic and biblical training on war for young men,’ and training would include ‘scenarios where every participant will have to fight against one of the most barbaric enemies that are invading our country, Muslims terrorists [sic].’” – The Guardian

August 13, 2024
Hindu worshippers in India throng ‘visa temple’ to pray for successful path to American dream
“Indian devotees believe the Chilkur Balaji temple in the southern city of Hyderabad has been particularly effective in blessing people with a successful US visa application, so much so that it is locally known as the ‘visa temple.’ More than 1,000 Hindu worshippers visit the temple every day for a chance to live the American dream, chanting the visa god’s name ‘Govinda’ while circling the temple.” – SCMP

August 13, 2024
Israeli protesters rally for ‘the right to rape’ prisoners
“Protesters, politicians and TV commentators in Israel are defending the right of soldiers to mistreat and even rape Palestinian prisoners in detention. The show of support follows the gang rape of a male detainee by a group of Israeli reservists.” – Aljazeera

August 7, 2024
Israel minister condemned for saying starvation of millions in Gaza might be ‘justified and moral’
“In his speech this week, he went on to say that Israel was ‘bringing in humanitarian aid because we have no choice. We are in a situation that requires international legitimacy to conduct this war.’ The EU said the deliberate starvation of civilians was a ‘war crime’ and that it expected the Israeli government to ‘unequivocally distance itself’ from the words of the far-right minister.” – The Guardian

August 6, 2024
Revealed: US neo-Nazi terror group aims to revive activities ahead of election
The Russia-based leader of the Base, which adheres to principles of accelerationism, seeks ‘A-team leader’ in US
“While far-right extremists from all corners of the internet are targeting vice-president Kamala Harris as she takes the reins of the Democratic ticket, one of the longer standing US-based neo-Nazi terror groups is also attempting to continue its covert activities as the presidential election season begins in earnest.” – The Guardian

August 5, 2024
Trump leans into religious extremism to energize rightwing evangelicals
Ex-president turning to Christian nationalists for support as Kamala Harris’s potential nomination poses hard challenge
“The bond between Trump and Christian nationalists has now deepened to the extent that Trump is comfortable with comparing himself with their messiah, while some on the religious right have come to believe that the one-term president has been chosen, or anointed, by God himself, especially after a recent failed assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania…. The speech at Turning Point’s Believers’ Summit, a gathering of Christians and Republicans that had the stated aim of ‘ultimately turning our nation towards the Lord”, was the furthest Trump has gone yet in appealing to this Christian base.’ – The Guardian

August 4, 2024
ABC host reportedly received death threats after Trump interview
Rachel Scott’s piercing interview at National Association of Black Journalists event left former president fuming
“United Nations experts have previously warned that such vitriol from Trump and his supporters – hundreds of whom attacked the US Capitol after he lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden – enhances the possibilities of violence against the press.” – The Guardian

July 31, 2024
The Last American Antislavery Campaign
“The US abolished slavery in 1865 with the ratification of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. Its first of two sentences reads: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” The exception is smack in the middle: Convict someone of a crime, and they can legally be made a slave.” – Bloomberg

July 30, 2024
At least 973 Native American children died in government boarding schools, inquiry finds
“The investigation commissioned by the US interior secretary, Deb Haaland, found marked and unmarked graves at 65 of the more than 400 US boarding schools that were established to forcibly assimilate Native American children into white society. The findings don’t specify how each child died, but the causes of death included sickness and abuse during a 150-year period that ended in 1969, officials said.” – The Guardian

July 27, 2024
‘I never expected this in the UK’: modern slavery expert receives death threat
Migrants at Work founder Aké Achi claims police failed to act on letter sent to his home warning of harm to his family
“A leading modern slavery expert who pursues employers on behalf of exploited overseas workers, recovering thousands of pounds for them in the process, has received a threat on his life.” – The Guardian

July 27, 2024
This is a misogyny emergency. A huge outpouring is coming in the runup to the US election
This time Kamala Harris will be the target for the social media platforms that promote prejudice
“In 2016, a historically unprecedented incident took place. And yet, barely anyone even noticed. Even years later, we’ve failed to acknowledge it or to have begun the process of understanding it. Because we still can’t even see it. And that’s because this incident involved a woman. And she was asking for it. The woman was Hillary Clinton. What she was asking for was votes. And what she got was the single biggest outpouring of misogyny in human history. We can now say that. Although no one ever does. But this was an unprecedented previously unimaginable event. Because 2016 was when the world’s first global instant mass communication technology – social media – crashed up against the most ancient of prejudices – misogyny. And the result was an earthquake: Donald Trump.” – The Guardian

July 27, 2024
Stricter Covid mask rules could’ve saved hundreds of thousands of lives, new study finds
“The US could have avoided almost 250,000 Covid-19 deaths if every state had adopted stricter mask and vaccine requirements seen in the Northeast during the height of the pandemic, according to a new study. Researchers say that the country, which saw more than 1.1 million Covid deaths, could have been spared an estimated 118,000 to 248,000 more lives.” – Independent

July 25, 2024
‘Smoking gun’ evidence points to UAE involvement in Sudan civil war
The passports are claimed to have been recovered from Omdurman, the city across the Nile from the capital, Khartoum, in an area that was held by the RSF but recently reclaimed by the Sudanese army. Analysts described the discovery as a ‘smoking gun’ that challenged UAE denials and raised questions over what the US and UK know about the level of the Gulf state’s involvement in Sudan and whether the west has done enough to rein in backing of a militia accused of genocide. The former Sudan adviser to the US government, Cameron Hudson, said the west would be obliged to act. ‘This will force Washington to acknowledge what it knows about this, and will force them to respond,’ he said. Some experts believe that, without the UAE’s alleged involvement, the conflict driving the world’s worst ongoing humanitarian crisis would already be over.” – The Guardian

July 24, 2024
Immigration Upswing Set To Cut Budget Deficit By $900 Billion Over 10 Years: Report
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says the economy will be bigger and the budget shortfall lower than if the pre-pandemic pace of immigration had continued.
“It found that the increase in immigration would increase the size of the U.S. economy by about $8.9 trillion over the 2024 to 2034 period.” – HuffPost

July 24, 2024
Exclusive: the Trump administration demoted this climate scientist — now she wants reform
“After Trump took office in 2017, Burkett repeatedly opposed what she saw as harmful actions taken by his administration, including dismantling climate research programmes, cutting science budgets and attempting to water down an influential government report on global warming. Burkett says that she was demoted from her leadership post at the USGS and then removed from a prominent White House panel that manages the government’s main, multiagency climate programme. Now she is seeking an investigation into what she calls ‘abuse of authority and gross mismanagement’ under Trump…. From the earliest days of Trump’s presidency, Burkett says that senior USGS officials appointed by the administration misrepresented to the US Congress the scale and impact of budget cuts that they were trying to make to climate programmes within the agency. For example, agency leaders implied in their proposed budget that they would transfer a research programme focused on carbon uptake by ecosystems to a new department, when in fact the programme was being eliminated. At the same time, senior officials were attempting to misrepresent climate research in government-issued reports, she says.” – Nature

July 20, 2024
Rape, Homicide, and Abortion Bans — The Abandonment of People Subjected to Sexual and Intimate Partner Violence
“Violence against women receives little attention from policymakers and courts. State policymakers who have implemented abortion bans ignore the connections between pregnancy and violence.” – NEJM

July 24, 2024
200,000 Children and Vulnerable Adults Abused in New Zealand, Report Finds
The head of a six-year investigation into mistreatment in orphanages, mental health institutions and elsewhere said it found an “unthinkable national catastrophe” unfolding over decades.
“The abuse included sexual assault, electric shocks, chemical restraints, medical experimentation, sterilization, starvation and beatings, said the report from the Royal Commission of Inquiry Into Abuse in Care. Many of the victims were children who had been removed from their families and placed in state, religious or foster care. ‘For some people this meant years or even decades of frequent abuse and neglect,’ the report said. ‘For some it was a lifetime; for others it led to an unmarked grave.'” – The New York Times

July 11, 2024
New York Times editorial board declares Trump ‘unfit to lead’
Board calls Trump ‘a chilling choice against this national moment’ days before Republican national convention
“Noting that the former president and convicted felon has now become the Republican nominee three times in eight years, the board said: ‘A once great political party now serves the interests of one man, a man as demonstrably unsuited for the office of president as any to run in the long history of the republic, a man whose values, temperament, ideas and language are directly opposed to so much of what has made this country great.’… ‘He has demonstrated an utter lack of respect for the constitution, the rule of law and the American people. Instead of a cogent vision for the country’s future, Mr Trump is animated by a thirst for political power: to use the levers of government to advance his interests, satisfy his impulses and exact retribution against those who he thinks have wronged him. He is, quite simply, unfit to lead.” – The Guardian

July 10, 2024
Rio’s ‘narco-pentecostal’ gangs accused of ordering Catholic churches to close
Bible-bashing drug boss accused of targeting Afro-Brazilian religions and Catholic congregations
“Since Peixão – whose nickname comes from the ichthys ‘Jesus’ fish – took power in 2016 of five favelas that have become known as the Complexo de Israel, an allusion to the evangelical belief that the return of Jews to the Holy Land is a step towards the second coming of Christ and Armageddon.” – The Guardian

July 9 2024
‘I was handed to a complete stranger’: the survivors fighting to end child marriage in 37 US states – and the people who want to keep it legal
The country has seen hundreds of thousands of child marriages since 2000. As activists push for new laws, an unlikely cohort stands in their way
“Advocates also face interference from a seemingly odd cohort: rightwing politicians who are using child marriage as ammunition in their war on reproductive rights, and left-leaning organizations who say they are defending the rights of young people by protecting the legality of child marriage.” – The Guardian

July 6, 2024
In Myanmar’s ‘fight to the death’, it’s the junta and its warlords vs everyone else
“Many countries including fellow Asean members Laos, Cambodia and Thailand continue to treat the junta as Myanmar’s legitimate government. Michael Vatikiotis, author of Blood and Silk: Power and Conflict in Modern Southeast Asia, says those governments have undermined the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ initiatives to end the conflict.” – SCMP

July 4, 2024
Rüdiger’s treatment a damning representation of modern Germany
“Defender should be able to count on a nation behind him but far-right nationalism reflects society’s ingrained racism.” – The Guardian

July 4, 2024
Is Xenophobia on Chinese Social Media Teaching Real-World Hate?
“Violent attacks on foreigners have prompted a debate about extreme nationalism online in a country that heavily censors information the government bans.” – The New York Times

July 2, 2024
Louisiana now requires the 10 Commandments to be displayed in classrooms. It’s not the only terrifying state law
From banning buses to masks to talking about slavery, here are some of the whackiest and most terrifying state laws being pushed in recent years
Louisiana Republican Governor Jeff Landry signed a law mandating that the Ten Commandments — yes, “thou shalt not commit adultery” etc — be displayed in every public school classroom in the state. Landry has been pushing a hard-right Christian agenda since coming into office six months ago, and the culture war he’s waging also encompasses crackdowns on abortion rights and criminal justice. At the bill signing ceremony in Lafayette on 19 June, Landry said: “If you want to respect the rule of law, you’ve got to start from the original lawgiver, which was Moses.” –Independent

July, 1, 2024
Sotomayor says immunity ruling makes a president ‘king above the law’
“In a stark dissent from the conservative-majority US supreme court’s opinion granting Donald Trump some immunity from criminal prosecution, the liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor said the decision was a ‘mockery’ that makes a president a ‘king above the law.’… ‘Today’s decision to grant former Presidents criminal immunity reshapes the institution of the Presidency,’ Sotomayor wrote in dissent. ‘It makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law.’” – The Guardian

June 30, 2024
Nazism is now hiding in plain sight – from posters to football chants and political slogans
“Once hidden in the shadows of the lunatic fringe, suddenly extreme far-right groups feel emboldened to repeat the messages last seen in the era of fascist dictators. Guy Walters looks at the terrifying displays across Europe, reminiscent of one of the darkest periods in our history.” – Independent

June 28, 2024
North Korea publicly executed 22-year-old man for watching K-drama
“The man from the Hermit Kingdom’s South Hwanghae province was publicly executed in 2022 for listening to 70 South Korean songs, watching three films, and distributing them, according to testimonies published in the North Korean Human Rights report released by the South’s unification ministry on Thursday.” – Independent

June 27, 2024
India’s supreme court to rule on new penal code permitting marital rape
Rights groups protesting at Modi government’s view that criminalising sexual assault violates ‘sanctity’ of marriage
“Campaigners angry that marital rape is not to be criminalised under India’s long-awaited new penal code have been promised a ruling on the issue by the supreme court next month. Human rights organisations, including the All India Democratic Women’s Association, have been petitioning India’s supreme court to make it a criminal offence. The court has in turn asked the government for a response.” – The Guardian

June 24. 2024
Texas abortion ban linked to increase in infant deaths, new study finds
“A six-week abortion ban in Texas was linked to a 13% increase in the number of infants who died in their first year of life, a new study published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics suggests. The study, published two years to the day since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade and permitted more than a dozen states across the country to outlaw almost all abortions, is one of the first glimpses into how strict abortion bans impact babies’ health.” – The Guardian

June 24, 2024
Louisiana Sued Over Law Requiring Ten Commandments Display In School Classroom
“The bill requires the religious text to be in a ‘large, easily readable font’ on a poster-sized display paid through donations. Louisiana is the first state to implement such a law in more than four decades…. Gov. Jeff Landry (R) signed H.B. 71 into law on Wednesday. “If you want to respect the rule of law, you’ve got to start from the original lawgiver, which was Moses,” Landry said at last week’s signing ceremony.” – HuffPost

June 21, 2024
Tourist accused of blasphemy killed by mob in Pakistan
A tourist has been dragged from a police station and killed by a mob in north-west Pakistan after being accused of blasphemy…. A tourist has been dragged from a police station and killed by a mob in north-west Pakistan after being accused of blasphemy…. Footage shows the man’s body being paraded through the streets and then set alight…. Malankand division’s regional police chief Mohammad Ali Gandapur accused the local mosque of encouraging people to gather after police first rescued the man.” – BBC

June 17, 2024
Global spending on nuclear weapons up 13% in record rise
States are on course to spend $100bn a year, driven by a sharp increase in US defence budgets
“All nine of the world’s nuclear armed nations are spending more, Ican added, with China judged to be the second largest spender with a budget of $11.9bn – though Beijing’s total is well below the $51.5bn attributed to the US. Russia is the third largest spender, at $8.3bn, followed by the UK ($8.1bn) and France ($6.1bn), although estimates for authoritarian states or the three countries with undeclared nuclear programmes (India, Pakistan and Israel) are all complicated by a lack of transparency.” – The Guardian

June 15, 2024
India: author Arundhati Roy to be prosecuted over 2010 Kashmir remarks
Official from ruling BJP party allows action against Booker winner under controversial anti-terrorism law
“The complaint concerned Roy’s comment that the disputed territory of Kashmir was not an ‘integral’ part of India, and accused her and others of giving speeches advocating the secession of Kashmir from India.” – The Guardian

June 14, 2024
‘Brazen corruption’: Donald Trump is selling policies for a second term to the highest bidders
“Desperate to return to the White House, Trump is selling off his legislative agenda to donors — even when that means reversing old promises.” – Independent

June 14, 2024
The Chilling Reason You May Never See the New Trump Movie
“A classic story of a mentor and his protégé, chronicling how Trump first learned from and later surpassed his brutal, Machiavellian fixer…. Unfortunately, you may not get a chance to anytime soon, at least in the United States…. It’s frightening, because it suggests that Trump and his supporters have already intimidated some media companies, which seem to be pre-emptively capitulating to him…. The fear seems to be twofold. Few want to end up in the MAGA movement’s cross hairs the way Bud Light and Disney did. And as one distribution executive told Variety, any company that wants to be sold or to merge with or buy another company would be hesitant to touch “The Apprentice” because of the possibility that, should Trump be re-elected, his ‘regulators will be punitive.'” – The New York Times

June 14, 2024
Prominent China #MeToo journalist sentenced to five years in jail, supporters say
“A Chinese court has sentenced prominent #MeToo journalist Sophia Huang Xueqin to five years in jail and labour activist Wang Jianbing to three and a half years, almost 1,000 days after they were detained on allegations of inciting state subversion, according to supporters.” – The Guardian

June 13, 2024
Oklahoma court rejects Tulsa Massacre survivors suit
“The Oklahoma Supreme Court dismissed the suit, filed in 2020 by a trio of survivors, on Wednesday. An estimated 300 black Americans were killed when a white mob razed the Greenwood neighbourhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1921. Only two known survivors – Viola Fletcher, 110, and Lessie Benningfield Randle, 109 – remain. The third, Hughes Van Ellis, died last year at 102. No-one has ever been held responsible for the violent events of 31 May 1921. In addition to the 300 estimated deaths, thousands of black residents were assaulted, arrested and left homeless.” – BBC

June 12, 2024
Why US is among world’s worst domestic human rights violators
It’s foreign policy when Washington slams others for alleged violations, but foreign propaganda when America is seen as being the culprit
“It takes chutzpah to attack others for human rights violations when you are guilty of breaching those of your own population. That’s why it’s both infuriating and amusing to listen to Washington’s lectures and sanctions against other countries, including China. When you were the biggest dog in the neighbourhood, your barks could bite. But that habit needs to change when your place at the top is starting to crumble.” – SCMP

June 3, 2024
The reich stuff – what does Trump really have in common with Hitler?
Comparisons between the ex-president and the 20th-century Nazi leader are controversial but a new book says they resemble each other as political performance artists
When Donald Trump shared a video that dreamed of a ‘unified reich’ if he wins the US presidential election, and took nearly a full day to remove it, the most shocking thing was how unshocking it was. Trump has reportedly said before that Adolf Hitler did ‘some good things,’ echoed the Nazi dictator by calling his political opponents ‘vermin’ and saying immigrants are ‘poisoning the blood of our country,’ and responded to a white supremacist march in Charlottesville by claiming that there were ‘very fine people on both sides.’ The Hitler-Trump analogy is controversial. ‘Some of Trump’s critics – including Biden’s campaign – argue that Trump’s incendiary rhetoric and authoritarian behavior justify the comparison,’ the Politico website observed recently. ‘Meanwhile, Trump’s defenders – and even some of his more historically-minded critics – argue that the comparison is ahistorical; that he’s not a true fascist.’” – The Guardian

May 30, 202
Nikki Haley sparks outrage with ‘finish them’ message on Israeli bomb
“Former US presidential hopeful Nikki Haley has sparked outrage by writing “Finish Them” on an artillery shell during a Memorial Day visit to the Israeli military near the border with Lebanon.” – Independent

May 29, 2024|
‘In the name of God’
“For decades, Catholic priests, brothers and sisters raped or molested Native American children who were taken from their homes by the U.S. government and forced to live at remote boarding schools, a Post investigation found.”– The Washington Post

May 24, 2024
Women Have Gotten ‘Too Mouthy,’ Says This Republican Senate Candidate
“By 2023, White was not just appearing on Jones’s show but also guest-hosting it. Bannon, Trump’s first chief strategist, had become a mentor to him, delighting in his unvarnished machismo. ‘Women have become too mouthy,’ White said on Bannon’s ‘War Room’ podcast. ‘As the Black man in the room, I’ll say that.’ Elsewhere, White denounced the ‘Jewish lobby’ and the ‘Jewish elite’ and called Israel ‘the linchpin of the new world order.’ He described the L.G.B.T.Q. movement as ‘Luciferian’ and wrote that it’s ‘the brainchild of radical feminists and their cucked men.’… On Saturday, delegates at Minnesota’s Republican convention voted overwhelmingly to endorse him for Senate.” – The New York Times

May 22, 2024
Uncovering the brutal career of a crucial American ally. And the hidden truths of the war in Afghanistan. America’s Monster. Who was Abdul Raziq?
“The scale of Raziq’s abuses, carried out with American support, was shocking…. Raziq’s story complicates the comforting belief that brutality always backfires and undermines the U.S. military’s claim to have fought according to international law. Raziq’s violence was effective because it had a logic particular to the kind of civil war that the United States found in Afghanistan, one where the people, and not the terrain, were the battlefield. The reasons for this are well documented by scholars of civil war and counterinsurgency but glossed over by our generals and politicians and obscured by the myths of American exceptionalism and our righteous war on terror. But Raziq saw those reasons clearly. He murdered and tortured because he believed it was the only way to win against the Taliban. And America helped him do it.” – The New York Times

May 14, 2024
Nearly 40% of dirty money is laundered in London and UK crown dependencies
“This is money often stolen from Africa and Africans by corrupt businessmen, bent politicians and war lords and so on.” – The Guardian

May 13, 2024
Ukraine Is Now a World War. And Putin Is Gaining Friends.
Global proxy conflicts were a constant in Cold War I, and Russia’s invasion marked the first of Cold War II.
“The notion of the Ukraine war as a proxy war isn’t new, of course. From the outset, Kremlin officials have alleged that the US is using Ukraine as a battering ram against Russia. Two years ago, I explained that they were basically correct: In helping Ukraine defend itself, America is also imposing heavy costs on one of its fiercest enemies. What has changed since 2022 is that the proxy war has expanded — and been fully joined by both sides.” – Bloomberg

Corporate America Never Really Quit Forced Labor
“There are 800,000 incarcerated workers in the US, and they do roughly $10 billion worth of work a year, more than $2 billion of it for clients outside the prison system, according to a 2022 study by the American Civil Liberties Union and the University of Chicago. …Prison labor touches almost every corner of American life. Prisoners farm on former slave plantations in Louisiana and upholster high school auditorium furniture in Massachusetts. …Prisoners are excluded from key employment law protections, including the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution, which otherwise prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude.” – Bloomberg

May 3, 2024
How Counterprotesters at U.C.L.A. Provoked Violence, Unchecked for Hours
“The New York Times used videos filmed by journalists, witnesses and protesters to analyze hours of clashes — and a delayed police response — at a pro-Palestinian encampment on Tuesday.” The New York Times

May 1, 2024
Number of writers jailed in China exceeds 100 for first time, says report
“Freedom to Write index says there are 107 people in prison for published content in China, with many accused of ‘picking quarrels.’… With the total number of people imprisoned globally for exercising their freedom of expression estimated to be at least 339, China accounts for nearly one-third of the world’s jailed writers. There are 107 people behind bars because of their published statements in China, more than any other country on the index.” – The Guardian

April 3o, 2024
Saudi Arabia activist sentenced to 11 years in prison for ‘support’ of women’s rights
“A young women’s rights activist in Saudi Arabia was secretly sentenced to 11 years in prison by an anti-terrorism court after being arrested for ‘her choice of clothing and support for women’s rights.’ Saudi officials confirmed in a statement to the United Nations high commissioner for human rights that Manahel al-Otaibi was sentenced on 9 January for what the Saudi government called ‘terrorist offences.’ Al-Otaibi, who was sentenced in a secret hearing before the counter-terrorism court, was found guilty of charges related to a Saudi anti-terror law that criminalises the use of websites to ‘broadcasts or publishes news, statements, false or malicious rumors, or the like for committing a terrorist crime.'” – The Guardian

April 28, 2024
Columbia crisis: Another massive failure of liberalism
Columbia’s president capitulated to the right-wing witch hunt — and only made things worse. Maybe that’s a lesson?… America’s extraordinary narcissism creates a global distortion effect whereby the massacre of at least 34,000 people in a conflict on the other side of the world is transformed into a domestic political and cultural crisis…. This spectacular abdication of any pretense of academic integrity made her look like a liberal of the most craven and spineless kind, the kind who would rather surrender to a police state than stand up for the frequently uncomfortable principles of free speech.” – Salon

April 17, 2024
Political Warfare and Congress
“On social media, CCP (Chinese Communist Party) propaganda demeans the Biden administration. But China’s social media campaign on behalf of Trump in 2024 looks like a copy (a poor one) of Russia’s on behalf of Trump in 2016…. The CCP’s internet propaganda is posted on X (Twitter). Likewise, Russia’s denazification meme did not need a Russian or a Chinese channel to reach Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. Nor did she need a Russian or Chinese platform to spread the disinformation trope further. She and her American followers used X (Twitter). Marjory Taylor Greene is not the only member of Congress to have presented the Russian “denazification” trope in public debate. In the case of Matt Gaetz, we know that the transmission belt was Chinese, because he cited a Chinese state propaganda source in congressional debate. It is not clear in what sense X is an American platform; in any event, its owner, Elon Musk, has removed prior safeguards identifying state propaganda outlets, driving much higher viewing of Russian and Chinese propaganda. Under Musk, X (Twitter) has been particularly lax in policing known Chinese propaganda accounts, ignoring their flagging by government and other platforms. Musk has also personally spread specific Russian propaganda tropes.” – Timothy Snyder

April 16, 2024
‘Pregnancy is not a disease’: why do so many women die giving birth in Nigeria?
“More than 80,000 Nigerian women died from pregnancy-related complications in 2020, a statistic activists say reflects a lack of political will to fix a broken medical system…. Nigeria’s rate of 1,047 deaths per 100,000births in 2020 is the third-highest maternal mortality in Africa and far from the UN goal of 70 deaths per 100,000 to be reached globally by 2030.” – The Guardian

April 10, 2024
Meet the ‘pursuer of nubile young females’ who helped pass Arizona’s 1864 abortion law
“…this lecherous caricature of a man — a man whose compatriots in the 19th century recognized that he was problematic…. While Jones lived in Arizona, he was elected to represent Tucson in the 1st Arizona Territorial Legislative Assembly. And then, when that legislature convened in 1864, he was elected speaker of the House. And it was that legislature — the one Jones presided over in 1864, after he had already abandoned his first wife, and married a 12-year-old and was just weeks away from marrying a 15-year-old, though still a few years away from marrying a 14-year-old — it was that legislature that passed a law reading, ‘Every person who shall administer or cause to be administered or taken, any medicinal substances, or shall use or cause to be used any instruments whatever, with the intention to procure the miscarriage of any woman then being with child, and shall be thereof duly convicted, shall be punished by imprisonment in the Territorial prison for a term not less than two years nor more than five years.’ And it was that piece of legislation that, earlier this week, was reinstated as law of the land in Arizona.” – The Washington Post

April 7, 2024
Christian nationalists embrace Trump as their savior – will they be his?
A thrice-married man who refers to the Eucharist as a “little cracker”, was apparently unable to name a single Bible verse and says he has never asked God for forgiveness was always an unlikely hero for the most conservative Christians in the US…. Indeed, the former US president’s relationship with the religious right has deepened so much that Trump is now comfortable with comparing himself to their messiah.” – The Guardian

April 7, 2024
Journalist removed from Colorado Republican event for ‘unfair’ reporting
Sandra Fish, who has covered politics since 1982, was asked to leave by security about an hour into the state party assembly
“A politics reporter from the Colorado Sun was removed from the state Republican party assembly this weekend because the state party chair Dave Williams claimed her reporting on the party was “very unfair.’… Video of the removal was captured by other journalists in attendance.” – The Guardian

April 3, 2024
Pakistani judges say intelligence agency threatened them over Imran Khan
“The letter from the six high court judges alleged the abduction of family members, torture, installation of cameras in their bedrooms and threats from the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI). In one case the judges said they were forced to hear an appeal against Khan even after the majority of judges had decided it was not maintainable.” – The Guardian

April 2, 2024
Trump’s Threats Against Opponents Are Getting Increasingly Violent
“The former president’s rhetoric is characteristically over the top. But his agenda for a second presidential term targets an array of personal enemies…. Over on the right, meanwhile, the tone-policers at National Review ludicrously warn that the chief threat stemming from a second Trump administration would be a wave of left-wing political violence.” – The Nation

April 2, 2024
The Republican party has become a full-fledged anti-sex movement
The conservative obsession with purity and control is being achieved by increasingly punitive means
The US supreme court justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas cited the Comstock Act, named after the 19th-century anti-vice campaigner Anthony Comstock, in last week’s case about access to the abortion pill mifepristone. If you don’t know who Anthony Comstock was or what his law did, that might not have alarmed you. But it should have….. Comstock was reputed to be driven by religious shame over masturbation to become his era’s most extreme anti-sex crusader…. in the early 1870s, when he convinced Congress to make it a crime to advertise, sell or mail contraceptives or give out contraceptive information, even orally, or to mail anything ‘immoral’ – a term whose vagueness allowed widespread prosecution, including of a feminist newspaper reporting on sexual abuse whose prominent publishers, Victoria Woodhull and Tennessee Claflin, he got sent to prison. Like modern-day rightwingers he was a book-burner, and he boasted that he had driven 15 people to suicide. ‘When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross’ is a handy quote and it does seem to describe well Donald Trump, who has hugged a lot of US flags onstage and last week was hawking Christian nationalist Bibles.” – The Guardian

March 31. 2024
Congressman rebuked for call to bomb Gaza ‘like Nagasaki and Hiroshima’
Civil rights group denounces US House representative Tim Walberg’s calls to ‘get it over quick’ as a ‘clear call to genocide’
“Rather than provide humanitarian aid in Gaza, the US should ensure it is subjected to nuclear bombing the way that ‘Nagasaki and Hiroshima’ were at the end of the second world war, a Republican congressman said in shocking remarks that were recorded recently at a gathering with a relatively small group of his constituents…. ‘It should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima,’ Walberg said, alluding to the Japanese cities where the US dropped atomic bombs at the end of the second world war, killing hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom were civilians. ‘Get it over quick.’” – The Guardian

March 31, 2024
A Russian Defector’s Killing Raises Specter of Hit Squads
“The men who killed Maksim Kuzminov wanted to send a message. This was obvious to investigators in Spain even before they discovered who he was. Not only did the killers shoot him six times in a parking garage in southern Spain, they ran over his body with their car. They also left an important clue to their identity, according to investigators: shell casings from 9-millimeter Makarov rounds, a standard ammunition of the former Communist bloc. ‘It was a clear message,’ said a senior official from Guardia Civil, the Spanish police force overseeing the investigation into the killing. ‘I will find you, I will kill you, I will run you over and humiliate you.’” – The New York Times

March 30, 2024
Nazism and the Journal
“Between 1935 and 1944, the Journal remained all but silent regarding the heinous motives of Nazi science and medicine. What is the nature and significance of silence in the face of such oppression?” – The New England Journal of Medicine

March 28, 2024
There’s Trouble Inside Pakistan’s Military
“For decades, Pakistan’s military has been the country’s most vital institution. Although it frequently intervened to oust elected governments, many Pakistanis saw this as salvation from the country’s blundering politicians. The army, it was thought, was the only force capable of holding the country together. The question now is whether the generals can keep themselves together. The military has suffered a catastrophic loss of prestige after the populist former prime minister Imran Khan directly challenged its influence. In response, Mr. Khan was ousted, jailed and his party — despite winning the most parliamentary seats in a divisive February election — was shut out of a new civilian government that took power this month with the blessing of the military leadership. The country remains deeply polarized. But an even greater concern for Gen. Syed Asim Munir, the army chief, is that the polarization extends into the military itself.” – The New York Times

March 27, 2024
UN picks Saudi Arabia to lead women’s rights forum despite ‘abysmal’ record
“’Saudi Arabia’s election as chair of the UN Commission on the Status of Women shows shocking disregard for women’s rights everywhere,’ Louis Charbonneau, UN director at the Human Rights Watch (HRW), said. ‘A country that jails women simply because they advocate for their rights has no business being the face of the UN’s top forum for women’s rights and gender equality. Saudi authorities should demonstrate that this honor was not completely undeserved and immediately release all detained women’s rights defenders, end male guardianship and ensure women’s full rights to equality with men.’”

March 23, 2024
It’ll be bedlam’: how Trump is creating conditions for a post-election eruption
“As the ex-president fans the flames of violence, experts and insiders say November will be a brutal test for US democracy. A bloodbath. The end of democracy. Riots in the streets. Bedlam in the country. Donald Trump has made apocalyptic imagery a defining feature of his presidential election campaign, warning supporters that if he does not win – and avoid criminal prosecution – the US will enter its death throes.” – The Guardian

March 23, 2024
Medieval Christian misogyny shapes how we judge women today, says scholar
“Some called the women who put on makeup and dyed their hair, deceptive and artificial. Others said women who wore jewels and fine clothes could not be trusted, even by their husbands. But they all agreed: if a man ever encountered one of these unchristian women, and wanted to rape her, it was her fault – not his. According to a talk at the University of Cambridge, it was in the third century that the Christian idea that ‘real’ beauty is within was first used by influential male writers to try to control how women dressed. ‘Many of the ideas that govern how we perceive women’s appearance today have their roots in the middle ages,’ said Cambridge scholar Alexandra Zhirnova who is giving her talk on 23 March as part of the Cambridge Festival – a showcase of the research under way at the university.” – The Guardian

March 18, 2024
It’s Looking a Lot Like World War II Out There
“America Firsters seem unaware of just how quickly and completely the international order can collapse. Our world resembles the 1930s more than we might think. Now, as then, the balance of power is shifting ominously. Violent autocracies are seeking expansive empires. Ties between authoritarian states are growing stronger; regional conflicts are becoming interwoven. Democracies are threatened from without and within. The US is, once again, tempted by a doctrine that pursues unilateralism and retrenchment, in the guise of ‘America First.’” – Bloomberg

March 17, 2024
How Trump’s Allies Are Winning the War Over Disinformation
“Their claims of censorship have successfully stymied the effort to filter election lies online.” – The New York Times

March 17, 2024
Trump says US will see ‘bloodbath’ if he’s not re-elected…: Live – X/Twitter

March 8, 2024
Putin’s big message on International Women’s Day: Your job is to make babies
“‘You, dear women, are capable of transforming the world with your beauty, wisdom, and generosity of spirit. But most of all, thanks to the greatest gift bestowed on you by nature — childbirth,’ he said…. ‘Family remains the most important thing for any woman, no matter what career path she chooses or what professional heights she attains,’ he added, per an official Kremlin translation.” – Business Insider

March 8, 2024
Oil industry has sought to block state backing for green tech since 1960s
“Kenner documented dozens of examples of the oil industry pressuring governments to hold back support for renewable energy, restrict funding for the development of clean technologies and weaken environmental rules that favoured their uptake. Lobbyists on both sides of the Atlantic argued that government subsidies for clean technologies distorted free markets. Activists say their position is ‘dishonest’ because the oil industry benefits from tax credits and other financial help from governments, and pays for only a fraction of the damage its fuels do to people and the planet. In 2022, the total subsidies for fossil fuels – including costs to society – came to $760bn (£592bn) in the US and €310bn (£264bn) in the EU, according to the International Monetary Fund. The revelations were ‘outrageous but frankly unsurprising,’ said Shira Stanton from the campaign group Beyond Fossil Fuels, who was not involved in the analysis.” – The Guardian

March 6, 2024
Mark Robinson’s Bizarre Ramble: ‘I Absolutely Want To Go Back To The America Where Women Couldn’t Vote’
“In a newly unearthed video, North Carolina’s GOP nominee for governor says America was better then because Republicans ‘fought for real social change.'” – HuffPost

March 5, 2024
Hitler-quoting candidate wins North Carolina Republican gubernatorial primary
“Robinson has a history of controversial statements. He has described Covid-19 as a ‘globalist’ conspiracy to destroy Donald Trump. In 2021, he criticized efforts to teach LGBTQ+ issues in sex education, referring to transgender and homosexual people as ‘filth’. He has also said people who are gay are equivalent to ‘what the cows leave behind’ as well as ‘maggots’ and ‘flies.’ He implied at a campaign event last month that transgender women should be arrested if they use women’s restrooms. He once described the movie Black Panther as ‘created by an agnostic Jew and put to film by [a] satanic marxist.’ He then said it ‘was only created to pull the shekels out of your Schvartze pockets.'” – The Guardian

March 3, 2024
Faith and conspiracy: Study shows religiosity is related to belief in COVID-19 conspiracies
“Prior research has covered the human tendency to cling to conspiracy narratives, suggesting a deep-rooted inclination to find patterns and intentions in world events — and attributing them to the actions of malevolent groups. This present research extends this understanding by exploring how religiosity — characterized by a belief in a higher power without empirical proof, correlates with the endorsement of conspiracy narratives through a shared framework of unwavering conviction.” – PsyPost

March 1, 2024
Trump echoes Nazi propaganda and pushes lie that ‘no one speaks languages’ of migrants in wild border speech
“’We have languages coming into our country, nobody that speaks those languages. They’re truly foreign languages. Nobody speaks them.’ The national language of Mexico is Spanish. Census figures from 2019 showed that there were almost 42 million people that speak Spanish in US homes.” – Independent

March 1, 2024
UK and US accused of obstructing inquiry into 1961 death of UN chief
“The participants said the US and UK had been dragging their feet in handing over potentially vital information…. Hammarskjöld, a Swede, died on 18 September 1961 on the way to negotiate a ceasefire between UN peacekeepers in the Congo and separatists from the breakaway Congolese region of Katanga. His Douglas DC-6 airliner crashed near Ndola, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), killing Hammarskjöld and the 15 other passengers. The first inquiry carried out by Rhodesian authorities returned a verdict of pilot error, but the finding was controversial. People on the ground said they saw another plane and flashes in the sky. Belgian mercenary pilots were reported to be in the area at the time as well as French and British intelligence officers. US intelligence officers were monitoring communications from Cyprus and reported hearing communications consistent with the UN plane coming under fire.” – The Guardian

February 29, 2024
Trump gave top US firms staggering tax cuts, with some paying $0 or less – report
“Some of the US’s most profitable corporations, including General Motors, Citigroup and Netflix, have slashed their tax bills in the years since the passage of the Trump tax cuts, with nearly a quarter paying rates in the single digits and 23 paying nothing, a report has found. The 2017 law cut the top corporate income tax rate from 35% to 21%. But the new assessment of corporate tax avoidance, published on Thursday by the non-profit Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (Itep), found that during the first five years the law was in effect, many profitable public companies in the US paid a far lower rate in practice. Together, the 342 corporations studied by Itep paid an average effective tax rate of just 14.1%. Eighty-seven companies paid an average of less than 10%; 55 of those firms paid less than 5%; and 23 corporations, including T-Mobile US and Xcel Energy, paid zero (or less) federal income tax over the five-year period – even though they made a profit each year.” – The Guardian

February 28, 2024
The Kinsey Institute, the world’s top sex research center, faces existential threat from conservative attacks
“What happens to the institute may signal if conservative US lawmakers can dictate the bounds of research on sexuality? The future of the Kinsey Institute, the world’s premier sex research center, is in limbo. Last April, lawmakers in Indiana’s Republican-dominated state legislature voted to block the Kinsey Institute from receiving any state funds through Indiana University (IU), which houses the institute.” – The Guardian

February 28, 2024
Priest accused of abusing Inuit children in Canada will not be dismissed by church
“A French clergyman dubbed the “devil priest” who stands accused of sexually abusing Inuit children in Canada’s north will not be dismissed from his congregation after senior church officials in Rome declined to act, citing the nonagenarian’s declining health.” – The Guardian

February 27, 2024
NBC Journalist Shows CPAC Head Matt Schlapp The Nazis Who Attended
“Despite denials from the top, there was clearly a white supremacist presence at the Conservative Political Action Conference. The head honcho of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) went scorched-earth on an NBC News report that noted the number of Nazis at its annual gathering this weekend. But Matt Schlapp’s furious denial of a Nazi presence at CPAC seemed to fall apart after the reporter who wrote the article brought the receipts.” – HuffPost

February 27, 2024
Let them eat Flakes: Kellogg’s CEO says poor families should consider ‘cereal for dinner’
“The multimillionaire chief executive officer of the US food processing giant Kellogg’s has drawn scorn from some quarters after recently suggesting that families with strained finances could cope by eating ‘cereal for dinner.’ Gary Pilnick was speaking live on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street on 21 February when he delivered the remarks in question, which some have compared to the ‘let them eat cake’ phrase frequently attributed without evidence to Marie Antoinette before her execution during the French Revolution.” – The Guardian

February 24, 2024
Reactions to state senator calling LGBTQ+ ‘filth’: ‘Words have power, and consequences’
“Oklahoma Sen. Tom Woods is receiving strong backlash after he was quoted calling the LGBTQ+ community ‘filth’ during an event in Tahlequah on Friday. ‘I represent a constituency that doesn’t want that filth in Oklahoma,’ Woods, R-Westville, was quoted by the Tahlequah Daily Press. Woods comments came during a legislative forum sponsored by the Tahlequah Area Chamber of Commerce. Woods and other lawmakers at the forum were asked questions by a woman in the audience, according to the Daily Press. The woman’s questions related to State Superintendent Ryan Walters’ ‘bullying’ of school districts and …why does the Legislature have such an obsession with the LGBTQ citizens of Oklahoma.’ According to the Daily Press, the woman also referenced the death of 16-year-old Nex Benedict, who recently died a day after being involved in a fight that broke out in the Owasso High School bathroom.” – The Oklahoman

February 23, 2024
Amid Florida’s Measles Outbreak, Surgeon General Goes Against Medical Guidance
“Dr. Ladapo, a former clinical researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, has played a prominent role in the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, appearing with the governor at events that mainstream public health experts have repeatedly criticized as spreading dangerous falsehoods…. About one in five unvaccinated people in the United States who get measles ends up in the hospital, according to the C.D.C. People can develop pneumonia, which is the most common cause of death from measles among young children; their brains can also swell, leading to deafness or intellectual disabilities, the agency reported.” – The New York Times

February 19, 2024
Alexei Navalny death latest: Putin critic’s ‘bruised body seen in morgue’ as family demands it is returned
“Vladamir Putin believes that he is ‘untouchable’ after years of an iron grip on Russia, the wife of jailed opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza has said, as she accused the autocrat of murdering Alexei Navalny. Speaking to the BBC, Evgenia Kara-Murza said: ‘All that impunity that lasted for decades has led [Putin] to believe he’s somehow untouchable.’ It comes as an independent Russian newspaper cited an anonymous source claiming that Mr Navalny’s body had been delivered to the Salekhard District Clinical Hospital. The unnamed source, identified as an experienced paramedic, said the body was bruised and had been transported from the nearby town of Labytnangi.” – Independent

February 17, 2024
Pakistan elections: Rawalpindi commissioner resigns admitting to tampering results
“He claimed the country’s two top officials – the chief election commissioner and the chief justice – were also involved in rigging.” – Independent

February 16, 2024
‘Brutally murdered’: World reacts to Alexey Navalny’s death in prison
“Leaders say Putin critic ‘paid for his courage with his life’ and that they hold Russia responsible for his death.” – Aljazeera

February 14, 2024
Senior US official warns of security threat amid reports of Russian nuclear capability in space
“ABC News and the New York Times cited unnamed sources as saying that the security threat Turner was referring to involved the Russia’s potential deployment of a nuclear anti-satellite weapon in space.” – The Guardian

February 13, 2024
Global defence spending jumped to record $2.2 trillion last year: Report
“’The current military-security situation heralds what is likely to be a more dangerous decade, characterised by the brazen application by some of military power to pursue claims,’ read the annual report which the IISS has been compiling annually for the past 65 years…. The report comes days after Republican frontrunner Donald Trump said he had previously told an unspecified NATO member’s leader that he would “encourage” Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” in that country if it had not met its financial obligations to the military alliance.” – Aljazeera

February 1, 2024
A White Supremacist Killed Her Dad In El Paso. Now GOP Politicians Sound Like The Shooter.
“Meg Jaurez’s father was among 22 people killed by a man who wanted to stop the ‘Hispanic invasion.’ Now she hears that language everywhere…. Now, when Meg Juarez checks the news, almost every Republican politician and right-wing pundit sounds like the man who shot her parents. They’re talking about an ‘invasio’ at the border and the ‘great replacement’ of white voters wrought by immigration…. Last month, Abbott boasted, ‘The only thing we’re not doing is shooting people,’ he said, because ‘the Biden administration would charge us with murder’ — a winking admission that he’d permit extrajudicial killings if it didn’t mean going to prison.” – HuffPost

January 29, 2024
Prisoners in the US are part of a hidden workforce linked to hundreds of popular food brands
“The goods these prisoners produce wind up in the supply chains of a dizzying array of products found in most American kitchens, from Frosted Flakes cereal and Ball Park hot dogs to Gold Medal flour, Coca-Cola and Riceland rice. They are on the shelves of virtually every supermarket in the country, including Kroger, Target, Aldi and Whole Foods. And some goods are exported, including to countries that have had products blocked from entering the U.S. for using forced or prison labor…. Some prisoners work on the same plantation soil where slaves harvested cotton, tobacco and sugarcane more than 150 years ago, with some present-day images looking eerily similar to the past. In Louisiana, which has one of the country’s highest incarceration rates, men working on the “farm line” still stoop over crops stretching far into the distance…. Willie Ingram picked everything from cotton to okra during his 51 years in the state penitentiary, better known as Angola…. Some days, he said, workers would throw their tools in the air to protest, despite knowing the potential consequences. “They’d come, maybe four in the truck, shields over their face, billy clubs, and they’d beat you right there in the field. They beat you, handcuff you and beat you again,” said Ingram, who received a life sentence after pleading guilty to a crime he said he didn’t commit. He was told he would serve 10 ½ years and avoid a possible death penalty, but it wasn’t until 2021 that a sympathetic judge finally released him. He was 73…. Now, with about 2 million people locked up, U.S. prison labor from all sectors has morphed into a multibillion-dollar empire,” – The Associated Press

January 28, 2024
‘I don’t see how it ends’: expert sounds alarm on new wave of US opioids crisis
“There had been other opportunities to slow the crisis before it evolved from prescription pills to illicitly-produced fentanyl and other drugs that together have claimed 800,000 American lives over the past quarter of a century with predictions of another million deaths by the end of the decade. But federal regulators and prosecutors failed to seize the moment. Perhaps most disturbing of all, Van Zee said the US is still failing to learn the lessons of a uniquely American catastrophe to break the influence of corporate money over medicine, drug regulation and political accountability.” – The Guardian

January 20, 2024
Report Claims Inflation Woes Driven Largely By Corporate Greed
“The paper boosts the controversial progressive argument that corporations are squeezing American households just because they can.” – HuffPost

January 18, 2024
Why The American West Is A Hotbed Of Extremism And Misinformation
“A new book breaks down myths about the Western U.S., and examines why it’s an increasingly welcoming space for far-right extremism to take root.” – HuffPost

January 17, 2024
Closing the women’s health gap: A $1 trillion opportunity to improve lives and economies
“Investments addressing the women’s health gap could add years to life and life to years—and potentially boost the global economy by $1 trillion annually by 2040.” – McKinsey

January 15, 2024
Trump shares bizarre biblical video saying God made him to be America’s ‘caretaker’
“Republican gives full vent to messiah complex on eve of Iowa caucuses. Donald Trump has shared an eerie video on the eve of the Iowa caucuses in which he appears to proclaim himself God’s chosen emissary on Earth – sent to deliver America back to prosperity. The three-minute clip, posted to Truth Social on Sunday evening, opens on grainy footage of an LP turning on a record player, broadcasting an apparently ancient sermon in which a preacher intones: ‘And on 14 June 1946, God looked down on his planned paradise and said: “I need a caretaker.” ‘So God gave us Trump,’ the voiceover adds.” – Independent

January 15, 2024
‘It’s difficult to survive’: China’s LGBTQ+ advocates face jail and forced confession
“Trans and queer people and their supporters suffer ‘systemic persecution’ as country pushes increasingly conservative values.” – The Guardian

January 12, 2024
Florida school district pulls dictionaries and encyclopedias as part of “inappropriate” content review
“The Escambia County school district has included five dictionaries, eight encyclopedias and “The Guinness Book of World Records,” in its list of more than 1,600 books that could soon be banned.” – CBSNews

January 12, 2024
Greg Abbott Says the Only Thing Stopping Texas From Shooting Migrants Is the Headache of Potential Murder Charges
Otherwise they’d apparently go for it. As governor of Texas, Greg Abbott has a horrific record when it comes to immigration, from sending more than 100 migrants to a freezing-cold DC on Christmas Eve to a ‘hold-the-line’ operation on the border that could lead to more drownings. Yet he’d like credit for one thing, and that’s the fact that he hasn’t given local officials the greenlight to literally shoot migrants crossing into Texas—but only because he doesn’t want to deal with being charged with murder. – VanityFair

January 12, 2024
Former LA sheriff’s deputy gets 30 days in jail for 2019 killing of Ryan Twyman
“Andrew Lyons and another sheriff’s deputy shot at Twyman 34 times while he was inside his car in south Los Angeles…. The criminal conviction and jail time for the 39-year-old is an exceptionally rare outcome for an on-duty killing by a law enforcement official.” – The Guardian

January 11, 2024
A Black Woman Called 911 For Help, And Police Killed Her In Front Of Her Daughter
“Niani Finlayson called police for help during a domestic incident. They fatally shot her within seconds.” – HuffPost

January 10, 2024
Forty-four of 50 US states worsen inequality with ‘upside-down’ taxes
“New research found that poorest fifth pay a tax rate 60% higher, on average, than the top 1% of households.” – The Guardian

January 9, 2024
The Idea of the Nation-State Is Synonymous With Genocide
“‘Neither Settler Nor Native’ by Mahmood Mamdani – To challenge the thesis that nationalism and colonialism are two separate things—that nationalism is the good side, colonialism the bad side; that nationalism came first, colonialism later, or vice versa. I wanted to show that they were twins joined at the hip. And I also wanted to show that from the outset, the nation-state project could not be achieved without ethnic cleansing and extreme violence.” – The Nation

January 8, 2024
Trump refuses to sign Illinois pledge not to overthrow government: Live
“Republican’s refusal to sign loyalty oath emerges on third annivery of Capitol riot.” – Independent

January 8, 2024
2023 saw record killings by US police. Who is most impacted?
“The deadliest year for homicides by law enforcement in over a decade, data shows…. Police violence is increasing as murders are falling… ‘Violence is trending downwards at an unprecedented rate, but the exception to that seems to be the police, who are engaging in more violence each year,’ said Samuel Sinyangwe, a policy analyst and data scientist who founded Mapping Police Violence. ‘It hits home that many of the promises and actions made after the murder of George Floyd don’t appear to have reduced police violence on a nationwide level.’… In 2023, Black people were killed at a rate 2.6 times higher than white people.” – The Guardian

January 8, 2024
Republican Elise Stefanik declines to commit to certifying 2024 election votes
“Welker said: ‘Just to be very clear, I don’t hear you committed to certifying the election results. Will you only commit to certifying the results if former president Trump wins?’ Stefanik said: ‘No, it means if they are constitutional,’ before expressing her claim that the 2020 presidential race ‘was not a fair election’ despite multiple legal reviews solicited by Trump and his allies confirming that it was…. She also delivered a tirade about how the true threat to democracy was ‘attempting to remove … Trump from the ballot because Joe Biden knows he can’t win.’… The notable exchange between Welker and Stefanik, the fourth-highest ranking Republican in the House, came after the latter woman played a prominent role in the recent ouster of the presidents of two Ivy League universities.” – The Guardian

January 3, 2024
Ugandan LGBTQ+ activist in critical condition after brutal knife attack
Human rights defenders have been warning about the risk of attacks on members of the LGBTQ+ community after Uganda last year adopted what is considered one of the harshest anti-gay laws in the world…. In May last year, Uganda adopted anti-gay legislation containing provisions making “aggravated homosexuality” a potentially capital offence and setting out penalties for consensual same-sex relations of up to life in prison.” – The Guardian

January 2, 2024
Inside Trump’s ‘fascist’ dreams for a second term
“Donald Trump seeks revenge with a second-term agenda more extreme than his first.” – Independent

January 1, 2024
‘Stakes are really high’: misinformation researcher changes tack for 2024 US election
“Kate Starbird says attacks have made research difficult, and claims of bias arise because of prevalence of lies from the right. A key researcher in the fight against election misinformation – who herself became the subject of an intensive misinformation campaign – has said her field gets accused of ‘bias’ precisely because it’s now mainly rightwingers who spread the worst lies.” – The Guardian

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