alanjjohnstone
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/27/us-tiny-towns-anti-abortion-ordinances
23 tiny towns in Texas have approved local laws declaring themselves “sanctuary cities for the unborn”, passing ordinances to make the procedure punishable by a $2,000 fine.
Does it never ever end?
The contractor hired by Arizona’s state Senate to oversee the recount of 2.1 million ballots in the county that includes the metro Phoenix has no election experience and is run by Doug Logan, who shares conspiracy theories claiming the official 2020 presidential election results are illegitimate.
Now the contractor is insisting in total confidentiality to protect trade secrets. The company won’t reveal its methods and also wants the hearing closed to the media and the public.
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/election-2020-arizona/2021/04/26/id/1019077/
In 1975, police were stationed in 1% of US schools; by 2018, that figure was 58%.
In 1970, there were 200,000 people in US prisons. Today, that figure is 2.3 million.
African Americans form 13% of the population and 39% of prisoners.
Of a population of 328m, 77m have a criminal record.
BBC’s Newsnight is back to its war mongering ways with an interview supposedly about climate change but its focus is primarily with China’s human rights abuses.
We have been here before with the BBC. Iraq was all about “Saddam gassed his own people” to justify war.
And how easy it is to forget America’s illegal imprisonment of Uyghurs in Guantanamo Bay as terrorists.
It does seem as if many in the West are determined to use the Uyghur persecution as pawns.
I wonder how the US would respond if a Chinese war fleet arrived off the coast of California or the UK if the Chinese sailed its aircraft carriers up and down the English Channel.
Aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth departs for its first operational deployment with eight RAF F35B stealth fighter jets on board, will depart for Asia accompanied by six Royal Navy ships, a submarine, 14 naval helicopters and a company of Royal Marines. A squadron of 10 US Marine Corps F35B Lightning II jets will also be embarked on the carrier in what the Ministry of Defence (MoD) is describing as the “largest concentration of maritime and air power to leave the UK in a generation”.
The Carrier Strike Group (CSG), which will carry out visits to India, Japan, South Korea and Singapore, will include the US destroyer USS The Sullivans and the Dutch frigate HNLMS Evertsen.
The decline in the employment rate for the over-50s has been twice as big as for those aged between 25 and 49 and after losing work, older workers take the longest to return.
The court record of past police killers
https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2021/apr/25/police-killings-statistics-derek-chauvin
When we recognise that the police are an essential part of the state machine to impose social control, we know that ultimately justice will not be served.
True, the US statistics are stark but they are equally true for the UK and France and other countries, albeit for the low number of gun ownership, the death rate is also low.
But when killing knife threatening individuals the US stats are still higher than the UK, for example, where proportionately knife violence is much higher.
And another useful read on food choices
An informative interview about the food industry
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/25/our-unequal-earth-mark-bittman-cheap-food-american-diet
The implied trade-off has been that advances in agriculture have greatly reduced hunger and driven societies out of poverty due to improved productivity and efficiencies. But Mark Bittman, the American food author and journalist, argues in his new book Animal, Vegetable, Junk that these supposed benefits are largely illusionary.Iranian tanker attacked off Syria’s coast
Another blind eye to Israeli aggression in what has become a shadow war
Green Investment Bank 2.0”
A new state-backed green bank to help finance Britain’s climate ambitions is to be established, three years after the sell-off the earlier UK’s Green Investment Bank.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/15/uk-government-planning-new-green-investment-bank
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/24/aoc-joe-biden-exceeded-progressive-expectations
“The Biden administration and President Biden have definitely exceeded expectations that progressives had. I think a lot of us expected a much more conservative administration.” – AOC
Biden had been “very impressive” in his approach to negotiating with Congress, resulting in the passage of “progressive legislation”.
“It’s been good so far,” she said.
Why am i not at all surprised?
AOC puts some flesh on the bones of their GND
https://inthesetimes.com/article/civilian-climate-corp-green-new-deal-infrastructure
The Civilian Climate Corps, an echo of FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps, an idea adopted from Nazi Germany
The article by-passes much of the contemporary criticism of the CCC, this being just one
https://www.marxists.org/subject/left-wing/icc/1935/03/corps.htm
IIRC, back in 2014 for the Scottish independence referendum, Matt and i drew attention to the success the nationalists were having with convincing migrant residents to vote for separation.
The nationalists have always argued that they seek a more relaxed immigration policy to stem the gradual de-population of Scotland and many of the Scottish local councils have welcomed asylum seekers.
It seems this open attitude to migration has been paying rewards for the SNP. A Kurdish refugee is standing as candidate in the Holyrood elections.
