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Buckingham Palace’s brief 29-word statement on the Queen’s health – MyLondon

Buckingham Palace’s brief 29-word statement on the Queen’s health – MyLondon:

Buckingham Palace have issued a rare statement addressing The Queen’s health today after she has been ordered by doctors to rest. The 96-year-old monarch is currently at Balmoral Castle in Scotland on her annual summer break but her health is understood to have concerned her doctors.

[Wishing her all the best…]

Senate Confirms Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court

Senate Confirms Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court: Live Updates:

The Senate on Thursday confirmed Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, making her the first Black woman to be elevated to the pinnacle of the judicial branch in what her supporters hailed as a needed step toward bringing new diversity and life experience to the court.

Overcoming a concerted effort by conservative Republicans to derail her nomination, Judge Jackson was confirmed on a 53-47 vote, with three Republicans joining all 50 Democrats in backing her. The vote was a rejection of Republican attempts to paint her as a liberal extremist who has coddled criminals. Dismissing those portrayals as distorted and offensive, Judge Jackson’s backers saw the confirmation as an uplifting occasion, one where a representative of a group often pushed into the background instead moved to the forefront.

[Excellent.]

The Slap Trap Crap | NextDraft

The Slap Trap Crap | NextDraft:

Because this is an example of the same kind of asinine false equivalence that we’ve seen soil the media for the past several years. There were not two sides to Trump’s habitual lying. There are not two sides to the vaccine debate. There are not two sides to the potential upside of using disinfectant on the inside of your body. There are not two sides to the climate change debate. There are not two sides to the Jan 6 insurrection story. There are not two sides to the 2020 election results. Yesterday, Donald Trump requested that Vladimir Putin dig up and share dirt on Joe Biden’s family. At a time of war, that’s straight up treachery, the kind of anti-American garbage this criminal has been spewing for years. End of story.

Being unbiased does not mean giving lies the same weight as the truth.

[All the yes!]

Fight against hell

Fight against hell:

When people say we’re “fighting for democracy” even that isn’t strong enough.

We must fight so we don’t become a fascist country with slavery for Blacks, ovens for Jews and women turned into baby-producing handmaidens. And for a human-habitable planet.

If you think that isn’t what’s happening, well it is.

  • This country has never actually revoked slavery. A lot of people are still bitter about the outcome of the Civil War. Blacks are not, according to many Americans, entitled to the full rights of Americans.
  • Anti-semitism is also a foundation, not just of America, but most of the world. We heard Trump say that American Jews are really citizens of Israel, which emphatically is not true.
  • And the last one, women as baby-producing handmaidens, that’s what overturning Roe v Wade is for.
  • And of course it’s not just Blacks, Jews and women, there’s a hellish place for every non-white non-male non-Christian American.
  • And who knows why they don’t want to keep the planet habitable for humans. Maybe they think God meant for them (and not us of course) to migrate to other planets. Whatever it is, it’s another form of hell.

Yet journalism still mostly sees it as a partisan horse-race and every step we take into the abyss is bad news for one or two people like Biden or Schumer. Their delusion by now is really a form of insanity. Forget about waking them up, we have to move past them.

The thing that unites us is the hell the Trumpists have in mind for all of us.

[Why ia this not obvious to everyone?]

Source: Scripting News

Filibust a Move | NextDraft

Filibust a Move | NextDraft:

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are in Georgia to make a push for what is clearly their most important agenda item (and by their, I mean our): Voting Rights. The rubber won’t hit the road until they get back to DC and see if they can convince their party to deploy the nuclear option and change the filibuster rules to get something done. The voting suppression efforts across the country are extensions of the Big Lie. Put aside all of our minor differences. This is the fight.

[It’s the whole enchilada.]

“America Is Now in Fascism’s Legal Phase”

“America Is Now in Fascism’s Legal Phase”:

Jason Stanley, author of How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them, writes about the recent revitalization of the long tradition in the United States of fascist movements using race & racism as tools to move towards their goals. And now with attacks on the courts, education, voting rights, and women’s rights, America is now in fascism’s legal phase.

According to the International Center for Not for Profit Law, 45 states have considered 230 bills criminalizing protest, with the threat of violent leftist and Black rebellion being used to justify them. That this is happening at the same time that multiple electoral bills enabling a Republican state legislature majority to overturn their state’s election have been enacted suggests that the true aim of bills criminalizing protest is to have a response in place to expected protests against the stealing of a future election (as a reminder of fascism’s historical connection to big business, some of these laws criminalize protest near gas and oil lines).

The Nazis used Judeo-Bolshevism as their constructed enemy. The fascist movement in the Republican party has turned to critical race theory instead. Fascism feeds off a narrative of supposed national humiliation by internal enemies. Defending a fictional glorious and virtuous national past, and presenting its enemies as deviously maligning the nation to its children, is a classic fascist strategy to stoke fury and resentment. Using the bogeyman of critical race theory, 29 states have introduced bills to restrict teaching about racism and sexism in schools, and 13 states have enacted such bans.

Something I was disappointed about on last week’s anniversary of the terrorist attack on Congress was too much emphasis on Trump’s role in what happened on that day, as if focusing on him somehow makes it possible that the rest of the Republican Party can jettison this bad seed at some point without losing face and American politics can get back to the bipartisan business as usual. This is a total fiction, and as Stanley correctly notes, this shift towards fascism is a party-wide effort that preceded Trump and will outlive him.

[We are sleeping our way through this. It should be the lead story for everyone reporting anything in the US.]

Source: kottke.org

Happy Public Domain Day 2022! – The Public Domain Review

Happy Public Domain Day 2022! – The Public Domain Review:

On the chime of midnight last night, as many of us welcomed in — by booze-fuelled countdown or bliss of sleep — the start of a new year, the public domain had a special moment too, welcoming in many thousands more works into its ever-growing expanse, including Winnie The Pooh, poems by Dorothy Parker, and Franz Kafka’s The Castle.
Each January 1st is Public Domain Day, where a new crop of works have their copyrights expire and become free to enjoy, share, and reuse for any purpose.

[Stravinsky eh? Cool.]

inessential: 1942 Letter to My Grandfather from His Father

inessential: 1942 Letter to My Grandfather from His Father:

Brent writes: My Dad ran across a remarkable letter and shared it with family. I volunteered to share it more widely, and Dad and his siblings agreed.

You are too intelligent to be told and believe that war is anything but a tragic mess, however, we are in this not with our consent but because of a treacherous attack that we did not invite. Regardless of the causes the effect is that we simply must win.

[Go read the whole thing. It’s remarkable history. Thanks for sharing Brent.]