Public (and younger doctors) favor single-payer and other progressive measures

The billionaire Koch brothers, massive funders of all manner of right-wing candidates and organizations, who are totally against any government regulations that hinder their ability to make money (especially environmental and climate change measures), conducted a survey to measure public opinion on various issues and, would you know it, while the public agreed with them on vague general principles such as “the right to personal property is key to a free and just society”, on practical matters the public seems to be in favor of the very things they hate.
[Read more…]

Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind

It may seem like there is nothing that the fever swamps of the right wing can throw up that would be disavowed by the Republican party. But it seems that even they have limits. You may recall my post on QAnon, the bizarre conspiracy mystery phenomenon that has inexplicably captured the allegiance of so many people despite its manifest wackiness, such as that Donald Trump and the military are in a secret allegiance to combat the Deep State and are at this very moment poised to carry out sweeping indictments and arrests of vast numbers of well-known people before they can stage their coup.
[Read more…]

Dozens of children killed in Yemen by Saudi-US bombing

Reports are emerging of a major atrocity in Yemen.

Dozens of civilians, mostly children, have been killed and others wounded in an airstrike by the US-backed, Saudi-led coalition in Yemen that hit a bus in the rebel-held north of the country.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), one of the few humanitarian institutions helping civilians on the ground in the war-torn country, said a hospital it supported had received dozens of casualties after the strike at a market in Dahyan, in Sa’ada governorate.

“Under international humanitarian law, civilians must be protected during conflict,” the organisation tweeted. Johannes Bruwer, the head of delegation for the ICRC in Yemen, tweeted: “Scores killed, even more injured, most under the age of 10.”
…

It was not possible to confirm the death toll, but Abdul-Ghani Nayeb, a health department chief in Sa’ada, told Reuters 43 people had been killed and at least 61 injured. Houthi-controlled Almasirah television broadcast unverified footage of dead and bloodied children being transferred to a hospital.

[Read more…]

TV Review: Documenting Hate: Charlottesville

This week will see the anniversary of the Unite the Right rally of white supremacists and neo-Nazis that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia on August 11 and 12, 2017. The same people wanted to hold an anniversary rally in Charlottesville but their application for a permit was turned down. But their application to hold a rally in Washington, DC was approved by the National Park Service and they are planning what they call a ‘White Civil Rights Rally’ this weekend in front of the White House. No word yet if Donald Trump has been invited to address the groups, since they clearly see him as a supporter. But a coalition of 18 groups under the umbrella ‘DC Against Hate’ plan a massive counter-protest. This has again reignited the debate as to the best way to deal with hate groups: whether to ignore them and that, starved of attention, they will disappear, or that letting them to do their thing with impunity just emboldens them.
[Read more…]

Yesterday’s election results

Yesterday’s elections provided a mixed bag of results. In the special election in Ohio’s 12th congressional district, the result was pretty much a tie with the Republican Troy Balderson holding such a small lead over Democrat Danny O’Connor that the result has not yet been called. The margin is about 1, 750 votes in his favor, out of a total of over 200,000. I expect him to win, since it is rare that absentee and provisional ballots overcome a deficit in the regular votes. But this election was to fill the seat for just the next three months, until the general election in November, so it was a race without much practical significance. The symbolic factor is that Republicans should be worried that they had to work so hard to hold on to what has long been a very secure seat for them.
[Read more…]

Saudi Arabia fights with Canada while the US allies with Al Qaeda

In news you may have missed, the government of Saudi Arabia has over-reacted spectacularly to a criticism made by the Canadian foreign minister. What would normally have resulted in calling in the Canadian ambassador to deliver a reprimand has instead resulted in him being immediately expelled. And there was more, as Mehdi Hasan explains.
[Read more…]

Killer gets life sentence for racially motivated murders

You may recall the case of a man who killed an Indian-American and wounded another in a bar in Kansas because he thought they were Iranian. He had yelled “terrorist” and “get out of my country” at them before going home, getting one of his guns, returning to the bar, and shooting them. He also wounded a third person who tried to help, He has now been sentenced to three life terms without parole.
[Read more…]

Some interesting elections to watch for today

Today is yet another Byzantine day in American politics, with various kinds of elections taking place. Much media attention is focused on a special election in Ohio for a seat in the US House of Representatives. This is a solidly conservative district that has been represented by Republicans for decades and Donald Trump won by a margin of 7 points. So why the fuss? Because according to polls, Democrat Danny O’Connor is giving Republican Troy Balderson a close run. I am not hopeful, though. Ohio is quite a reactionary state.
[Read more…]

What kind of person would own such a house?

What kind of person would want to own a house that is an architectural nightmare and has three bedrooms, 10 bathrooms, three kitchens, eight dishwashers, 13 porches, and an elevator? The same kind of person who would own 10 yachts, because the goal of such people is ostentatious wealth. Yes, we are talking about the Betsy DeVos, the education secretary who has been working to undermine public schools. This is merely her summer home, somewhere that has easy access to her summer yachts.

[Read more…]

Oscar Wilde on the cruelty of prison authorities to children

The incredible cruelty and sheer viciousness in the way that the Trump administration, through its justice department and homeland security agencies like ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), has treated the children of undocumented immigrants, ripping them away from their parents and sending them off to distant places where it is hard to reach them, is enough to make you sick. Back in 1897 Oscar Wilde, just prior to his own release from prison, observed similar senseless, unfeeling cruelty towards children in prison, especially one incident in which a prison guard was dismissed for a small act of kindness towards an inmate child.

After his release, Wilde wrote a letter to the editor of The Daily Chronicle newspaper describing what he saw. Written with the eloquence that only someone like Wilde can summon, what he describes is an example of the banality of evil, and is applicable to the actions of ICE in the US now. I give below an extract but it is worth reading in full. (Note: What Wilde calls ‘sweet biscuits’ are what are referred to as cookies in the US and a ‘warder’ is a prison guard.)
[Read more…]