Court overturns conviction of Lula in Brazil, enabling him to run for president again

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known to all as Lula, is a socialist who was elected as president of Brazil as leader of the Workers Party and uplifted the conditions of its poorest people. He was one of the most popular leaders in the world. He was convicted of corruption in a very dubious proceeding in which the judge colluded with prosecutors but that conviction had the desired effect of preventing him from running for re-election as president. Lula was leading in the polls when he was removed from the race by this move, enabling the utterly reactionary Jair Bolsonaro to become president in 2019.

Back in November 2019, when Lula was released from prison pending appeals against his conviction, I posted about his case and linked to a Netflix documentary The Edge of Democracy (2019) that shows the whole process by which the right-wingers removed Lula’s successor Dilma Rousseff, imprisoned Lula, and captured power in Brazil.
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The relief bill heads to Biden to sign into law

A short while ago, the House of Representatives passed the $1.9 trillion relief bill known as the American Relief Plan. It now heads to the president who will sign it into law. The relief package is going to help many people.

We project that key elements of the American Rescue Plan would reduce that annual poverty rate to 8.7 percent. The policies would reduce poverty by more than half for children and for people in households experiencing job loss. Poverty would fall about 42 percent for Black, non-Hispanic people, 39 percent for Hispanic people, and 34 percent for white, non-Hispanic people, reducing the disparities in poverty rates for Black, non-Hispanic people and Hispanic people relative to white, non-Hispanic people.

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Money fight between Trump and the RNC

In an amusing development, Trump has sent cease-and-desist letters to the Republican National Committee (RNC), the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and the National Republican Congressional Committee, telling them that they should stop using his likeness and name in their fundraising efforts because he wants all the money to go to his personal Save America PAC. He referred to these other groups as ‘RINOs’ (Republicans In Name Only).
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How Kyrsten Sinema went from progressive to Washington swamp dweller

How Kyrsten Sinema went from progressive to Washington swamp dweller

When Kyrsten Sinema was first elected from Arizona to the House of Representatives back in 2012 and later to the Senate in 2018, she broke through several barriers

Freshly elected to the Senate, Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D) represents a slew of “firsts.” She will be Arizona’s first female senator. She was the first openly bisexual person elected to Congress and carries that first with her to the Senate. And the former Mormon was the first person sent to Congress to claim no religion. After winning her congressional seat in 2012, she was sworn in on the Constitution, forgoing the Bible chosen by Christians – the dominant religion for members of Congress, especially those from Arizona.

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The bogus outrage about Dr. Seuss

(This Modern World)

This cartoon gets it exactly right. Fox News and the other members of the nutty right wing echo chamber go on and on about the estate of Dr. Seuss withdrawing six of his earlier books because they have offensive images but they never show the images they are defending. If you want, you can find these images on the internet, like here.

This is so obviously offensive by today’s standards that even the whitest Fox News viewer would cringe at seeing it. And that would ruin the whole schtick. If Fox viewers realized that the images in question actually were offensive, and not just the fever dreams of some lefty social justice warriors, they’d realize that Fox was duping them.

So no pictures for Fox! Much better to rail endlessly and let their audience assume that this is just some ridiculous liberal freakout over nothing. That’s much better for ratings.

Cuttlefish are smarter than we may have thought

One of the experiments that grabbed the public’s imagination was one where young children who were able to delay gratification in the form of getting a treat seemed to have more positive life outcomes. Now there is a study using cuttlefish that follows the same model and finds that they too will forego an immediate reward in order to get a better reward later. One of the researchers Alex Schnell was interviewed about the work.
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QAnon shaman and his lawyer in trouble with the judge

The weird guy known as QAnon shaman who was part of the insurrection in the US Capitol and sat the Senate president’s chair and even said a prayer is now in jail. The past weekend, he gave an interview to the CBS show 60 Minutes+. Without his makeup and regalia, he cuts quite a different figure. It appears that he lives with his mother who was also interviewed and she seems to be an enabler of his idiocy.

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Where is Trump’s book deal? His paid speeches?

One of the features of American political life is that after leaving high office, politicians cash in by publishing books. Another lucrative activity is giving highly paid speeches to big corporations, Wall Street firms, and other wealthy organizations, with the Clintons and the Obamas being notable examples of how to become spectacularly rich doing so. These speech gigs are really a form of legalized bribery, for the sponsors of these events to gain access and curry favor wit, people who can do favors for them through their contacts in government or when they cycle back into government after the next election. Other people who served in administrations, such as current treasury secretary Janet Yellen and secretary of state Anthony Blinken, went the same route during the Trump era and can make even more money when their current time in office ends.
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TV review: Bridgerton (2020)

This heavily promoted hit Netflix series is one of the silliest things I have seen in a long time.

I can just imagine how the pitch for this idea went. The creators realized that there seems to be an inexhaustible appetite among American audiences for shows about the bygone days of the English aristocracy with the action taking place in stately mansions, as can be seen from the immense popularity of earlier shows like Upstairs, Downstairs and Downton Abbey. This series cranks that all up to 11. The entire series take place in the fanciest of castles and homes and beautiful parks and other outdoor settings with everyone, and I mean everyone, including the servants, dressed in the finest clothes. There are no big name stars in the show and I figured this must be because they spent most of the budget on costumes. The entire time of people is spent gossiping about each other and promenading in gardens or attending the balls that seem to occur every night. Apparently these events require women to wear a new outfit each time.
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