A new way for whistleblowers to share secret information

Given the secretive and coercive nature of the national security state, we have come to depend upon whistleblowers to tell us of the abuses that are committed by governments. Governments in turn retaliate by threatening to hand out extremely harsh punishments to those caught divulging information they do not want revealed, though high government officials will freely leak secret information to reporters when it serves their interests and such people not only do not get punished, they are rewarded for such actions and even for their deceptions and lies.
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Merit-based points system for immigration

The Donald Trump administration wants to change the system that allows immigration into the US. At present, being a relative of a citizen or permanent resident counts for quite a lot but they want to change it to a so-called ‘merit-based’ system. This is because while family relationships were considered good qualities when the family members coming in were mostly white and from Europe, demographics in the US have changed and there are now many more people of color and efforts are being made to keep America white by making family relationships less salient. Trump himself has made no secret of the fact that while he talks of merit, in his mind that means ‘white’.
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Scott Pruitt’s dangerous religious extremism

I have written before about the abuse of taxpayer money by the head of the Environmental Protection Agency Scott Pruitt who seems to not only have delusions of grandeur that makes him want to live in luxury at taxpayer expense, he also seems to be paranoid, demanding all manner of security protections despite being one of the more obscure cabinet members. But what is most dangerous in terms of public policy is that he is a religious extremist.
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Its crimes in Gaza are increasing Israel’s isolation

UPDATE: Today brings reports of at least another 52 demonstrators in Gaza killed by the IDF and over 2,000 injured.]

Today the Trump administration moves the US embassy to Jerusalem, one more step in dispossessing the Palestinian people and solidifying Israel’s apartheid rule over them, aided by the US. Charles Glass writes about a new book by Norman Finkelstein titled Gaza: An Inquest Into Its Martyrdom that takes a critical look at the crimes that Israel has committed using its Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), focusing on the people who are the worst affected, those living in Gaza.
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End the punitive cash bail system

Today is Mother’s Day in the US, one of the many days to remember certain people in our lives that the greeting card and other merchandizing industries have seized upon to guilt-trip people into spending money on gifts and cards to avoid feeling guilty that their mothers will think that they do not care about them. Being the curmudgeon that I am, I impressed upon my children when they were young age that I thought celebrating things like Father’s Day (and even my birthday) was nonsense and that I would be disappointed if they fell for the marketing pressure and bought me cards and stuff on those days and that I would be pleased if they ignored them altogether. Despite my urgings, they still call me on Father’s Day and my birthday but they know better than to buy me anything.
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Mormons abandon Boy Scouts

The Boy Scouts of America have had a well-deserved bad reputation of being generally reactionary in their attitudes and in particular hostile towards the LGBT community. They have tried to redeem themselves by removing most of the restrictions and now have even announced that they will allow girls to enroll and as part of that move they have announced that they will change their name to Scouts BSA effective February 2019.
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Film review: Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi (2017)

My uneven relationship with this mega-franchise continues. After reasonably enjoying the first three installments (episodes IV, V, VI), I was totally turned off by the first of the prequel trilogy (episode I) and swore off the next two. When the series was rebooted, I heard good things about episode VII The Force Awakens and found it reasonably enjoyable, although it seemed to be simply a remake of the original episode IV. Last night I watched the most recent episode and it was really awful.
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Diplomacy, Trump style

It looks like Donald Trump’s choice to be ambassador to Germany has got off to a great start, peremptorily telling his host nation that they had better get in line or else. As Robert Mackey writes, Richard Grenell took up his post on Tuesday, the day that Trump announced his withdrawal from the Iran deal, and immediately sent out a tweet saying ” As @realDonaldTrump said, US sanctions will target critical sectors of Iran’s economy. German companies doing business in Iran should wind down operations immediately.”
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