Reading Time: 5 minutes Special Counsel Jack Smith’s indictment reveals how far Donald Trump and his collaborators were willing to go to overturn the election. American democracy had a very narrow escape indeed in 2020.
A competent fascist could have overthrown the United States government. We came right up to the edge of killing democracy.
Reading Time: 10 minutes Another term for the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) has closed after a week of controversial rulings, and with the promise of a contentious Second-Amendment issue on the next session’s docket. In a bit of grim humor earlier this week, a social media meme proclaimed that, having mastered submarine engineering, keyboard warriors were currently getting their […]
Reading Time: 5 minutes In the past week, recent reports and investigations have revealed a damning state of affairs for the role of so-called artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms in the child sex abuse material (CSAM) market. While machine learning software, including large language models like ChatGPT, has been the subject of great scrutiny as corporations test the limits on […]
Reading Time: 3 minutes The phrase “In God We Trust” was first included on US coins in the 1860s in order to “relieve [the U.S.] from the ignominy of heathenism,” according to Treasury Department records. As such, it is a phrase that rankles with many nonreligious people, and is often a subject of contention for those interested in maintaining […]
Reading Time: 3 minutes There is no doubting that Donald Trump was one of the most successful presidents in US history—which is saying something for a man who won only one term and lost the public vote twice. By a lot. The presidential vote is arguably a vote for Supreme Court nominations. When voting in US elections for either […]
Reading Time: 9 minutes On Thursday, April 27, Senate Republicans blocked a measure that would have allowed the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to be added to the US Constitution as its 28th Amendment. The action reveals how far the US has shifted into a discourse shaped centrally by Christian nationalism. It did not have to be this way.
Reading Time: 4 minutes Last year, I asked a rhetorical question in the wake of the nearly one billion dollar verdict in the Alex Jones fake news case, which involved relentlessly broadcast lies stoking conspiracy theories around the Sandy Hook massacre. Yesterday, as everyone reported the settlement with Fox News and parent company Fox Corp, of $787.5 million to […]
Reading Time: 5 minutes There’s almost too much to choose from when attempting to sum up recent US strife: On Thursday, Missouri’s Attorney General bypassed sitting representatives to launch the most prohibitive ban on gender-affirming care yet, which would effectively deny treatment to adults and children alike. Judge Samuel Alito issued a short-term stay on a Texas judge’s revocation […]
Reading Time: 5 minutes Before you pull out the whataboutery card on me, as a Brit, I know we have a slew of our own problems. But having just been alerted to 4 stories in 5 minutes that literally made my jaw drop, I am left asking (and not for the first time), America, what the hell are you […]
Reading Time: 2 minutes When I divorced my first wife in 2008, I was expecting some blowback from friends and family. I was living in California at the time. But in Ireland, it was new. A referendum removing the constitutional prohibition on divorce was approved on 24 November, 1995. The social order of my country did not fall apart, as was […]
