Posted inLaw

‘That’s why we have an Insurrection Act’

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.

Posted inLaw

Along party lines: SCOTUS decisions and US schisms

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 […]

Posted inTechnology

AI-driven internet opens floodgates for child sex abuse images

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 […]

Posted inNews

Dominion and democracy: What Fox News avoided, for now, and what comes next

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 […]

Posted inLaw

Supreme Court picks religious case, passes on solitary confinement

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 […]

Posted inCulture

Divorce is relatively recent in Ireland

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 […]

Sign In

We've recently sent you an authentication link. Please, check your inbox!

Sign in with a password below, or sign in using your email.

Get a code sent to your email to sign in, or sign in using a password.

Enter the code you received via email to sign in, or sign in using a password.

Subscribe to our newsletters:

OR

By signing up, you agree to our Terms and Conditions.