Reading Time: 6 minutes The Alabama Supreme Court hands down a religion-laden ruling that embryos are people, with the side effect of ending IVF treatment. It’s another step in the religious right’s plan to return women to a state of reproductive subordination.
Politics
Posted inPolitics
Moses Johnson delivers sermon tantamount to theocracy
Reading Time: 2 minutes Mike Johnson, Speaker for the House of Representatives where the Republicans are hanging tenuously onto a slim majority, recently remained true to his label as a Christian nationalist. There was no sign of an interest in constitutional secularism at a GOP retreat intended to discuss and plan for a continued majority past the November 2024 […]
Posted inTechnology
Downsized news media, AI futures, and democratic losses
Reading Time: 7 minutes On Thursday, February 22, Vice Media CEO Bruce Dixon announced hundreds of layoffs and a decision to no longer publish content on Vice.com. The decision came after the company was rescued from bankruptcy last year by an investment firm with a strong stake in private equity, and in the wake of a terrible month for […]
Posted inSpace
Nuclear panic and the satellite wars
Reading Time: 6 minutes In 1962, the US detonated a high-altitude warhead, with a yield of 1.4 megatons of TNT equivalent, some 250 miles above the Earth. The blast expelled the planet’s magnetic field for nearly half a minute, created a brief cavity in the ionosphere, and damaged a third of the satellites then in orbit. Decades later, some […]
Posted inParenting & Family
How to talk to your kids about anti-immigrant racism
Reading Time: 5 minutes The Republican party has made anti-immigrant prejudice the centerpiece of their strategy. How do progressive and secular parents living in a nation of immigrants explain this to their children?
Posted inLaw
The strange case of SCOTUS, Trump, and the 14th Amendment
Reading Time: 11 minutes Oral arguments in Trump v. Anderson offered slender options for a super-majority right-wing SCOTUS wrestling with the 14th Amendment, in a critical case for this year’s US presidential election.
Posted inPsychology
God, Trump, and the psychology of inevitability
Reading Time: 4 minutes Christian evangelicals believe that God is on their side, and therefore, that they can’t lose. This leads to a reckless sense of overconfidence and groupthink, regardless of whether the evidence supports them or not.
Posted inPolitics
Germany’s far-right politics narrowly nipped…for now
Reading Time: 7 minutes On Sunday, January 28, the German state of Thuringia held a regional run-off election, where Christian Herrgott of the conservative Christian Democratic Union narrowly defeated Uwe Thrum of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. In a global context with less concern about rising extremism, this little election would not have been the focus of international […]
Posted inPolitics
The election US voters won’t get to have
Reading Time: 10 minutes On Tuesday, January 23, the quadruply indicted former president Donald Trump won a New Hampshire primary against Nikki Haley, the last alternative Republican presidential candidate standing after a month of contests that saw Ron DeSantis end his run on Sunday, and Vivek Ramaswamy the week prior. DeSantis immediately endorsed Trump over the “warmed over corporatism” […]
Posted inPolitics
Southern border vs Ukraine’s borders: A dangerous leverage
Reading Time: 11 minutes $61 billion in aid to Ukraine is being held hostage by the GOP in return for US border reforms. What is going on here and why?