Reading Time: 6 minutes In the wake of 9/11, the world did not go gently into the US invasion of Iraq, but messaging around the “war on terror”, which had started with Afghanistan, certainly built momentum to that end. On the weekend of February 15, 2003, anti-war protests across 600 cities saw six to ten million protesters pushing back […]
US politics
Posted inClimate Crisis
Four recent failures in climate change response
Reading Time: 6 minutes Welcome to 2023: another year of corporate and political mediocrity when it comes to climate change response. We’re in the middle of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, known colloquially as Davos after its Swiss Alps location, so rhetoric around climate change response (and related economic pressure points) is currently running hot. On Wednesday, an […]
Posted inPolitics
Far right attacks in Brazil highlight world’s ongoing anti-democratic wave
Reading Time: 3 minutes On January 8, thousands of supporters of Jair Bolsonaro, the far right past president of Brazil who flew to Florida days before the end of his term in office, stormed Congress, the Supreme Court, and the presidential palace in the capital, Brasilia. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (Lula) condemned these attacks as the work […]
Posted inPolitics
Congress, Oklahoma, and Jan 6: A difficult start for US politics in 2023
Reading Time: 4 minutes It’s called the “Millstone Act of 2023”, which should tell US citizens everything they need to know about the ongoing struggle with far right Christian extremism. Named after Luke 17:1-2, a passage in which Christ advocates that it’s better for a person to have a millstone tied around their neck and be drowned, than that […]
Posted inLaw
New year, new laws: The US poverty and precarity crisis in 2023
Reading Time: 4 minutes As of January 1, 2023, the state of Missouri requires cities and counties to enforce a ban on sleeping on public property: under bridges, in parks, and of course along public walkways. Offenders face up to 15 days in jail, or a $750 fine. The same law also redirects state and federal funding away from […]
Posted inLGBTQ News
Why the Christian Right tried (and failed) to kill the Respect for Marriage Act
Reading Time: 9 minutes The Respect for Marriage Act finally passed a its last vote. It’s now on its way to the president’s desk, where he’ll likely sign it into law on Tuesday. But it got there over the kicking and screaming of the Christian Right, a loose-knit assortment of hardline evangelical culture warriors and creepily-authoritarian hardline Catholics.
Posted inFree Expression
This week in protests and strikes: China, Iran, and the US
Reading Time: 5 minutes On Tuesday, November 29, the US and Iran played at the FIFA World Cup in Qatar. It was a tense match, but not necessarily for reasons related to the game. The US Soccer Federation had originally flown an Iranian flag on social media platforms that omitted the emblem of the Islamic Republic. That was its […]
Posted inLaw
Is the nearly $1B Alex Jones verdict enough to deter fake news?
Reading Time: 4 minutes In the second of three major trials against conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, the jury’s verdict was overwhelming: Jones has been ordered to pay $965 million to families of Sandy Hook victims. These are grieving people whose lives were further upended by years of harassment thanks in strong part to Jones’s insistence that the massacre of […]
Posted inLaw
A long overdue pardon on marijuana possession calls for further change
Reading Time: 3 minutes On October 6, US President Joe Biden announced a pardon for all current citizens and lawful residents of the US convicted for the simple possession of marijuana. This pardon restores “full political, civil, and other rights” to some 6,500 individuals convicted between 1992 and 2021 under federal or District of Columbia law. It does not […]
Posted inThe Secular
Understanding the secular vote
Reading Time: 6 minutes Already influential, secular voters will soon be the dominant voice in US elections, says political analyst Juhem Navarro-Rivera.