Author: nick

[ad_1] Juan Cole Informed Comment The new Mecca Defense Pact signed by Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan signals a regional response to the new insecurity in the region provoked by the Israeli-US attack on Iran and by the Iranian response. The Iranian response has been to hold the Gulf Arab oil and gas states hostage. But the initial Israeli-US attack on February 28 was also seen as a profound betrayal of these states’ security by the Trump administration, since it was foreseeable that an all-out assault on Iran would roil the Strait of Hormuz. The tripartite alliance brings enormous strengths to…

[ad_1] 8/8/2009: Justice Sonia Sotomayor takes oath. Justice Sonia SotomayorThe post Today in Supreme Court History: August 8, 2009 appeared first on Reason.com. [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] Last month, as part of its 2027 budget, the D.C. Council approved a 20-cent fee on carrier-for-hire delivery services. While the fee applies to the delivery of a broad array of household goods, it has been primarily billed as a tax on food delivery, which provides a lucrative source of potential revenue for the District. D.C.’s new delivery tax is merely the latest example of governments targeting food with stealth tax increases in an effort to enhance government coffers. While the strategy may be tempting as a revenue grab, the losers are everyday Americans who are simply looking for…

[ad_1] Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Email | RSS In this edition of Foreign Policy with Robert Inlakesh, definitive evidence emerges demonstrating that the US government is covering up and lying about soldier casualties in the Iran war. Yet the reason they are lying about this is an even bigger story in and of itself. Bitcoin Donations Are Appreciated:www.thelastamericanvagabond.com/bitcoin-donation(3FSozj9gQ1UniHvEiRmkPnXzHSVMc68U9f) [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] Truthful Fictions The camera cannot miss the words that are destined to arrive. Intoxicated by a hint of the fantastical, and the voices of seminal artists, I placed my camera in a space of time. I discovered the demands of connecting dates and places within a revolution of continuous art history. How remiss would the camera have been to not advance, frame after frame, like a reconnaissance sniper in the naked woods. My camera hears secrets. Thousands have posed before and will after this day. Artists of various generations have been influenced by many; in a similar manner, many…

[ad_1] On the night of the World Cup final, televisions glow from almost every pub in Liverpool. But just six bus stops from the city’s famous Anfield stadium, Gary Youds has opted not to show the match at his cannabis social club and harm reduction center. Inside the Chillin’ Rooms on Holt Road, about 30 members sit shoulder to shoulder on old church pews, drinking tea beneath a portrait of John Lennon and a sign declaring “ALCOHOL KILLS, CANNABIS CHILLS.” Members are smoking spliffs, although a powerful ventilation system keeps the air surprisingly clear. At the far end of the…

[ad_1] From the old fortress in Girne (in Turkish Cyprus) looking up at the Kyrenia Mountains, in which the author Lawrence Durrell lived in the 1950s, as he describes in his memoir Bitter Lemons of Cyprus. Photo by Matthew Stevenson. During one of my days in Nicosia, I decided to travel north to the coastal town of Girne, which before the division was known as Kyrenia. On my map it was labelled as Keryneia, and some of the guide books raved about its Venetian fortress in the old port. I associated the town with Lawrence Durrell’s celebrated memoir, Bitter Lemons…

[ad_1] Another trumpeted achievement, another heralded occasion of momentous significance.  Or it may be nothing of the sort.  US President Donald J. Trump is again on the stage pulling on the strings of history.  This time, attention has shifted to whether Hamas and other armed groups in the Gaza Strip will disarm, something conditional on Israel withdrawing its forces from the war-torn enclave.  And there, we are presented with the first, insoluble problem. The latest roadmap published by the US-led Board of Peace is intended to advance the rest of Trump’s 20-point peace plan signed by Hamas and Israel in October 2025.  It involves the respective cessation…

[ad_1] Photo by maks_d Being the parent of an autistic and nonverbal child, who will likely require around-the-clock care for the rest of her life, can be an isolating experience. Very few people understand the unique challenges you face. So it was with some relief after we found out our daughter was autistic, that I discovered the YouTube channel Fathering Autism, which documents the life of Florida parents caring for their now-adult, nonverbal child. One of their videos, however, in which they discussed what would happen to their daughter after they died, inspired a great deal of anxiety in me.…

[ad_1] Photograph Source: Brady-Handy Photograph Collection – Public Domain The Senate Democratic Diversity Initiative’s latest staff diversity survey offers two stories about the U.S. Senate. One is encouraging: Democratic staff is the most diverse (43 percent) it has been since they began collecting this data, with 40 percent more staffers of color than in 2017. Yet at the same time, our report, Unrepresented: Black and Latino Leadership Among Senate Committee Top Staff , highlights a continued deep lack of staff representation in Senate committee leadership positions where legislation is drafted, oversight is conducted, and some of the nation’s most consequential policy decisions are shaped. The Joint Centers’ new report examines who occupies…