Author: nick

[ad_1] From Andrew Sullivan (The Weekly Dish): Governor Kathy Hochul has a decision to make by June 12. The New York State legislature recently tackled the vital, pressing issue of whether the terms “mother” and “father” are cruel and oppressive. They concluded that these terms are indeed transphobic and need to be replaced in law by “gestating parent” and “non-gestating parent.” “Paternity” is also bigoted and axed. Among the Democrats, the vote was, natch, a few shy of unanimous. And let’s not kid ourselves: Hochul’s signature is inevitable. On all questions gay and trans, the Dems are now entirely controlled…

[ad_1] Will Self on Question Time. (Screegrab.) I hadn’t realised how much I’d missed hearing Will Self until he reappeared. While I was sorry to learn he had been unwell, I found myself unexpectedly delighted by two recent TV appearances: first in an interview filmed at his south London home, the window open for health reasons; then on a Sunday morning broadcast, where his independent trains of thought darted about like sticklebacks through the mossy rocks of everyone else’s Sunday consensus. I remembered why I liked him. I recalled seeing him on a train once with his children. We were…

[ad_1] Sen. Bernie Sanders. (Aaron Schwartz/CNP/SplashNews/Newscom)   In a recent New York Times article, socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders presented a proposal to have the federal government expropriate 50% of the stock of major AI producers. If enacted by Congress, the plan would violate the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Sanders justifies this expropriation by claiming that AI was produced through the “collective knowledge of humanity”: Artificial intelligence was not created out of thin air. The data and language used by generative A.I. tools didn’t just pop into Sam Altman’s head or Elon Musk’s imagination. A.I. is built on our collective…

[ad_1] The Australian government has spent the last decade introducing steep tax hikes to curb smoking, and, as a result, the country has the most expensive cigarettes in the world. The average price of mainstream cigarettes is 54.99 Australian dollars per pack (about $40). But the eyewatering prices have driven people to the black market. In 2025, an estimated 80 percent of the tobacco consumed in Australia was illegal, up from 12 percent in 2017, according to new analysis from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). The study, which is the first attempt by the Australian government to estimate the…

[ad_1] Those still in denial that the Trump47 regime is fascist – worse than merely “authoritarian” or oligarchic – might want to look at the administration’s United States Counterterrorism Strategy (hereafter “USCS”), issued four weeks ago. Written primarily by Sebastian Gorka, Trump’s Christian fascist and Hungarian-American “senior director of counterterrorism,” the document makes clear the regime’s desire to exterminate domestic dissent through state terror. “We Will Find and Kill You… Left Wing Extremists” In this dark paper’s cover letter, Trump channels Orwell by promising “Peace through Strength” and says this to “terrorists of any kind”: “[you] will not be allowed any safe harbor here…

[ad_1] An excerpt from the long (and, I think, basically correct) opinion in Hoffman v. N.Y. Times Co., decided yesterday by Judge Evelyn Padin (D.N.J.): Pro se Plaintiff Harold Hoffman brings this action against Defendant the New York Times Company …. Plaintiff’s suit stems from an article published by the New York Times on July 25, 2025, titled “Young, Old, and Sick Starve to Death in Gaza: ‘There Is Nothing'” along with the article’s accompanying photo: According to Plaintiff, the New York Times deliberately and misleadingly omitted the fact that the infant in the photo—an 18-month-old baby named Mohammed Zakaria…

[ad_1] From Judge Nathaniel Gorton (D. Mass.) today in Larrabee v. Trump: J. Whitfield Larrabee …. alleges that since taking office, President Donald J. Trump … has engaged in a course of unconstitutional conduct (collectively, “the Policy”) by issuing executive orders that punish and threaten to punish lawyers and law firms that he dislikes. Larrabee asks the Court to declare the Policy unconstitutional and to enjoin President Trump and other named defendants … from taking any such action against him…. In March, 2025, President Trump issued a memorandum to the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security titled “Preventing…

[ad_1] Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair The images that have emerged from Gaza reveal the anatomy of a desolate landscape that defies human comprehension. Nothing can prepare the conscience for the sheer suffocating scale of a seemingly endless treeless terrain overwhelmed with millions of tons of concrete and rebar. There is a distinct agonizing geometry to the destruction of buildings folded upon themselves.  The angles, lines and shapes of neighborhoods have been completely warped, creating a jarring unnatural landscape of ruins, where once familiar streets, blocks and landmarks are now unrecognizable. The steel and mortar that once housed generations of…

[ad_1] Iowa Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ashley Hinson released an ad immediately after the June 2 primary that said her Democratic opponent, state Rep. Josh Turek, supports “sex changes” for minors. The ad makes two similar but distinct claims. Its narration says Turek “supports kids changing gender without parental consent.” But the on-screen text says “sex changes for kids,” while video of surgeons in an operating room plays behind an image of Turek. Hinson’s social media post sharing the ad also used the phrase “sex changes for kids.” “Sex change” is not a standard medical term. Gender-affirming care can include a…

[ad_1] From Students Engaged in Advancing Texas v. Paxton, decided yesterday by the Fifth Circuit (Judges Jerry Smith and Andrew Oldham): The Texas Legislature enacted Senate Bill 2420 …, the App Store Accountability Act, with bipartisan support to help parents direct and supervise children’s downloads of apps and in-app purchases. The Act accomplishes those goals by requiring age verification; parental consent; and age rating and content display. {[The law] requires app stores to provide certain information in obtaining parental consent, referring to ratings and content … that are determined by the developer.} The district court issued universal preliminary injunctions against…