The GOP response to the Kavanaugh allegations sends a clear message to women

The GOP response to the Kavanaugh allegations sends a clear message to women

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Dick Polman writes: After their initial defensive flurry, Republicans quickly recognized that ramming Kavanaugh’s nomination through without affording Ford an opportunity to testify under oath would be politically suicidal. But even though they’ve hit the pause button and slated a public hearing for Monday, it’s likely that many women in the electorate have already gotten the message, one that mirrors the message they’ve received from Trump Republicans all along: that the ruling patriarchy does not respect, and indeed feels threatened…

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How Putin works to weaken faith in the rule of law and our justice system

How Putin works to weaken faith in the rule of law and our justice system

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Suzanne Spaulding and Harvey Rishikof write: In the summer of 2016, a Facebook group called “Secure Borders” began fanning the flames of rumors that a young girl had been raped at knifepoint by Syrian refugees in Twin Falls, Idaho. The group accused government officials, including the prosecutor and judge in the case, of conspiring to protect the immigrant community by covering-up the true nature of the crime. Secure Borders attempted to organize a rally, demanding, among other things, that “[a]ll…

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Only a fool takes Putin at his word in Syria

Only a fool takes Putin at his word in Syria

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Nic Robertson writes: Trusting Russia to keep its word in Syria is rather like believing in good faith that its intelligence agents only visited the UK to see Salisbury Cathedral. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s new peace plan — forged with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan — to protect the three million civilians crowded in camps in Idlib is staggeringly hard to take at face value for a multitude of reasons — not least, because of Putin’s history of denying…

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New revelations about the Sabra and Shatila massacre

New revelations about the Sabra and Shatila massacre

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Seth Anziska writes: Historians try not to audibly gasp in the reading rooms of official archives, but there are times when the written record retains a capacity to shock. In 2012, while working at the Israel State Archives in Jerusalem, I came across highly classified material from Israel’s 1982 War in Lebanon that had just been opened to researchers. This access was in line with the thirty-year rule of declassification governing the release of documents in Israel. Sifting through Foreign…

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South Africa’s Blombos cave is home to the earliest drawing by a human

South Africa’s Blombos cave is home to the earliest drawing by a human

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The drawing found on silcrete stone in Blombos Cave. Craig Foster By Christopher Henshilwood, University of Bergen and Karen Loise van Niekerk, University of Bergen Scientists working in Blombos Cave in South Africa’s southern Cape region have made a discovery that changes our understanding of when our human ancestors started expressing themselves through drawings. They’ve found a 73 000-year-old cross-hatched drawing on a silcrete (stone) flake. It was made with an ochre crayon. The Conversation Africa asked Professor Christopher Henshilwood,…

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Anonymous editorial in Wall Street Journal tries to cast doubt on Kavanaugh’s assault of a teenage girl

Anonymous editorial in Wall Street Journal tries to cast doubt on Kavanaugh’s assault of a teenage girl

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If the acuity of anyone’s memory should be subject to questioning, it would surely be that belonging to two teenage boys who were described as being, at the time, “stumbling drunk.” Forget about how much each remembers years later; how much did they remember the next day? Mark Judge says he has no recollection of the events now clearly described by the victim, Christine Blasey Ford, while Brett M. Kavanaugh emphatically denies he has ever engaged in a sexual assault….

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Leaked files expose WikiLeaks’ inner workings

Leaked files expose WikiLeaks’ inner workings

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The Associated Press reports: Julian Assange had just pulled off one of the biggest scoops in journalistic history, splaying the innards of American diplomacy across the web. But technology firms were cutting ties to his WikiLeaks website, cable news pundits were calling for his head and a Swedish sex crime case was threatening to put him behind bars. Caught in a vise, the silver-haired Australian wrote to the Russian Consulate in London. “I, Julian Assange, hereby grant full authority to…

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#MeToo in the monastery: A Chinese abbot’s fall stirs questions on Buddhism’s path

#MeToo in the monastery: A Chinese abbot’s fall stirs questions on Buddhism’s path

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The New York Times reports: Over the past two decades, religion in China has boomed, and no faith has benefited more than Buddhism. The number of temples has tripled, monks and abbots have become well-known public figures, and China has used the faith to build ties around the world, sending out nuns and monks on good-will missions. The person most closely associated with this revival is the Venerable Xuecheng, a charismatic monk who was fast-tracked for success. He became abbot…

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Utility companies are at odds with public demand for 100% renewable energy

Utility companies are at odds with public demand for 100% renewable energy

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Vox reports: Renewable energy is hot. It has incredible momentum, not only in terms of deployment and costs but in terms of public opinion and cultural cachet. To put it simply: Everyone loves renewable energy. It’s cleaner, it’s high-tech, it’s new jobs, it’s the future. And so more and more big energy customers are demanding the full meal deal: 100 percent renewable energy. The Sierra Club notes that so far in the US, more than 80 cities, five counties, and…

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Kavanaugh’s accuser has proved she isn’t lying and now she’s sacrificed her right to privacy

Kavanaugh’s accuser has proved she isn’t lying and now she’s sacrificed her right to privacy

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The Washington Post reports: Earlier this summer, Christine Blasey Ford wrote a confidential letter to a senior Democratic lawmaker alleging that Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her more than three decades ago, when they were high school students in suburban Maryland. Since Wednesday, she has watched as that bare-bones version of her story became public without her name or her consent, drawing a blanket denial from Kavanaugh and roiling a nomination that just days ago seemed all…

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Hurricane Florence is a climate change triple threat

Hurricane Florence is a climate change triple threat

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Michael Mann writes: Just a year ago we were dealing with an historically devastating Atlantic hurricane season. It was marked by the strongest hurricane – Irma – ever observed in the open Atlantic, the near total devastation of Puerto Rico by a similarly powerful category 5 monster Maria, and Hurricane Harvey – the worst flooding event in US history. At the time, I commented here and elsewhere about the role climate change had played in amplifying the destructive characteristics of…

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1 in 3 children in UK live in poverty, study finds

1 in 3 children in UK live in poverty, study finds

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The Guardian reports: More than 14 million people, including 4.5 million children, are living below the breadline, with more than half trapped in poverty for years, according to a new measure aimed at providing the most sophisticated analysis yet of material disadvantage in the UK. The measure seeks to forge a fresh political consensus between left and right over how to define and track poverty, with the aim of encouraging better-targeted poverty interventions, and making it easier to hold politicians…

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Give Britain a new referendum on Brexit, says Mayor of London

Give Britain a new referendum on Brexit, says Mayor of London

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The Observer reports: The mayor of London has issued a dramatic call for another referendum on EU membership, insisting that the people must be given the chance to reject a Brexit deal that will be bad for the economy, jobs and the NHS. Writing in the Observer, Sadiq Khan says that, with so little time left to negotiate, there are now only two possible outcomes: a bad deal for the UK or “no deal” at all, which will be even…

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Russia’s brazen lies mock the world. How best to fight for the truth?

Russia’s brazen lies mock the world. How best to fight for the truth?

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"If you don't stop asking me if we are nearly there yet, I will turn this bus round; and none of you will get to see Salisbury cathedral. Do you hear me?" pic.twitter.com/Z1o2bZ4CVS — Walnut (@PaoloWalnuts) September 13, 2018 Jonathan Freedland writes: Comedy is now diplomacy by other means. A mighty nation has taken to conducting a grave international dispute by means of humour, expecting a similarly comic response in kind. How else are we to view the interview granted…

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Trump administration engages in ‘diplomatic malpractice’ by sabotaging Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation

Trump administration engages in ‘diplomatic malpractice’ by sabotaging Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation

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The New York Times reports: As part of its policy to end all aid for Palestinian civilians, the United States is blocking millions of dollars to programs that build relationships between Israelis and Palestinians, according to current and former American officials briefed on the change. The move to prevent Palestinians — including, in many cases, children — from benefiting from the funds squeezes shut the last remaining channel of American aid to Palestinian civilians. The money had already been budgeted…

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