*Both Human Rights Watch and the cross-party law reform organization Justice say recent legislative changes have created a chilling effect on lawful protest and should be repealed. Their reports, simultaneously published on Thursday, also say that proposals for more curbs should be halted.*

The Adelaide festival canceled a speaking invitation to a non-terrorist Palestinian, saying that presenting her would be "culturally insensitive" after a shocking terrorist gun attack on Jews in Sydney.

She rebuked the idea that the mere presence of a Palestinian with political views is somehow offensive in a way that one can at most hint at.

Robert Reich: we must eliminate laws that attribute personhood to things which are not people, and also the laws that treat some people as less than persons.

We can protect things like species, rivers and forests without falling into those practices.

What the bully wants to impose is not a "new world order" but a return to the same old imperialist international chaos.

One point in the article is a conceptual confusion:

Yet this is not an administration that wants to colonize; instead it demands compliance. The new bosses in Venezuela are the same old bosses, the same henchmen and yes-men, only now with the No 2 running the show. This isn’t “imperialism”, not a new US protectorate nor some southern principality for son-in-law Jared, but something much cheaper and less onerous to the Oval Office: rule by remote control.

That statement adopts too narrow a definition of "imperialism". US imperialism in the 20th century often operated by working with local strongmen who were, in all but name, vassal rulers. It was different from the kind of imperialism practiced by European countries before 1950, but they often switched over to this new kind with the colonies that they had given independence to.

*[The bullshitter said] he will ban big investors from buying single-family homes.*

If that were actually done, it would be a substantial good thing. Nowhere enough to compensate for undermining human rights, democracy, and the principle of impartial justice, but good nonetheless.

I don't think he will actually do it. Perhaps, he will drop that proposal when those companies give a few billions to his ballroom fund.