America's Most Wanted Librarians

GOP-controlled statehouses have been cranking out reams of preposterous and frightening library legislation. One proposed bill in Louisiana, HB 777, would make it a crime for librarians to use public funds to join the American Librarian Association or attend an ALA conference, punishable with prison time and hard labor for up to two years. 

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Cartoon: If media talked about the donor class the way it talks about college students

Insulting college students is part of a long history of right-wing demonization of academia. Many current pundits, appealing to a lefty-hating donor class, continue this long tradition.

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The Dirty Food Dilemma

This Guardian article lists various foods that tend to be high in toxic PFAS, commonly known as "forever chemicals," which are used to make products stain- and water-resistant. To quote from the report, "Among the main sources of food contamination are tainted water, greaseproof food wrappers, some plastics, pesticides, or farms where PFAS-tainted sewage sludge is spread as fertilizer." As for microplastics, where to begin? They're everywhere, from human placentas to the oceans to Mount Everest. 

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What can we do about a Supreme Court packed with corrupt extremists?

To be fair, some Dems have made an effort to expand the court. In 2023, a group of senators and representatives including Ed Markey, Elizabeth Warren, Cori Bush, and Adam Schiff reintroduced legislation to increase the number of justices to 13. Schiff made the case eloquently:

Schiff, a congressman from California, said: “This is not a conservative court, not in a legal sense. A conservative court would have some respect for precedent. This is instead a political and partisan court with a reactionary social agenda and the only question, Mitch McConnell having packed the court, is will we do anything about it or will we subject an entire generation of Americans to the loss of their rights? “Dirtier air and dirtier water and dirtier elections? Is that the fate we would have for the next generation? My kids are both in their early 20s and I am not satisfied that they should have to live under a reactionary supreme court for their entire adult lives and I don’t want anyone else’s kids to have to suffer that fate.”

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What Did We Learn From Covid?

These days, a conventional wisdom has settled in that we somehow overreacted to Covid. That our response went too far, and we are now past those silly times. Here's the lesson to take away: we didn't do enough. Trump's response was idiotic and catastrophic (does anyone remember him saying blue state governors "have to treat us well" if they want coronavirus help?). Over 1.1 million Americans have died. Countless lives have been shattered by Long Covid. We let the virus be politicized by opportunists, and allowed false narratives about governments "controlling" us to dominate our media. The hard choices that were made to prevent even more death and suffering are now, ludicrously, seen as mistakes. 

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In a case involving the accidental destruction of frozen embryos, the  the Alabama Supreme Court disturbingly referred to the embryos as "extrauterine children" kept in a "cryogenic nursery." Needless to say, this is wreaking havoc on Alabama's IVF clinics and upending the plans of many would-be parents.

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Using the First Amendment to end the First Amendment

In recent years, the First Amendment has been shoddily invoked to justify decisions that ultimately diminish its very raison d'être, quite possibly leading us to fascism. 

Alarmingly, we're now seeing state-level absurdities such as Florida removing sociology as a core course in its college curriculum and replacing it with a course teaching the “historically accurate account of America’s founding.” Indiana's Attorney General Todd Rokita has launched the creepily-named "Eyes on Education" portal for the public to report "indoctrination" in classrooms. The West Virginia House just passed a bill allowing for the prosecution of librarians if an "obscene" item falls into a minor's hands.

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Forced Labor in Food

This cartoon is based on the AP story entitled "Prisoners in the US are part of a hidden workforce linked to hundreds of popular food brands" that was published recently. (It's a long piece, so if you're in a hurry, you can check out their "takeaways" article summarizing the report.) To put it briefly, prisoners are doing a lot more labor in the food supply chain than I think most of us realized. While some inmates choose to work, many are compelled to do so under threat of punishment.

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Signs your government is committing crimes against humanity

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The AI Journalism Awards

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Pundits pave the way to hell

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Billionaire Buttinsky on Campus

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Fun with ethno-nationalist dog whistles

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There is this flawed idea that abortion is a "cultural" issue that is secondary to real, "material" concerns, like the economy, which drives me nuts because it doesn't get much more real than your own body, or having to financially support a whole new human being. 

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"Polarization" has become a weasel word for bad actors to stop legitimate criticism. The fact that we're seeing it used by an oil CEO to deny climate science should set off alarm bells. 

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