“Myanmar’s military-backed parliament approved a law on Tuesday that authorises capital punishment for those who detain or violently coerce victims into working in online scam centres, the speaker said. The ‘Anti-Online Scam Bill’ was passed after MPs approved changes to a draft bill at a combined meeting of the lower and upper houses Tuesday morning in the capital Naypyidaw, Union Parliament Speaker Aung Lin Dwe said during a live television broadcast. Lower house MP Aye Chan confirmed to Agence France-Presse that the death sentence remained in the approved version of the law. … Internet fraud factories have flourished in war-torn Myanmar, part of Southeast Asia’s thriving scam economy, targeting web users worldwide with romance and cryptocurrency investment cons.” (07/28/26)
“These people (regressives who call themselves ‘progressives,’ Tranzis (transnational socialists or progressives), socialists (democratic or not), Marxists, communists, social justice warriors, etc.) are a pestilence upon the land. (Which land? EVERY land, frankly, not just the States.) In their incredible lack of ability to reason and understand, they believe that everyone else is more stupid than they are. Even while they daily exhibit their stupidity!” (07/27/26)
“Police in Chile say they have captured a man convicted years ago of the kidnapping and murder of popular folk singer Victor Jara under military ruler Augusto Pinochet. Nelson Haase was one of a group of officers given jail terms for the killing, which took place just five days after the coup which brought Pinochet to power in 1973. He was sentenced to 25 years. Haase took flight when the sentence was announced in August 2023 but was found by police on Saturday in the south of the country. Jara, who became famous in the 1960s and 70s for his protest and pacifist songs and supported the ousted socialist president Salvador Allende, was subjected to torture and shot 44 times.” (07/28/26)
“Give it to ABC News host Jonathan Karl! On This Week Without George Stephanopoulos, Karl asked U.S. Senator Mark Warner of Virginia not about the entirety of the SAVE Act but ‘very narrowly’ about photo ID to vote, which Americans of both parties strongly favor. ‘You know what?’ the senator responded. ‘In Virginia, we have voter I.D. and photo I.D.’ ‘That’s actually not the case,’ Karl corrected.” (07/27/26)
Source: The American Prospect
by Whitney Curry Wimbish
“Although the government has abandoned plans to repurpose warehouses into immigration prisons, it is still in pursuit of greater physical capacity for immigration detention, including overseas. Recent solicitation requests show that federal officials are seeking facilities with room to hold up to 6,000 people across Colorado, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Washington state, as well as thousands more in camps in Guatemala and elsewhere around the world. ” (07/28/26)
“Haiti’s CEP electoral council on Monday scheduled the first presidential elections in a decade for December with a runoff in February, after plans to hold the vote in August with a December runoff were postponed over security concerns. Haiti has not held elections since 2016. Its last president, Jovenel Moise, was assassinated in 2021, after delaying a vote. Successive governments have been tasked with holding an election but said insecurity amid a conflict with powerful armed gangs made it impossible.” (07/27/26)
“Court-packing has once again become a major focus of political contention, with many on the political left advocating it in response to what they believe are badly flawed and illegitimate decisions by the Supreme Court. In a recent article for The UnPopulist, Andy Craig provides reluctant support for court-packing, but with a twist he argues will minimize the danger: combining court-packing with a constitutional amendment imposing term limits on Supreme Court justices that would—if enacted—reverse the packing. The term-limit system would give every president two appointments per term, thereby potentially producing more ideological balance on the bench. Craig’s proposal is clever and a cut above more conventional defenses of court-packing. But I remain unpersuaded.” (07/27/26)
